Mudded
by Stoplight Delight
Summary: Cullen Bohannon hated farming. Considering his crop, this is hardly surprising. In 1860 he was the master of a small and struggling tobacco plantation with one eye perpetually on the door – not only dreaming of a way out, but also watching for the wolf.
1. Summer Morning

_Addendum, October 5, 2014: This story was started on February 3, 2014, prior to the writing, filming and broadcasting of Season 4. At that time there was a significant gap in Cullen's backstory: he had never once uttered the name of his firstborn son. In Episode 410, the name of Cullen's lost child is finally given as Joshua. In the interests of canon continuity, I hereby present Joshua Gabriel Bohannon, affectionately and extensively known as "Gabe". For the full rationale, please see Chapter 88, which was posted shortly after the airing of 410. While this is undeniably retconning, I hope it is both logical and unobtrusive._

_Note: By its very nature this story touches on sensitive issues of race and equality. The views expressed are not mine, but those of the respective characters as interpreted from canonical and historical sources. Only by understanding how pervasive such views were can we understand how humans could come to such a pass, where in a system of slavery is thought of as inevitable, inescapable, and even normal. Only once we understand _this _can we hope to prevent it from happening yet again._

_I am in no way attempting to sanitize the protagonist of this story. Great effort has been taken to exam his canon portrayal and the psychology of the __backstory given to him by his creators and screenwriters, and this portrayal is an attempt to get behind those inscrutable eyes _and to extrapolate what he might have been like before the trauma of war and devastation changed him. Those who have read my other works will know that is what I do. _If you wish to discuss this interpretation, please do not hesitate to contact me._

**Mudded**

"…_I wish  
>myself were mudded in that oozy bed<br>where my son lies…"_

– _from_ _The Tempest_

**Chapter One: Summer Morning**

The clatter of the stove-lid in the kitchen below woke Cullen Bohannon with an unpleasant jolt. He had been deep in a dark and indistinct dream, and he was slow to recall why he could not just burrow under the light cotton quilt and curl against Mary's inviting body and slip back into slumber. The room was dark: not even a faint grey glow showed at the edges of the curtain. But downstairs Bethel was awake, and laying on his breakfast. It was time to get up.

Carefully he lifted his corner of the sheet, easing it across his chest and slipping it between his body and that of his slumbering wife. His left foot slid off of the edge of the feather tick and settled softly on the rag-rug. He tightened the muscles of his abdomen and sat, his spine creaking its protest at the motion. There was a sharp stab of pain from his right hip, but he ignored it. Getting a body moving in the morning was not without its discomforts, particularly at this time of the year.

He turned slowly, letting his other leg find the border of the mattress and sink down to join its mate. Then he let his arms flop down between his knees, elbows resting heavily on his thighs. Breathless he listened to the soft exhalations behind him, and when he was satisfied that he had not woken his wife he allowed himself the luxury of a tired sigh.

He hated summertime, he truly did. Up before dawn in the muggy heat not entirely dissipated by the short night. Fourteen hours of sunshine, and enough work to fill three times that. And his work didn't end at nightfall, either, when everyone else went back to their cabins and whatever leisure there was strength to enjoy after a long, hard day. He'd been up until nearly midnight, bent over the dining room table by the light of the best lamp; tallying, figuring, worrying. Finally Bethel had bestirred herself from her bed to shoo him upstairs, threatening to hide the ledgers and the almanac if he didn't obey her. He had gone, meekly. Bethel was the only person he had ever taken naturally to obeying, and in any case he had been so tired that another half-hour would have seen him curled up under the sideboard, fast asleep with his boots still on.

The one consolation that came from running himself ragged was that his worries could not come between him and his pillow, save in the form of deep, vague dreams. He didn't lie awake, tossing and turning as he did in wintertime. He slept the sleep of the dead, for as long as his short night lasted, and he woke each morning with a head that felt like it was suffering through the aftermath of a glorious drinking spree. It came from working long hours in the heat, he knew, but if there was a cure for summer sun he hadn't found it yet.

Stifling his groan he hauled himself to his feet. The mattress rocked a little behind him and Mary stirred. Cullen froze, squinting over his shoulder in the darkness and wondering anxiously whether he had roused her after all. She was a light sleeper and a habitually early riser, but she had been down the last week with something Doc Whitehead delicately called "a womanly complaint" and she needed her rest. When she fell still again he breathed a little easier, and he moved on bare and silent feet around the end of the tall bed. Navigating blindly through the familiar room he found the chair in the corner where she always laid out his clothes for him, and peeled off his nightshirt before groping for his drawers. He bent his back full-on into its ache and stepped into them, then found his undershirt and tugged it over his head. It smelled strongly of sunshine and homemade soap, and he fumbled at the buttons with calloused fingers. Then he gathered up the remaining garments and padded to the door.

He had greased the hinges two nights ago, and they swung smooth and soundlessly. Out in the little corridor he drew the door closed with care, lest it should bang against the post and disturb his sleeping wife. Passing the door of the nursery with the briefest longing glance, Cullen went to the stairs and descended with care, keeping close to the bannister so that the steps would not squeak. From the front entryway a narrow strip of lamplight filtered through the dining room from the kitchen, and by its glow he pulled on stained but clean cotton socks that by the end of the day would be foul and sticky. He sat down on the bench by the front door to pull on his trousers, hauling them slowly up each leg like an old man and hoisting himself only long enough to drag them over his backside. Sluggishly, shoulders stretching tortuously, he got his arms into the sleeves of his coarse cotton workshirt and did up the front. He tucked the tails into his pants and eased first one suspender and then the other up into place. His work-boots were waiting on the floor, and he fought with the stiffened leather, dragging them on at last with twin grunts of grim satisfaction. His head felt light after these exertions and he sat still, stealing a moment's rest before the rigours of the day.

From the kitchen the sounds of breakfast were coming more quickly now, and his nostrils perked at a familiar scent. It roused in him the will to bestir himself, and he shuffled down to the other end of the hallway and through the dining room to the kitchen. Bethel stood at the stove with her back to him, measuring out flour with an old teacup. On the stovetop thick slices of side meat were just beginning to sizzle in their pan, and beside it the hominy was simmering, but it was the copper pot on the back of the stove that held Cullen's eye as he shambled up to lean against the doorpost.

"Coffee?" he grunted, squinting in the lamplight with eyes still crusted in sleep.

"Be ready direc'ly," Bethel said, moving from the worktable to the stove with a practiced grace that belied her years. "Drink it too soon, an' you won't get nothin' but brown water. Sit down an' wait like a gentleman. I'll bring it through when it's done."

Instead of retreating to the dining room as requested, Cullen shoved himself off of the door and flung one lean leg over the bench that ran along the side of the table. He planted his elbow and flicked his thumb along each eyelid to wick away the sharp residue on his lashes. "You had a look outside yet?" he asked. "Think we might get rain?"

"You don' want rain," Bethel said firmly. She managed to keep most of the exasperation from her voice, but her impatience with his perpetual blunders was plain. "It rain today, you'll never get them plants topped, an' Elijah say they need toppin' bad."

"I know that," Cullen grumbled. The plants had to be topped all right, but they had been at it for four days straight and he could have done with a rest. "That's what I meant."

She cast him a knowing look over one bony shoulder, but she only shook her head and turned her attention back on the stove. She flipped the bacon expertly and then moved to take down a small iron skillet from its peg on the wall. From the breadbox she produced two of yesterday's biscuits and brushed them deftly with a little melted butter. She placed them on the skillet and, with her hand wrapped in a dishtowel, opened the door of the oven and slid them inside. From the dish dresser she took a cup and saucer, and deposited them in front of her young master. She hooked the coffee pot from off the stove and poured him a full measure of the rich dark fluid. The tantalizing scent rose up in a head of steam, and Cullen closed his eyes blissfully. He reached for the little bottle of sorghum syrup that stood on the table and tipped some into his cup. That he was taking sorghum in his coffee was a secret between him and Bethel. Mary would have been horrified to know her husband was resorting to this economy in one of his few luxuries, but they were running low on store sugar and there would be no money coming in until the tobacco was picked and cured and sold.

He curled his hand around the cup, fingers flinching back a little from the heat. It was still too hot for drinking, but he took the handle anyhow and slurped a little across his tongue. The fierce warmth of it shrivelled his taste-buds and settled down into his chest, and he could feel himself beginning to wake up properly.

Bethel was back at the stove, stirring the hominy with a critical eye. Then she put another pan on to heat and went back to starting her dough. "Lottie ought to join you out in the fields today," she said. "Nothin' for her to do 'round this here house."

Cullen shook his head. "It's no work for a girl," he said. "She'll catch sick, and then where'll we be? 'Sides, I need her here in case something goes wrong with Mary. How would you take care of her and Gabe and come to fetch me all at once?"

"That chile goin' grow up spoilt if you don' teach her to do what needs doing," Bethel warned. "She ten years old now; old enough to do her share."

"She does her share," said Cullen. "It's harder 'n you think keeping a three-year-old boy entertained, and she helps in the house and she hoes the vegetable patch. She was a good help with the seedlings, and come curing time she'll be so busy hauling wood chips to the fire you'll think she's run off."

Bethel turned, floury fists planted on the hips of her broad work apron. "I know jus' how hard it is keepin' a boy entertained," she said. "An' when you see that boy grow up an' start workin' hisself to the bone while some shif'less li'l girl as ought to be out in the fields is wranglin' him into lettin' her hang 'round the house like this a hundred-hand place an' she Miz Sutcliffe's hair-dressin' maid, then you tell me how hard _that_ be!"

She wiped her hands wrathfully and flipped the slices of side meat onto two plates. One she set aside to cool, and the other she balanced on the stove shelf where it could keep warm. Bethel tipped a dollop of grease out of the used pan into the clean one. Then she set about mixing the rest of the drippings with a helping of coffee and stirring in pinches of pepper and mustard for gravy. Cullen took a long draught from his cup, savouring it despite his scalded tongue. The sorghum left a faint medicinal taste, but the brew was strong and sweet and his veil of fatigue began to lift in earnest. His stomach was grumbling now as the wholesome smells of breakfast grew stronger, and he knew he could find the courage to face another day.

Bethel disappeared briefly into the pantry and emerged with two large brown eggs. With one in each hand she cracked them on the side of the greased frying pan and opened them into it. They sizzled enticingly and Cullen hastily downed another swallow of coffee as his mouth began to water. Another summertime nuisance, his constant voracious appetite. It had never much troubled him in prior years, when the smokehouse was full and the larder was burgeoning and there was money in the bank in Meridian. Then he'd just gone ahead and eaten his fill. This year, however, when he was counting pennies and figuring when each row of the garden might be ripe and keeping a perpetual anxious eye on the tobacco lest a moment's inattention should cause the crop to fail, it was yet another plague to cope with. Last year's crop had been a poor one, and for all the assurances from Nate and Elijah that it had been a bad year and nothing more Cullen fretted. He wasn't much of a farmer, but he could read; tobacco was a demanding crop, and it tired out the soil. If his soil was no good anymore they wouldn't get much of a harvest however hard they worked.

The hominy was ready, and Bethel heaped a generous helping onto the warming plate. She gave the gravy a last energetic stirring and strained it through a cloth into the china gravy boat that Cullen's mother had brought with her from Charleston almost forty years ago. While it settled she opened the oven door and took out the biscuits, now warm and golden. These too she slipped onto the plate, and then flipped the eggs out of the pan deftly, without breaking the yolks or tearing their crispy lacy edges. Finally she turned and looked at the young man.

"You goin' eat out there like you ought to?" she said, jerking her chin at the dining room door. It was more of a command than a question, but Cullen gave her one of his most charming grins.

"No one out there for me to talk to," he said. "I'll get lonesome."

She scowled, but only half-heartedly, and set the plate and the gravy before him. He poured the fluid liberally over the ham and hominy. A moment later she was back with knife and fork.

Cullen looked at his plate, restraining the urge to tear into it like a starving man. "Eggs _and_ side meat?" he said wearily, thinking of their dwindling stores and the long months until November. "Bit extravagant for one meal."

"You eat every mouthful of that, you hear me?" Bethel demanded. "You goin' out in that dew, you need a good breakfast inside you. No sense you getting' youself laid up in bed too, now is there?'

The savoury grits soured for a moment in Cullen's mouth as his thoughts shifted to Mary. The doctor hadn't offered much by way of explanation for her illness, and had prescribed nothing but rest and nourishing food. For this opinion he had been paid two dollars, which Cullen couldn't really spare. Doc Whitehead was a good sort, and would have let the fee pass if he'd suspected, but Cullen had been determined he should not suspect. If a man couldn't scrape together a couple of silver Liberties for his wife's medical treatment he wasn't much of a man at all. He was far more worried about Mary than the money, for she had been wan and listless for days and could not even muster much interest in their son.

He tried to put the thought from his mind and broke a biscuit in half. He bit into the warm shell, hard and faintly stale despite Bethel's skillful reheating. He missed having fresh biscuits at breakfast. In the summertime he rose so early that the stove wasn't yet hot enough for baking; in another hour Bethel would serve up a fresh batch for Mary and Gabe, and keep a couple back for him to eat tomorrow. He sopped the quickbread in the gravy and munched, telling himself to enjoy what he had.

The side meat was done just how he liked it, and the treat of being able to have it with an egg cheered him. He took another forkful of hominy and washed it down with his coffee. Bethel was hard at work on her bread dough now, mixing flour and water and salt with her starter.

"You comin' up to the house for dinner today?" she asked.

"Doubt it," said Cullen. His stomach was beginning to feel comfortably full now, and the effort of eating like a civilized person was no longer so onerous. "Waste of time, and I'll be too much of a mess to come in the house."

"A hot dinner wouldn't do you no harm," Bethel grumbled. "Maybe I'll sen' Lottie down with something nice."

"Maybe you _won't_!" Cullen protested. "You know how that looks. I'll take my dinner with me, same as always. You want to give us a treat, send Lottie with a bucket of cold water 'bout two o'clock." He chewed thoughtfully. "Make it two buckets: she can use the wheelbarrow to tote them."

Outside the sky was fading now from grey to the nascent indigo of morning. Hurriedly Cullen scooped up the rest of the hominy and shoveled it into his mouth. He got to his feet, draining his coffee cup as he rose, and snagged the second biscuit from his otherwise empty plate. Bethel was tying the cooled pork into a napkin with two bread-and-butter sandwiches and a peach. She turned and handed it to him, holding him for a moment with a searching and thoughtful gaze.

"It goin' be a hot one today, Mist' Cullen," she said, brushing fondly at a stray crumb on his collar. "You be sure an' take care."

He grinned. "How would I ever get by without you fussing over me?" he teased.

"I don' know," she said frankly. "Bes' hope you never have to find out."

Cullen snorted and took his hat from its hook. He wore a cheap straw when he was out in the tobacco: no sense in ruining a good hat. Planting it on his head, slightly canted over his right eyebrow, he gave Bethel's hand a quick squeeze. "If Mary takes a turn you send that girl out to fetch me, you hear?" he said.

"You think I wouldn't jump like a June bug to get you out of them fields for an hour or two?" Bethel said. More gently she added, "Missus ain't goin' take a turn: don' you worry 'bout her. Be up on her feet in no time."

He offered her a small grateful smile for this reassurance, and then he was out the back door and into the predawn gloom. He could hear the distant sound of voices past the willows, where the Negro cabins stood. The henhouse was still silent, its denizens waiting for daylight to raise their accustomed ruckus. Only Jeb, the aged possum-hound, was abroad at this hour, waiting eagerly to greet his master. Cullen stooped to scratch the dog behind his flopping ears, offering the rapidly cooling biscuit. Jeb devoured it eagerly and then loped off in the direction of the cabins. His arrival would alert Nate and Elijah that the boss was abroad, and they'd hurry to finish their breakfasts and join him.

The first stop on the morning circuit was the stable, where the horses waited to be fed and watered and brushed. Cullen hauled open the left half of the broad double door and slipped inside, stepping over the tongue of the buggy that now only saw regular use on Sundays. In the first year of their marriage, he and Mary had taken great pleasure in afternoon rides, touring the county that he knew as well as his own skin and that she was only just discovering. Those had been better times, however, and he could not often be spared from the land even to transact necessary business in town. The matched Morgans they had brought from New York State to pull it were now the only horses on the place, for Cullen had sold his hunter in the spring to help make up the tax money that hadn't been covered by the proceeds of a poor crop. Pike and Bonnie were beautiful horses, strong and patient and tireless, and they were as good for riding as for driving. They stirred in their stalls at Cullen's familiar scent, and Bonnie nickered impatiently.

"Easy there, girl," Cullen called. "I'm coming." He took the tin feed pail from its hook and began filling it with the heavy wooden scoop tied to the side of the bin. He didn't wonder that the horses were restless: all week he had been without the opportunity to ride them, and they had had to be content with Lottie leading them around the yard before supper. Damn the tobacco and its endless coddling, but if he didn't coddle it he wouldn't be able to feed his people this winter, nor give the government its due, nor keep the land or a roof over his wife and child. Chafe though he might against the eternal futile labour of the farm, he couldn't see any honourable escape from it.

He shook out the feed for the horses and put down the pail so that he could stroke their velvet noses while they ate. Bonnie needled at this distraction, but Pike focused placidly on his breakfast. He was rewarded by a thorough rubbing of his ears and neck. Cullen supposed he ought to go down and take care of the mules, but he hesitated. The two teams that did most of the heavy labour – ploughing, hauling, breaking up soil, pulling out rotted tree stumps – were reliable, but they were ugly and they were stupid. He had never much cared for mules, and in this solitary moment before the slaves came up to the stable he wanted to enjoy his time with his horses.

Someone had filled the trough last night, and so Cullen was spared the dreary trudging to and from the well. He took the curry-comb from its peg and climbed over the gate of Pike's stall to rub him down. It wasn't Cullen's responsibility to muck out the stalls, but if the others didn't turn up by the time he was through with the brushing he thought he just might do it. Anything to keep away from the mules, which in the last couple of years he had come to resent as a symbol of his general discontent. But no sooner had he scrambled over into Bonnie's sanctum than a dark shape appeared silhouetted against the faint gathering light in the doorway and Nate's voice rang out.

"Morning to you, Mist' Cullen," he said. "She goin' to be a hot one."

"So I've heard," Cullen said. He heard the rattling of grain on tin and knew that Nate was dishing out for the mules. He curried more swiftly now.

"Bethel said she were goin' to have a word with you 'bout Lottie workin' in the fields." There was a guarded note to Nate's tone now, as if he intended to take a measure of his master's mettle based upon the response to this statement. Long ago Cullen and Nate had been playmates, charging about the plantation like a matched pair of hellions, one white and one black. Cullen had gone away to university and left a lanky and high-spirited youth behind. He had returned to find a man who, for all their shared childhood, was more a stranger than a friend. To this day he didn't understand what had come between them in those years apart. Sometimes he wanted to talk about it, if not with Nate then with Mary, but he didn't quite dare. He knew what Mary, at least, would say.

"I told her no," he said. "Lottie's too young to be working in wet tobacco, and with Mrs. Bohannon abed I want her near the house. The radishes need thinning: she can do that instead."

There was an inscrutable grunt from the other side of the stable. Lottie was Meg's daughter by her abroad husband, a cotton foreman at the neighbouring Sutcliffe plantation. Nate's interest in the child had initially puzzled Cullen, until he realized that his old friend held something of an unrequited candle for Meg. Of course, fondness or not, it was only basic human consideration to worry about a ten-year-old pulling suckers in a dew-soaked field. It was certainly known to be done. Most of the neighbours were cotton planters, but those who did raise a field or two of tobacco on the side indulged in the unhealthy practice of sending young slaves out to tend the growing plants. Except at transplanting time, when every pair of hands was needed to roust the seedlings from their beds and move them out into the furrows, Cullen kept Lottie well out of it.

Elijah had joined them now, and Cullen led Bonnie out of her stall so it could be raked. He kept an arm on her neck, murmuring to her and drinking in the earthy scent of her mane. He took a wizened carrot from the dwindling sack and fed it to her, wishing he had a lump of sugar to offer instead. He didn't mind doing without himself, but depriving those he cared about – human and animal alike – was hard on a man's pride.

Elijah worked with the efficiency that only an old labourer can. He was a remnant of better days, when the plantation had flourished under Cullen's father and there had been thirty Negros working under the one-time foreman. Now he turned his hand to anything, like everyone else on the place, and he was wise enough or merciful enough to keep from reminiscing about happier times. All that was left of those old days was Elijah and Bethel and the land itself; though where once seven hundred of the thousand acres had been cultivated there were now less than a hundred, and those hundred growing less fruitful with every passing year. Though he rotated his tobacco from field to field each year, planting wheat or feed corn in its former spot, Cullen suspected the ground was about used up. He had thought of trying to break up some of the pasture land, but that was a huge task for three men to tackle in addition to all the other labours of the year. He didn't know if he even had the right to call his land a plantation anymore, but hell if he was going to settle for raising his son as nothing but a poor farmer.

The old man backed out of the stall and Cullen took up a pitchfork to spread fresh straw while Elijah trucked the muck barrow out to the mulch heap. When the tobacco was in they'd load the wagon with the foul-smelling stuff and spend day after stinking day churning it into the worn-out soil. Cullen cleaned Bonnie's hooves and led her back into the clean stall, then took Pike out just in time for Elijah's return. When the horses were settled and Elijah went to repeat the process with Nate and the mules, Cullen laved his hands in the wash-bucket and left the stable.

Dawn was breaking, rose and carmine on the horizon. By its light he could make out the shapes in the dooryard: Lottie's skinny calico-clad shadow scattering corn for the chickens, and her strong-backed mother coming up the hill from the cowshed with the milk pails. Cullen raised a hand in greeting to Lottie and hurried to open the back door for Meg.

"Thank you, Mist' Cullen," she said politely as she turned sideways to pass through. Almost instantly she was engulfed in Bethel's scolding, and Cullen eased the door closed and moved stealthily out of range.

He came upon Lottie just as she was finishing with the chickens, and she dropped him a curtsy that made her many pigtails bob. "Mornin' Massa," she said. "Ma say maybe you put me in the fields today?"

"No," Cullen said firmly. He wondered just how enthusiastically Bethel had put forward this notion, and was relieved he had only five slaves if it meant he didn't have to have this conversation more than two more times. "I want you to help Bethel look after Mister Gabe, and I want you to see about thinning them radishes. If the peas need tying up again, you find some good stakes in the woodshed and take care of it. And look in on Mrs. Bohannon from time to time; see if she needs anything."

"Yassir," the girl said. "Missus Bohannon… she ain't goin' die, is she? Ma says sometimes ladies with troubles, they die."

Swallowing the flutter of terror that rose in his throat at this possibility, Cullen shook his head. "No, she's going to be just fine," he said.

"Then maybe she goin' have a baby?" said Lottie hopefully. "I'd be a good nurse for a baby, Mist' Bohannon; honest I would."

"I know you would, but she's not having a baby neither," said Cullen. "She's just a little poorly. A few more days' rest, that's all she needs: but you take care of her now, Lottie. I'm relying on you."

The girl's chest puffed out a little. "Yassir, you can rely on me!" she proclaimed. "Ain't I looked after Mist' Gabe like he my own li'l brother? I wisht Mrs. Bohannon _would_ have 'nother baby. Ma cain't."

Cullen frowned at this revelation. "What do you mean, Ma cain't?" he asked.

Lottie shook her head wisely. "On account that no-good new overseer at Hartwood don' like Pa havin' comp'ny. Ma says unless'n that white trash die or move off down south for the wages, she ain't never goin' have 'nother baby."

"Oh." While a trifle startled at the apparently frank discussion Lottie had had with her mother on the subject, Cullen was tremendously relieved to know the problem was a logistical one. For a moment he had been fearing for Meg's health, and one more such worry was likely to prove more than he could stand. "Well, you run and help Bethel with breakfast, then, and you mind her. Though pr'haps," he added with a conspiratorial wink; "you might tell her I said if there's a spare biscuit going she should give it to you."

With many a "yassir" and a "thankee sir", Lottie ran off towards the house, narrowly missing a collision as Meg came out with the slop bucket for the hogs. For a moment Cullen stood where he was, half expecting the woman to come to him with her own roundabout approach to the question of Lottie working in the fields. When she did not he decided that Bethel must have shared his decision, and headed off to the well.


	2. Top and Sucker

**Chapter Two: Top and Sucker**

A short time later the tobacco crew headed out to the fields. Each had an empty cotton bag, rigid and stained with resin, slung over one shoulder, and each carried two wooden buckets brimming with water. Cullen was toting the pair with the dippers, and the handles kept swinging around and slapping against his knuckles. In the toolshed he had swapped his wool pants for a pair of stiff oilskin overalls, and whenever one knee passed too close to the other the cloth would stick. Nate and Elijah were similarly attired, and Meg had a heavy oilskin apron wrapped around her oldest dress. The sun was two-thirds over the horizon now, blazing splendidly behind them, but there was no time to admire it. They passed the fields of feed-corn, tall green shoots in the furrows that had been such a chore to keep straight, and came to the edge of the tobacco rows.

The buckets were deposited at the root of a spreading oak that would shade them from the worst of the heat, and they stowed their dinner bundles in a hollow under a large stone. Then the three dark faces turned to their master for instructions; an act of formality rather than necessity, for all three knew their business much better than he did. Trying to keep his dread from showing on his face, Cullen waved a careless hand. "Pick a row and let's get to it!" he said. Then he set his resolve and marched over to the third row in. The earth was soaked with the morning dew, and his boots sank into a good inch and a half of mud. He wished for something, anything, to delay the inevitable, but he had gauged his morning start too well and the light was just bright enough that he could see to work. With a distasteful twitch of his lips he bent to the first plant and set to it.

He heard rather than saw the others following his example. Nate took up on his right, and Elijah on his left. By unspoken agreement the men let Meg have the outside row, where she'd have a better chance of keeping the back of her skirt dry until the sun was higher. The broad leaves, not yet near ready for picking, were wrinkled with veins and fine ridges that held the dew like little troughs. As Cullen snapped the tip off the fine new top sprouting from his plant, a shower of water rained down on the ground, on his boots, on his oilskins. He worked his way down the stalk looking for suckers, the little buds that sprouted at the base of the leaves and would stunt their growth if left alone. He picked them off until he had a handful, and then stowed them in the cotton bag. Not even halfway down the plant his sleeves were soaked with dew, and his fingers were sticky with the dark sap. He reached the bottom leaves, spattered with mud, and then checked the hill for weeds. Then he straightened his back for a brief moment as he moved on to the next hill.

It was wretched work; mind-numbing and backbreaking. Cullen had known he was in for a hard day when he had struggled even to bend to put on his drawers that morning, and by the fifth plant his spine was a twisting column of red-hot agony sending out rippling cramps into the broad muscles of his ribs and flank. He had been out here every day for four days, working the two bottom fields in turn and hoping for a break in the heat. Now the time had come to tackle the top field, and it didn't look like the day would be any cooler than the ones that had gone before. As he drew on to the middle of his row Cullen could feel the sun on his back, raising a sweat behind his ears already. The oilskin overalls were shining with dew and the mud sucked at his boots with every step. The long sinews of his legs burned as yesterday's soreness was stretched out and today's began to take hold. He worked as quickly as he could, miserably conscious of the countless rows rolling away to his right.

On the other side of the wall of green, Nate was already a plant ahead. He was the fastest tobacco-topper in the county, and Cullen suspected in all of Mississippi. He had been out in these fields since he was only a little older than Lottie, and he knew his trade well. He had a skill and a knack for concentration that Cullen would never possess, and his sure dark fingers never fumbled. Surely he had to be in just as much pain as his master, but with the same dour determination that Cullen possessed he refused to show it.

Elijah was slower, but no less skilled. He never missed a sucker and he never dropped his handful. If he felt any indignity in grubbing fields he had once commanded he gave no sign. Patient and methodical, he stooped and straightened with the same steady rhythm as the younger men.

Cullen couldn't see much of Meg, especially as the sun climbed higher and his perspiration began to sting in his eyes, but he knew she was working with care and efficiency. They were good laborers, his people, and they never complained. And as much as he loathed the work and felt his spirit slowly breaking under the monotony and the constant strain, he neither voiced his discontentment nor made any attempt to drive them to do what he would not do himself. In his father's time it would have been unthinkable for the son of the house to be out here toiling with his slaves, but Cullen was master now and he knew that if the struggling plantation was to survive another season he had to put in as much as they did and more. For three years now he had worked the same long days at the same wearisome tasks as Nate and Elijah, and although he was at best only average and at worst hopelessly inept he kept at it. Whether he liked it or not this was his life, and if there was no way out he simply had to endure it.

He reached the end of the long row at last, wiping his brow with a sleeve too sodden to be of any use. His cuffs were smeared with the tarry sap, and his hands were black with it. He shuffled down two rows and started again, working back this time with the sun in his eyes. The perpetual stooping was a torment, and a band of pain began to close around his ribs. His shoulders were burning and his elbows ached. Already his head was pounding and the sweat trickling on his upper lip was a constant irritant. The bag slung over his back was starting to have a heft to it as it filled with the prunings, and the mud, the hateful mud that still smelled faintly of dung and ash, dragged at his feet and mired him here, a prisoner of the land that had been his birthright.

Yet as dreary and painful as the work was, what Cullen hated most was the utter futility of it. He might spend days or weeks toiling here; might expend the last of his strength tending the plants and hoeing the weeds that if left unchecked would shred the tobacco leaves and render them unfit for sale. But all it would take was one withering dry spell, one untimely storm, one freakish wind to lay it all to waste. Whatever he did and however hard he tried, he could not control the weather, and it was the weather by which a farmer lived or died. And if by a stroke of luck the crop was good, and the weather held, and a stray spark didn't send up the drying shed in an inferno of destruction, at the end of the year he'd have nothing to show for it all. He'd be back where he started: winter stores in the barn, seed laid by for spring, fields empty again. There was never any tangible proof of a farmer's work, except that he had managed to survive another year: nothing to look at, nothing to touch. Nothing to leave behind as evidence that a life had been lived to some purpose.

Even so, he thought, he might have endured it all or even thrived if he believed he was any good at the work. If he thought he was the best man for the job then maybe, just maybe, it would all be worth the struggle. But he wasn't; not by half. His darkies were all better farmers than he; even Meg was a cleaner picker. Behind a plow he was stumbling and clumsy. When he sowed, his seed spread unevenly. He couldn't even hill a potato any better than ten-year-old Lottie, and his speculations about weather and planting cycles were almost always so wildly inaccurate that Bethel was hard-pressed to restrain her rolling eyes. His father had been a born planter, despite the wealth that kept him at one remove from actually grubbing in the dirt, but Cullen Bohannon was not.

The damp had soaked through his overalls now, and his undergarments began to grow heavy with it. It didn't help matters that he was now perspiring profusely and his back was soaked with hot and sticky sweat that seemed to do nothing to cool him. The sun was well overhead when he reached the end of the row and stumbled over to a fresh one. Only after culling three more plants did he realize that he was wretchedly thirsty. His eyes shifted towards the tree and the laden pails beneath it. The water within them would still be cool from the well; clean and delicious. But it was an ironclad rule of the field that a picker could only go for water at the end of an east-worked row, and if he expected the others to abide by that he had to set an example.

So he worked on, weary and parched and so terribly bored. He wished that tobacco-topping took more of his brain, because when he had nothing else to think about his worries came swarming back to plague him. They were more persistent and more obnoxious than the clouds of tiny black insects that swarmed around the sweaty labourers, and they were far more likely to drown him. He worried about Mary, lying in bed as the house grew warmer. He worried about Bethel, getting on in years and growing too old to be managing the house without proper help. He worried about Elijah, whose cataracts were thick enough now that they were visible at two yards and who really ought to be able to go into a restful retirement, if only there were someone else to take over his work. He worried about the account at the dry goods store in Meridian, growing despite his constant frugality. He worried about Gabe, who would be big enough for a proper pair of shoes in the winter and where was _that _money going to come from? And Gabe, growing up the son of a struggling farmer – or a starving planter, if he could still call himself that on the strength of his thousand acres alone – and what would they do about schooling and a pony and all the things a young boy ought to have? And if Mary did have another child sometime…

He tripped on an unexpected slope and landed on his hands and knees in wild indiangrass. He had reached the end of his row without realizing it.

"All right there, Mist' Cullen?" Nate asked, offering a hand to hoist him to his feet. Apparently the gap between them had closed in the fever-pitch of work driven by anxiety, for they were both changing over at the same time. Cullen struggled to drag his pant-legs out of the mud and followed the broad-shouldered man. Nate jerked his chin, indicating that Cullen should take the nearest row, but Cullen shook his head. Meg was coming to the end of hers, and there was one worry at least that he could address at once. He took the next row on instead and took his time with the first two plants until she came to the furrow beyond him.

Nate was ahead again and Elijah was two rows away. This afforded Cullen some measure of privacy for what was sure to be a delicate conversation. "Meg," he said quietly, keeping his eyes on his work and his hands moving as if he were a darkie in his grandpappy's day, when overseers had ridden the fields with whips. "I wanted a word."

"Me too, Mist' Cullen," Meg murmured. She turned from her plant and smiled shyly. "I want t'thank you. Bethel says you tol' her Lottie too young to be out in this here field. Lotta planters wouldn' think that, 'specially did they get out here like you do. You got to work harder your own self if she ain't here, so I thank you."

Uncomfortable at her words, Cullen focused all the harder on his picking. His fingers were slick with tar now and he had to use his nails to get a good grip on the smaller suckers. "We've all gotta work harder, Meg, but ain't none of us want her out here taking sick. She does good work up at the house, and it's a help to Bethel to have her, especially with Mrs. Bohannon in bed."

"Yassir, jus' as you say," agreed Meg. She frowned. "But what's you got to talk to me 'bout?"

He peered through the top leaves of the plant he was suckering. His back was curved like a fiddlehead and he could feel it right into his kidneys. He wished he could just get down on his knees and crawl instead, but that would tear up the ground and ruin the hills and the plants would die with their roots exposed to the heat. Awkwardly he cleared his throat.

"I understand you and Peter been having… er… trouble finding time to spend together," he said.

"Oh, it always hard this time of year," Meg said dismissively. "Too much work, not 'nough hands nor hours in a day. But I see him ev'ry Sunday, an' rainy days too. We get by."

"That's not what I meant," said Cullen. He could feel his ears burning in a way that had nothing to do with the heat, and the dryness in his throat was not merely his increasingly fearsome thirst. "You're having trouble spending time _alone _together."

"Oh!" It was hard to tell under the shadow of her hat, but he could have sworn her colour deepened also. "Oh, that's nothin'…"

Now he had started he might as well say his piece. "You know if Sutcliffe's overseer don't like you over there you're always welcome to have Peter over here to call," he said.

"Yassir," she said, bobbing her head. "On'y with Lottie 'round the cabin an' she not brought up with two in the home I…" She ducked her head as she bent for her plant.

"Of course." Cullen used the cover of a tobacco leaf to hide a grimace. He should never have brought the subject up. Such things weren't spoken of in the ordinary way of things, and certainly not between a man and his female slave. "But if you want him here, just put a word in my ear an' I'll have Lottie spend a night up at the house. She can sleep in Gabe's room. You know the treat it'd be for him."

"I thank you, Massa, I surely do," said Meg. "It hard, two of us on diff'rt places. Never really did fin' a way to make her work."

Cullen finished stripping the plant in silence and then moved to the next one. "Peter's got value, Meg. Good foreman's gotta be worth at least a thousand dollars."

"Twelve hunnerd, he heard Mist' Sutcliffe say," Meg said proudly. "Mebbe more."

"You know I haven't got that kind of money, Meg. I could work day and night for five years and I wouldn't raise that kind of money." His voice was very low now, and he hoped that the bitter loathing of his helplessness did not show in his words. The best crop he had raised since his father's death had only brought in a little more than a thousand. This last winter, after paying off his accounts with local merchants and buying seed and supplies he had only brought home two hundred and sixty-eight dollars, and that was almost all gone. In the old days before the years of his inept management and the bad crops there had always been money to spare.

"I know that, Mist' Cullen." Meg's voice was serene, without regret or resentment.

"I'd buy him if I could," Cullen muttered to himself as he ducked under to check the bottom stalks. Another pair of hands about the place would make a world of difference in their chances of getting along for another year. It would be a fine thing, he told himself, to be able to secure a good strong man; it would be plain sound business to buy up Meg's Peter if only he could afford it. He quelled any thoughts of another, more unsettling motive.

"I know that too, Mist' Cullen," said Meg, and he realized he had been heard. There was another silence and she added anxiously; "I hope you don' take it to mean I wants to be sold, sir. Mist' Cullen? You… you wouldn' sell me 'n Lottie over Hartwood way, would you?"

He knew her fear without having to ask. Hartwood had more mulatto babies than any plantation around Meridian, and most of them belonged to girls only just out of pigtails.

"I wouldn't," he said fiercely. "Not even if you asked me to." He turned back to his work with a vengeance, trying to get the stink of the thought out of his mouth. He had no fondness and precious little respect for his westerly neighbor. Abel Sutcliffe was a brute and a bully. His plantation was only half again the size of the Bohannon holding, but he worked every inch of it with an army of a hundred slaves and half a dozen tyrannical overseers. Cullen felt very strongly that if a man couldn't manage his own people without the aid of a Cracker with a whip, he didn't deserve them. Even in his father's day there had been little whipping on this land, for a whole man worked better than a wounded man and if a darkie didn't respect his master no flogging would change that.

He laboured in sullen silence until he finally reached the end of his row and was at last – at _last_ – able to stagger into the deep shade of the tree for a desperately needed drink of water. He drained the dipper so quickly that his stomach roiled, filled it again and sipped more cautiously the second time. Then he knelt down by another of the buckets, this one marked for washing with a red rag tied about the rope handle, and splashed cool water on his face and neck. He batted off his straw hat and drizzled two handfuls of water into his hair, then got another dipperful from the drinking pail, replaced his hat, and headed back to work.

So the morning passed as the sun grew higher and the day grew hotter. Slowly they crept down the breadth of the field: four sodden and sweltering figures tossed in a sea of brilliant green. As he worked Cullen found himself plagued with doubts about his decisions this year. One bad crop didn't necessarily mean that the land was exhausted, but the fear of that dogged him. He had decided to take a chance and to put in tobacco anyhow – partly because it seemed simplest, and partly because it was all he really knew how to do. He had only just got his head around tobacco: he knew nothing about growing sugarcane or cotton, and neither did Nate or Elijah. His grandpappy had built the place on cotton, and it had been his father who branched into tobacco instead for its higher profit per acre and its more reliable market value. He had made a success of it for years, until things had fallen off in the early 'fifties. Even so he had been managing well until a blight had taken a whole year's work and a mortgage on human property had been called in. Cullen remembered the sickening feeling as the bankers had come to haul away most of the field hands to be sold to cover the debt. It hadn't been his crop then; they had been his father's slaves. But he lived in dread of the day when he might find himself in a similar position. Selling his hunting horse had been a wrench, but at least he knew that wherever Valiant was he was being well treated for the valuable animal he was. The same guarantee could certainly not be made for tobacco men bought by cotton planters or sold away by slave merchants to Florida or southern Georgia.

He certainly wasn't an abolitionist, but on this matter Cullen took a practical rather than philosophical view. Free the slaves, and the entire economy of the South, maybe the whole country, would collapse. He couldn't even free his own slaves, whatever Mary's quiet urgings to the contrary. If he freed them, what would they do? He supposed that was none of his business – a free man was a free man, and stuck with responsibility for his own wellbeing – but nonetheless he worried. He had never met a free Mississippi black, and those he had encountered in New Orleans or Selma seemed to be living uncertain and piecemeal existences. He cared about his people, and he knew he'd be anxious for their welfare if they left him. And what could they do but leave, if they were free? He couldn't afford to give them wages: it was all he could do now to keep everyone fed. And if he _did_ free them and they _did_ leave him, what would he and Mary do? How would they live? Three men and a woman were already doing the farm work of six men, and that with Mary and Bethel and Lottie to take care of the house and the garden. Alone he could have managed; gone off somewhere, found work, maybe started a business venture on the proceeds from the land sale. He'd studied drafting and engineering at university, along with mathematics and the useless human sciences like literature and music and Greek philosophy. But there was Mary to think of, and his son. And if Mary didn't recover her strength, or if she fell ill again… no, no it was impossible to think of freeing his slaves. If he, a struggling small planter who tilled his own fields and dug his own yams, couldn't manage it, how could someone like Sutcliffe, who had twenty times the slaves and no concept of what it meant to button his own shirt?

As he reached the end of another row he felt a sticky and wizened hand pluck at his soaked sleeve. Elijah nodded skyward. "Noontime, Mist' Cullen. Bes' we sit an' rest a while."

Cullen nodded and squinted across the field. Meg was almost finished her row, but Nate had only started a fresh one. "Mark your place and come and eat!" he shouted. His mouth was flooded with spittle and his voice cracked. He spit surreptitiously onto the ground, cupped his filthy hand to his mouth and hollered, "_Noontime!"_

Nate raised an arm to show that he had heard and bent to finish the plant he was working. Meg picked up her pace and was soon climbing out of the mud. Her calico skirts were black to the knees with dirt and tobacco juice, and as she stepped onto the grass she seized the hem and wrung out a thick stream of dirty water. Cullen's own clothes were soaked through and he was sweltering in the heat. He felt ill and lightheaded, and the short walk back to the oak tree seemed to take him an age. Finally he reached the small oasis of shade, shrunken to the limits of the spreading boughs, and flung himself down in the grass.

He knew he ought to say something bracing and cheerful to bolster the others even if he couldn't cover his own exhaustion, but somehow he had no strength for that today. He rolled onto his back and stared up vacantly into the tree, feeling every muscle in his body twitch and spasm. His knuckles ached and his throat was raw, and the world seemed to be spinning very slowly beneath him. He screwed his eyes closed and tried not to think about the awful crawling feeling of tobacco sap trickling down the inside of his leg. How it managed to find its way through oilskin he would never know, but it inevitably did.

Someone brought him a dipper and he managed to raise his head and his hand to drink, but the water was tepid and brought little satisfaction. Nate said something as he tossed the napkin-wrapped dinner bundle into the grass beside him, but Cullen didn't care. As if from a great distance he could hear the three Negros sharing out their own meal and talking quietly while they chewed. Yesterday by this time he had been ravenous; that was always the case when he was out in the fields. Today, however, he wanted nothing more than to lie here with his spine stretched out at last, and to wait for the ground to stop whirling under him.

A fly landed on the tip of his nose and he funneled his lower lip to blow it away. It circled briefly before settling at the corner of his eye. Tiredly he swatted with a hand that felt weighted with shot, and then let his arm fall to earth with a _splat_ of wet cotton. He took two deep, steadying breaths that filled his lungs with hot oppressive air, and finally worked up the will to roll back onto his side. He sat up carefully, wary of his persistent dizziness, and pushed off with one foot so that he slid towards the tree. He propped himself against the trunk and let his head tilt back. The fly had found him again and it hovered just beyond the bridge of his nose, drawn by his sweat and the green smell of the sap.

"More water?" It was Elijah, squatting beside him with a dripping dipper in hand. Through half-lidded eyes Cullen looked sidelong at the impassive, weathered face. He shook his head tersely.

"Hand me that," he said, flicking a vague finger at his parcel of food. He took it and fumbled with the knots, his fingers catching and sticking as he did so. Both Bethel and Mary would have been appalled to know he intended to eat with such dirty hands, but he couldn't be troubled to wash. He'd never get the tar off anyhow, so what was the point? He found the piece of side meat and tore off a chunk with his teeth. It was a satisfyingly savage gesture, and decidedly ungentlemanly. He didn't care. Elijah wouldn't tell anybody.

The salty taste of the pork sent his mouth flooding with saliva again, and he felt himself reviving a little. He'd been pushing too hard in the heat; that was all. He needed to stop thinking so damned much and keep an eye on what he was doing. He chewed doggedly and swallowed with some trepidation, wondering whether he would be able to keep it down. He did, and he took another bite. Elijah was still waiting patiently with the water in one hand while he gnawed a piece of corn pone from the other. After a third mouthful of meat, Cullen took the dipper.

"Thanks," he huffed, and drank. It tasted faintly of wet wood and resin, and he realized that the latter was just the thin film of tobacco juice on his lips. He moved to scrub at his mouth with the back of his hand and then remembered just in time that it was at least four times as filthy. His teeth showed briefly in a wry grin, and he handed back the long-handled vessel.

"Too many plants," Elijah said, squinting out towards the spreading field. "Time we get done we'll on'y have t'start all over."

Cullen felt a hot flash of irritation. "You might've said something earlier," he snapped.

Elijah shrugged. "Did say somethin'. You tol' me you'd figgered how much we'd need, an' I should mind my business."

"So I did," Cullen said, grimacing again. "Then it's keep on like this 'til picking time without a break, or let a few rows go?"

"I known you to do a lot of peculiar things, Massa," said Elijah somberly; "but I ain't never seen you let _nothin'_ go."

He got to his feet with a stolid grunt and shuffled over to rejoin Nate and Meg on the other side of the tree. Cullen watched from the edge of his vision until his foreman was out of sight, and then rolled his eyes. That was the problem, all right. He couldn't let it go. He'd put his mind to doing this job, and he meant to stick to it. He might be a fool and a bumbler and at heart something of a wastrel, but he had made his choice and would follow it to the end. His responsibility to his family and his folks was clear: work this crop and bring it in, and hope he'd manage to raise enough to keep them for another year.

He tore into one of the bread-and-butter sandwiches with vigor, looking past the corn to the faint wisp of smoke beyond the trees which marked where the house stood. He wondered again how Mary was faring, but he knew at the least reasonable excuse Bethel would have sent Lottie out to fetch him. Everything must be well in hand.

He bolted down the last of the sandwich and looked at the second one. His gorge was sitting high and he didn't think he could manage it, so he wrapped it and the peach again and stowed them between two roots. Then he shuffled across the grass to retrieve his hat and tried to shake the sweaty hair off of his brow before settling it in place. Warily but as smoothly as he could manage he hefted himself onto his tired feet and made the ineffectual gesture of dusting his hands on equally grimy overalls. He said nothing to the others, who were passing a dipper of water around, but set out for the next untouched row.


	3. A Fair Price

_Note: This chapter, originally posted prior to the filming of Season 4 on February 5, 2014, was modified on October 5, 2014, in order to incorporate the canonical name of Cullen's firstborn son given in Episode 410. For the full explanation, see the Note on Chapter 88._

**Chapter Three: A Fair Price**

Joshua Gabriel Bohannon, known almost from birth as Gabe, was sitting on the rag rug and playing quietly with his brightly-painted wooden horses. From where she sat in the middle of the broad bed, propped up with pillows and the worn velvet bolster from the récamier downstairs, Mary could only see the crown of her little boy's head, too small and tender for the grand and manly name that had been bestowed upon him at his christening. His downy brown curls were still damp from the wetting Bethel had given them at noon, and in them she saw a softer portrait of her husband's dark hair. For a moment the wondering love that visited her at strange times seemed to constrict her chest like the whalebone stays she had not worn in days. A faint smile came to her lips.

The bedroom was filled with the heat of the day, which crept through roof and walls like a stealthy invader despite Bethel's efforts to beat it off. Now that the sun had finally worked its way 'round to the other side of the house, the window was open – but no breath of moving air came through it to stir the muslin curtains or interrupt the drowsy stillness of the room. Clad in a fresh linen nightgown with only the sheet drawn up to cover her lap, Mary was not as uncomfortable as she might have expected. She had a broad palmetto fan in one hand, and now and then her wrist gave a lazy twitch that raised a brief breeze to cool her face. Had it not been for the lingering cramping in her body and the ache in her heart, she might have been quite content.

Doctor Whitehead had been very kind, reminding her that she might have mistaken the signs. After all, he had said, women were bound to miss a course now and then in the ordinary way of things, and sometimes when it _did_ come on there was pain and a great quantity of blood. Why, he'd known a woman down west of Meridian who had to spend three days abed every month, her misery came on so badly! Mary had listened and she had nodded and politely agreed, but she had known that he was only being kind. She'd had her share of lunar discomforts, but only once before had she ever felt these deep, rippling, ripping pains. Her eyes moved to her son again, and the fan flapped fervently. Sorrow for her secret loss and fierce love tempered with fear seized her now. If one child had slipped away, so might another – and though a sturdy three-year-old was a very different prospect from a fragile life just taking hold within her she could not help but worry. Many children didn't live to be five years old, carried off in their innocence by sickness or mischance. And here, in this land of strange Southern illnesses, it seemed there was always some new affliction doing the rounds of the county.

She put the thought from her mind like generations of mothers before her. Her son was healthy and happy and well-fed. He had every chance of surviving the risks of childhood to grow up to be a fine man like his father. Her gaze shifted to the window. She was listening for the sound of Lottie coming back from the tobacco fields. Cullen was out there, of course – where else would he be at this time of year? – and she wanted to know how the work was getting on.

When she had first considered uprooting her settled metropolitan life and relocating to this quiet corner of the sleepy South, she had imagined a very different sort of future. She remembered the shy, apologetic smile that had touched her suitor's face as he had described his home.

"I got a thousand acres," he had said, twisting the brim of his hat in his hands. "Pretty land; good land, owned free and clear. My grandpappy carved it out. Tobacco's our cash crop. I might not be quite the hand my father was, but I'm aiming to learn an' the slaves know their business. I only got five, but they's good people, and we're comfortable enough."

The notion of the slaves had made her terribly uncomfortable. Like every one of her friends she had read Mrs. Stowe's heartrending tale of humanity and Christian kindness in the face of terrible brutality, and she had imagined that was the truth of the entire South: whips and bloodhounds and broken families. Yes, Cullen had explained; those things happened sometimes, particularly when a man didn't know how to take on his responsibilities and look after his people. But he had solemnly assured her that the sole hound on his place spent his days sleeping in the sun and worrying rabbits, and that he'd only ever had occasion to strike a slave once. Startled by the idea of this smiling and soft-spoken young man raising a hand to anyone, she had burst out with a breathless "What happened?" before she had realized it was not quite polite.

"Well," he had said, sitting back in the chintz armchair and stretching his long legs out over her mother's parlor rug; "there was a difference of opinion considerin' the ownership of a nest of sparrow eggs. He reckoned they were his 'cause they were down by the cabins: I reckoned they were mine, 'cause I found 'em first. Disagreement got heated. He kicked me in the shin and I punched him square in the nose." He had grinned enormously at her flummoxed expression. "We were both eight at the time," he had added.

He had told her of the strict and capable black woman who had raised him almost from babyhood, and had described each of the others so completely and so comically that she had come to feel that she knew them. But still she had imagined her betrothed leading a lazy life, directing the labour of others and never bestirring himself to do more than pass on orders. As the daughter of a railroad baron who if he didn't haul ties or hammer spikes undoubtedly worked every bit as long and hard in his offices as any Mick on the cut, she had not been sure she could marry an idle man. At this sentiment, couched in the coy give-and-take of modern courtship, Cullen had thrown back his head and laughed.

"Oh, I put in my time," he'd said. "Five darkies on a thousand acres ain't much, and there's more'n enough work for everybody. I've been known to plow a row or two, though you should see 'em chuckling behind their hands when I do!"

And in the first year it really had been only a row or two he plowed. He was busy at sowing time, when the tobacco seed was laid in and sheltered from the elements, and he'd driven the cart to take the seedlings down to the fields for transplant. But it had still been the slaves who did the lion's share of the work. Mary had been privately relieved the first time she had ridden the property with Cullen. He didn't go galloping to and fro, brandishing a cat-'o-ninetails and howling hatefully at his labourers. He was just like any landed farmer up north, giving firm but sensible orders, asking after the work, hopping down from his hunter to lend a hand where it was needed. He'd taken care of the horses himself, and handled small carpentry jobs about the place, and hauled water from the well for Bethel in the middle of the day, and sometimes even milked the three cows. In those early months he had certainly had his leisure, which he largely lavished upon her, but she could see that he was not waxing fat on the suffering of others.

After the first poor crop, the balance of his work had shifted. Mary still remembered how Cullen had come home from Meridian after that rail journey from Louisiana, slumped tiredly in the back of the buggy with Nate on the box. She had come down to greet him eagerly, her baby in her arms, and when he had seen them on the front steps his face had tightened in horrified astonishment, as if he had forgotten their very existence or had only just realized its implications. Only for a moment did that expression linger, but it had collapsed into such a look of bewildered apology that she had almost wished she hadn't come out. For a few days after that he had haunted the house, a quiet and uncertain specter taking up far less space in the world than his lean body warranted. On those frosty nights he had sat up for hours at the dining room table, reckoning up long columns of figures and making endless neat notations that meant nothing to her. As the silence and the brooding stretched on she had started to fear that he had taken leave of his senses.

Then one morning he had bounded out of bed with the rooster's call, thrown on his oldest clothes, and gone charging out to the drying barn to mix mud and clay for chinking the walls. He had hurled headlong into the work of a farmhand – often ineptly, but always with an almost manic determination. No longer content merely to supervise, Cullen threw himself in with his slaves; shoveling manure, tilling fields, staggering gawkily behind a plow, stooping to put in the tobacco seedlings. And that year the concentrated labor of one more man had made all the difference: they had cleared a crop that had paid off their debts and bought their stores and left them five hundred dollars ahead. But the following year the leaves had been mediocre and the price low, and this last harvest had been the poorest of all. The worse the crop, the harder Cullen worked, and Mary was beginning to fear for his health if he kept up this pace.

From the yard came the squeak of the wheelbarrow and a clatter of wood. Mary heard the back door open and then shut with a _bang. _She opened her mouth to call out, and then thought better of it. If she called then Bethel would come, and she didn't want Bethel to know she was anxious for news from the fields. Even after years of living under the same roof, Mary was still rather in awe of the old woman. She had the gentlest and most capable of hands, and a gruff scolding manner that was nonetheless tempered with a genuine fondness for the family, but she had been so long the lone matriarch of the plantation and Mary, the lately-come usurper, was still occasionally nervous in her presence.

"Gabe, dear," she said softly. The child looked up, smiling. "I think that's Lottie come in from the fields. Why don't you call her?"

"Yes," Gabe lisped, flinging aside his horses and climbing onto his plump little legs. He trundled to the door and peered around the post into the hallway. "'Ottie?" he shouted, dancing excitedly from one foot to another. "'Ottie, you dere?"

From below Mary heard low voices conferring; Bethel doubtless extracting her own account from the girl before letting her go. Then there was the sound of swift bare feet on the stairs and the child came into the room. Gabe laughed and flung his arms around her knees, and she ruffled his hair with one hand while she steadied herself against the doorjamb with the other. There was a faint sheen of perspiration on her forehead, and a large wet spot down the front of her skirt where she had spilled some water.

"How you be feelin', Missus?" she asked shyly. She always seemed a little uncomfortable around Mary, though she seemed to have no trouble at all in talking to Cullen. He had a frank and open way of dealing with children that they seemed to take to; certainly Mary's nieces and nephews had had no compunctions about befriending him.

"Much better today, Lottie, thank you," said Mary. "You've been down to take water to the tobacco field?"

Lottie bobbed her head, skillfully guiding Gabe around to the side of her leg so that she could shuffle a little further into the room. "Yass'm," she said. "Two buckets cold water, right out the well, an' the last of the dried lemon to chew. That Bethel's idea; Mist' Cullen jus' told her water."

"How are they making out?" asked Mary.

The child shrugged. "They never finish that patch today," she said sagely. "Not if they work straigh' through 'til nightfall. Elijah says they too many plants for four folks t' work. Them suckers keep growin' an' growin'."

Mary had only a rudimentary understanding of tobacco cultivation, but coming from a land of wheat fields and apple orchards she had been appalled by the constant attention the plants required. Her polite interest in the neighbor ladies' stories of their own plantations had left her with the distinct impression that cotton was not such a demanding crop, either. It seemed like Cullen and the other two men spent every hour from the middle of January to the end of October fiddling with the plants, and Lottie's summary of the situation was a very apt one.

"What about the heat? Is everyone holding up all right?" Her eyes flicked to the window. Beyond the shadow of the house the countryside fairly glowed beneath the fierce sun, and the humidity hung heavy in the air. She knew the Atlantic heat of a New York summer, but this subtropical Southern mugginess was another thing entirely. Even after four years she hadn't adapted to it, and she wondered privately how anyone ever could.

"Don' know. I s'pose so. They all still workin', anyhow. Mist' Cullen, he say she's a scorcher."

"Come see my horses," Gabe demanded, tired of tugging on his playmate's leg.

"Which horses you got?" said Lottie in an earnest and attentive voice as though she had not seen the toys a thousand times before. Gabe scampered around the bed and the girl hurried after him, crossing her legs as she dropped down on the rug. "Look here," she said, picking one up and rocking it through the air at a gallop. "This one look like Pike, don' he?"

Mary watched silently for a while, as Gabe enumerated the virtues of his herd in a three-year-old's drawling patois. Lottie listened patiently, here and there offering a comment that was always met with enthusiastic agreement. She was very good with him, and Mary knew she was lucky to have a child about the place. A ten-year-old had the stamina to keep pace with a toddler's boundless energy, and as his father's son Gabe seemed to have more than the usual share of that. Mary rocked her fan and leaned back more deeply into the cushions, her other hand slipping beneath the sheets to press her throbbing pelvis.

It didn't matter that she had only just begun to suspect her condition when it so abruptly ended: she was mourning the loss and all that might have been. She very much wanted to give her husband another child. Cullen doted on Gabe, and he was the most attentive of fathers. He ought to have a whole posse of sons, and whenever she watched him with Lottie she longed to see him petting over a little girl of their own. It was past time to be thinking of a new baby, with their first one now three. She had been so eager to tell him of her expectations, and now she was glad she had not. She had implored Doctor Whitehead to keep her secret and reluctantly he had agreed. Laden as he was with work and worry, Cullen didn't need another yoke to carry. He would be devastated if he ever found out, and that was the last thing she wanted. He shouldered so many burdens for the family; she could bear this one alone.

_*discidium*_

The sun was well past its zenith, but the day seemed to grow still hotter as the hours dragged on. The four stooped figures still progressed steadily down the rows, but their movements were stilted now; no slower, but tangibly more pained. In the brief interval of straightening between one plant and the next, Cullen caught sight of Nate kneading at the base of his neck with a sticky fist. The gesture, a rare show of mortality from a man who seemed bent on resisting life's ravages to the last, struck him more deeply than his own myriad agonies, and he swore quietly under his breath. Five straight days of topping tobacco was brutal enough, but it looked like they'd be out here tomorrow as well. He could feel his hips stiffening under the smothering weight of the oilcloth, and he wondered whether any of them would be able to hobble out to the field in the morning.

As he reached the lowest point of his stoop he spat copiously into the dirt – no longer mud except at the very base of the plant where the shelter was thickest and the dew still dripped from the wide leaves. Despite a constant tormenting thirst that sent him staggering after water at the end of every second row, he could not stop salivating. He had taken advantage of the break precipitated by Lottie's arrival to eat his second sandwich, handing off the peach to Meg, but it sat like a stone in his stomach and shifted sickeningly every time he bent. He wasn't hungry; not by a long shot. Yet here he was, slavering like a mad dog. He straightened, careful not to do so too quickly. His headache had deepened through the day, and he kept falling prey to bouts of dizziness. Most often he could quell it by screwing his eyes closed and keeping perfectly still for a breath or two, but once he had been obliged to sit down between the rows and lower his head onto his knees for a full minute before he dared to get up again.

If he'd ever had a more miserable day's work he couldn't remember it. Even his first turn in the tobacco, shocking as it had been to a body that, though young and fit, had never before been put to hard labor, could not compare to this. Every muscle was afire, and his bones seemed to grind on one another as he moved. His wet clothes clung to him, heavy and impossibly hot in the relentless sunshine. He was faintly surprised that there was no steam rising off of his shoulders. Nate and Elijah had long since shucked their shirts, and Cullen was envious. But he wasn't comfortable with the notion of stripping down while there were womenfolk about, and he had to content himself with rolling his sleeves up to the elbow and undoing the two buttons right under his collar. The cotton bag cut into his shoulder now, heavy with the harvest of rubbish, and he couldn't quite shake a feeling of unsteady sickness.

A dark spot on the horizon caught his eye and he squinted from under the brim of his straw hat. It too was sodden now, soaked with his sweat and streaked with stains of tar from his attempts to adjust the drooping brim. He would have to put it on the hat-block tonight, or it would shrink as it dried and be too tight to ram on in the morning. The shape on the horizon wheeled and drew closer, coming down from the next rise through the empty pasture. It was a horse and rider, and he recognized the former first. It was Napoleon: Abel Sutcliffe's prized Thoroughbred stallion.

"Damn it to hell," Cullen muttered, ducking more swiftly than was necessary or prudent to attack the next plant. He was in no mood to wrangle his difficult neighbor, and his current state wasn't going to make the encounter any easier.

He spared a minute to hope that Sutcliffe was only trespassing: passing through on an afternoon gallop. The land slowly slipping back into wilderness was a popular destination for local riders whose own properties were thick with cotton and outbuildings and people. Cullen didn't care if his neighbors used his empty acres as a sort of open racecourse, so long as they didn't churn up the fallow fields or let their mounts graze in his corn. This easygoing attitude was one of the few things that helped to keep something of his family's old standing in the community – useful at times – and it cost him nothing.

But as he shuffled to the next plant he saw that the horse was making straight for the edge of the field, where Nate was coming up on the end of a row. Bowing low again, he dug into his sleeve for his rumpled handkerchief and tried to scrub the worst of the grime from his face. As the square of linen was soaked with sweat and blotched with tobacco sap itself, he didn't imagine it was doing much good. Then with a fit of self-loathing he thrust it back where it belonged. What did he care how he looked? It was only Abel Sutcliffe, who despite his money and his breeding wasn't any sort of a man. Cullen got back to questing for suckers, determined to look as though he had not even seen the rider approaching.

Napoleon let out a proud whinny as he was reined in to a halt, and Sutcliffe surveyed the field with the disdainful eye of a cotton planter who thought tobacco a second-class crop. He was a tall man of about fifty; blonde hair going grey, and a long patrician face dominated by a thin mouth that always seemed curled ever so slightly in scorn of the world. Hardly even casting an eye at the broad-shouldered Negro beside whose row he had halted, he said. "You! Boy."

Nate straightened his back but kept his head bowed and his shoulders stooped. His ordinarily intelligent face melted into a look of solid stupidity. "Yes, Massa," he drawled. Only those who knew him well could recognize the note of sarcasm in his servile whine. He shambled with exaggerated heaviness to the end of the row, but halted well out of range of the planter's glossy black riding crop.

Sutcliffe looked over the tobacco again, his eyes catching briefly on Cullen's stooped form. Watching from under the bridge of his hat, the younger landowner was not at all certain he had even been truly seen by the rider. There was no doubt at all he had not been recognized. The cold eyes slid next to Elijah and paused even more briefly there, and then settled on Meg. She was bowed low, digging among the bottom leaves, and her wet skirt was clinging to the contours of her legs. Cullen felt a hot wave of rage as Sutcliffe's eyes lingered there, and he restrained the urge to lob a clod of dirt at the white felt hat perched jauntily on the man's narrow head.

"Where's your master?" Sutcliffe demanded coolly, in the voice one might use when speaking to an idiot or a very young child.

Nate scratched the back of his neck with one long finger. "Mist' Bohannon?" he asked.

"Have you another master?" The exasperation in the man's voice was evident, and Cullen started marshalling his will in case he had to step in between his neighbor and his man.

"Nawssir," said Nate. "I reckon he the only one."

"Where _is_ he?" asked Sutcliffe, more condescendingly still.

As Cullen moved to the next hill the planter's eyes flicked to follow the motion, and then flicked away. It was remarkable, Cullen thought. He had apparently achieved invisibility. He looked down at his hands and arms, stained dark with tobacco juice and crusted with muck. With the shadow of his wilting hat over his face, he supposed the other man couldn't even be sure he was white. The thought amused him.

Nate was shrugging expansively. "Ohh…" he said slowly. "I 'spects he 'round here somewhere."

"_Where_?" The flaring irritation was tempered by a paternalistic resolve to get what he wanted out of the Negro he had chosen to approach. "Up at the house?"

"Nawssir. Not the house, not in the middle of the day. Only Mistress an' the young Massa up at the house in the middle of the day."

Cullen took advantage of his stooped position to snigger into the broad leaves. He wasn't sure whether Nate was actually trying to drive the man off, or only having a private laugh at his expense, but either way he thoroughly approved. Of course for the sake of propriety he would have to have a word with Nate later about being to uppity with white folks, but he could take the sting off of that with a dram of his hoarded whiskey and a well-timed smirk.

"Then where is he, you black oaf? I haven't got all day!"

There was a dangerous note in Sutcliffe's voice now, and Nate bristled a little. Deciding that the fun had gone on long enough, Cullen stowed his handful of suckers and straightened his back. He took off his hat and made a great show of drawing his forearm across his dripping brow before seeming to catch sight of the rider.

"Ah, Abel!" he said loudly. "I didn't see you there!"

Startled at hearing his Christian name apparently coming from a field full of slaves, Sutcliffe looked around in momentary confusion. Cullen came striding down the row, and derived some satisfaction from the look of astonishment when the planter actually saw him at last after having looked at him no less than three times already.

"Bohannon!" he exclaimed. Then his eyes took in the sodden work clothes, the filthy hands, the ragged straw hat, the tangled and sweat-soaked hair. Cullen didn't doubt that there were streaks of tobacco juice across his forehead and nose, and his perspiration was glistening in the his whiskers. Sutcliffe's expression darkened and his sneering mouth tightened into a puckered purse. "I didn't mean to interrupt your… ah…"

"My day's work?" asked Cullen cheerfully. He looked up at the sun, deliberately shading his eyes so that his ragged fingernails were obvious. Sutcliffe's own were meticulously pared and polished, and his fingers twitched on the reins. "Nowhere near sundown yet. What did you expect I'd be doing at this hour?"

It was no secret in the county that the Bohannon plantation had long since fallen from its former splendor, and that despite his genteel upbringing its master was now more a yeoman farmer than a gentleman of leisure. Still, Cullen knew that most of the county imagined that his involvement didn't extend much beyond riding his own acres and currying his own horses – and of course the usual business of directing labour and making the executive decisions concerning crop choice and planting times. Only a few of his closest friends knew even that he hoed the corn, and he doubted there were more than three men around Meridian who so much as suspected that he worked the tobacco. It was so unthinkable that even those who whispered that he was a disgrace to a fine old local family would have never imagined this outrage.

It was plain that not only had Sutcliffe never imagined it, but he was having difficulty processing it when faced with irrefutable evidence. His eyes were goggling in a decidedly undignified manner, and he appeared at a loss for words.

Cullen got one foot up on the sod and cast an eye over his shoulder at Nate. The black man was watching the spectacle from under his eyebrows, his expression carefully neutral. "Those plants ain't goin' to top themselves," said Cullen lazily.

Nate shot him an unreadable look and then moved back to his place on the row. His swift obedience in the face of the merest suggestion of an order was likely lost on the wealthier planter, who thought that Negros had to be driven with a horsewhip, but Cullen felt his pride rising. He was more than this pristine man's equal, and he knew it.

"You want something, Abel, or you just come over here to make conversation?" he asked pleasantly.

Again taken aback by the familiar and deliberately presumptuous form of address, Sutcliffe was jerked out of his gawking. His eyes narrowed and his nose wrinkled ever so faintly. "As a matter of fact yes, Bohannon. I wanted to speak to you about your west pasture. I was riding through it the other day—"

"You were trespassing then, weren't you?" Cullen grinned. "'Round these parts trespassers have been known to wind up the wrong side of a load of buckshot." He was speaking from personal experience, but that did not seem germane to the conversation.

Sutcliffe's lips twitched tersely. "You have never minded before."

"That's so," said Cullen. "And I don't mind now, so long as it's only riding you're doing. Just my way of being neighbourly." His smile widened so that his teeth flashed in the sunlight.

"Anyhow," said Sutcliffe coldly. He had done his schooling in Richmond, as he never failed to remark when given the opportunity, and even after thirty years there was something of the Virginian in his accent. It struck Cullen as mighty pretentious and never failed to make him think that a good smack might do the man no harm. "I could not help but notice that some of the land out there appears to be going, as it were, _back to the wild_."

Cullen refrained from a derisive snort. That was hardly news. The stretch of land that bordered Hartwood Plantation had been left to grow free before he was born. There were trees there now tall enough to cut for telegraph poles. It made for a pleasant place to ride, and Mary sometimes went out there with Pike while Gabe was down for his afternoon nap. "One man's wilderness is another man's bridle path," he said. "I never was one to say the land oughta all be plowed under. Bit of nature here and there's no bad thing."

"Well, perhaps," said the planter. He raked his eyes over the younger man's dishevelled garments again. "The truth of it is that I have been looking to expand my cotton, and your wilds abut my top field. I came over to see whether we couldn't work out a fair price for two hundred acres."

Pulse quickening, Cullen's mind whirled through the arithmetic. Land in the county was scarce, and the last sale he'd had wind of had settled at ten dollars an acre. Of course, that was cleared land ready for planting, with a house and outbuildings and a freshwater stream, but even his overgrown ridge had to be worth a fair bit. Say six dollars an acre, or even five, and he'd raise a thousand dollars with a handshake. That was more than he could hope to bring in with the year's harvest: money for cornmeal and coffee and beef and kerosene, money for cloth to replace worn-out clothes, money for new boots for Nate and Elijah, shoes for Gabe, hairpins and stockings and a new corset for Mary. Money to lay by in the bank for next year's taxes. Money like that was insurance against a failed harvest. It would buy up half his worries. Hell, if he could talk Sutcliff up to seven dollars an acre he might even be able to take on an extra field hand; or maybe suggest two dollars an acre, and Meg's Peter in trade.

"What sort of a price did you have in mind?" he said with remarkable calm. The one thing he really excelled at was striking a good bargain. Without that skill he would not have even managed to break even on last year's crop.

"Now, it's wild land, and it's no secret it was played out even in your grandfather's day," Sutcliffe said thoughtfully; "but seeing as you're _such _a good neighbor I was thinking three dollars an acre might be fair."

"Three dollars an acre." It came out in a harsh half-laugh. "Land's worth three times that and you know it."

It wasn't really, and whether Sutcliffe knew it or not Nate certainly did. He ducked his head hastily into his tobacco plant so as not to let his thoughts about his master's temerity show.

"Three dollars an acre," Sutcliffe repeated. "I should think that given your _present_ _difficulties_ the money would be welcome." Yet again his eyes flicked over Cullen's body, settling this time on his grimy hands.

In that moment Cullen knew the truth. The man had come here planning to offer more – quite likely much more. If he had discovered his neighbor riding the land or measuring for a new fence or even mending the axel on the buckboard wagon he would have made it, too. But he had found Cullen stooped in the tobacco, doing work that Sutcliffe would have consigned to the lowliest of field hands. He knew now what straits the place was in and he thought he could nab himself a bargain. Steely eyes narrowed shrewdly.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'll make you a counteroffer, seeing as how I know what land prices are around here. Eight dollars an acre."

Sutcliffe sniffed and seemed about to speak. Cullen held up his hand, stained and sticky palm outward. "Don't try and tell me again it's played out. Nothing been planted there in thirty-five years. The only thing wrong with that land is it's covered in trees, and your overseers can make quick work of that. Two hundred acres at eight dollars an acre."

"Three dollars," said Sutcliffe.

Cullen sighed in a long-suffering manner and looked thoughtfully down at the grass. "You see, now you're just being insulting," he murmured. It was a tactic that sometimes served him well with the tobacco buyers, but it was also a risk. A man could take offence to the intimation.

"The way I see it, you're getting no good out of that land as it is," said Sutcliffe in a reasonable tone. "I can clear it this year and get in some winter wheat to loosen it up; put in cotton next year and you won't have to worry about jackrabbits getting into your fields out of those woods anymore."

"As it happens I like jackrabbits," Cullen retorted impudently.

"Of course you do," Sutcliffe said soothingly, his gentlemanly countenance only just concealing his sneer. "They make such a nice change from split peas and molasses."

Cullen lunged forward, launching his back foot out of the mud. His left arm swung as if he meant to wipe the mocking look off the man's sanctimonious face with a flying fist, but at the last moment he caught himself and closed his fingers on Napoleon's reins instead, gathering both sides together just under the bit. The horse only snorted a little and shifted one foreleg, but Sutcliffe jerked backward in the saddle, clearly alarmed. He recovered his composure quickly, however, and looked down the bridge of his nose contemptuously.

"Look what's become of you," he said in a soft hissing voice. "Duncan Bohannon's grandson, grubbing in the tobacco patch. Ground right down to poor white trash."

Fixing him with a glare that would have stopped the heart of many men, Cullen raised himself up to his full height despite the dragging anguish the motion sent through his back and shoulders. "Well now, _Abel_," he said slowly, enunciating each syllable with exquisite care. "I don't know how you was raised, but I never heard tell that good hard work made trash of honest men."

For a moment there was silence broken only by the distant rattle of a woodpecker digging for his dinner in the stretch of land under debate. Finally Abel Sutcliffe's stony expression softened into a sugary smile and his blue eyes glittered slyly. "Look, Bohannon," he said; "we both know three dollars is cheap for that land, and eight is pretty near ridiculous. What do you say to five dollars an acre?"

Cullen's painful grip on the reins loosened a little. His chin jerked ever so slightly upward. "Now that's more respectful," he said. "I can work with that. Say six-fifty, and we can settle this here and now."

"Five dollars is the most I'm willing to pay," said Sutcliffe. "And that's only if you sell me five hundred acres instead of two. Price for two hundred is three dollars an acre."

Again the lightning-quick mathematics lanced through Cullen's mind. Twenty-five hundred dollars: he had never hoped to see that kind of money again, not in one fell swoop and for nothing more than scrub bush and empty pasture. But then a pit formed in his chest as he realized what Sutcliffe really wanted. The Bohannon holdings came to exactly a thousand acres, counting the creek bottom on the northwest corner of the property. If he sold off five hundred it wouldn't be a plantation anymore, not even by the standards of the Census Bureau. If he took Sutcliffe's price then he really would be just a poor farmer and Sutcliffe could boast to everyone how he had got the better of the local square peg.

He let go of Napoleon and stepped back to the border where the grass met the dried mud of the tobacco field. He curled up his lip and with a quick slip of his jaw sent his mouthful of thin spittle flying from between his teeth. It struck the ground just under Sutcliffe's left stirrup, and the rich planter flinched in disgust.

"Get off my damned property," Cullen said imperiously. "Land's not for sale to you at any price. Get on out of here. _Get!_"

Sutcliffe's jaw worked soundlessly, but he could not seem to think of anything to say. Straightening himself in the saddle he gathered in the reins and clicked his tongue at the horse. Napoleon took a half-step backward and turned, and a moment later he was cantering back across the untilled fields towards the Hartwood property line.

Cullen stood fixed to the spot, posture rigid and head held high as he watched his neighbor go. Only when the dark spot that was horse and rider vanished into the shadow of the trees did he let his weary shoulders slump and his tormented spine relax. His head was ringing like a blacksmith's anvil, and the dizziness forgotten in his anger came sweeping back. He looked down at his right hand, which had closed into a fist and crushed the supple straw hat into a shapeless mess. Numbly he took hold of the brim with his left and tried to stretch it out into a wearable shape again. He jammed it down upon his head and turned tiredly back towards the tobacco.

Nate, Elijah and Meg had all stopped their work. They were standing erect by the plants they had been checking, and they were staring at him. Meg looked almost rapturous with awe. Elijah wore an expression that was something like pride. Nate's mouth was drawn into a long grim line.

"You shoulda jus' told him 'no' an' lef' it at that," he said dourly as Cullen stepped down into the dirt and walked back towards his place in the row. "Man like he make a powerful enemy, an' you don't need no enemies. Ain't no good ever come of whackin' a hornets' nest."

From out of the weariness that went so much deeper than the bone, Cullen found a broad magnetic grin. "Aw, shoot," he said cheerfully as he stooped again. "I didn't ever do that but once."


	4. Weary Nightfall

_Note: It's my birthday, and I'll post if I want to._

**Chapter Four: Weary Nightfall**

The sun was swinging low at last, large and red over the western horizon. Working the down rows the men had to squint into its fiery glow. Cullen had sent Meg back to the house a little over an hour ago, to tell Bethel he wouldn't be in until nightfall and to start on supper for Elijah and Nate. The heat still clung in a muggy blanket over the earth, and sweat still trickled down Cullen's back and ran into his eyes. Yet somehow he could not stop shivering, and his soaked clothes seemed to chill him. His fingers quaked so that it sometimes took three tries to get a good hold on one of the insidious little buds. His breath came heavily now, sore ribs protesting the labour of their rise and fall. He thought he had never felt so run-down and exhausted, and the fits of light-headedness when he straightened had gotten so bad that he didn't even try to stand upright anymore. He shuffled, back bent, from one plant to the next, working as quickly as he could. They were losing light fast, and there were still at least two dozen rows untouched: enough to keep all four of them working another half-day.

Nate was three-quarters of a row ahead of him now, and even Elijah had a few yards' lead. Neither of them seemed to be suffering from the inexplicable phantom cold that was at such perfect odds with his perspiring body and the hot air that he kept raking into his lungs. Cullen tried to shake his head as if by doing so he could throw off the foggy feeling of illness that was tugging at him, but the motion made him nauseous. He tried to focus on something else: on his host of anxieties, on the endless list of tasks that had been neglected this week for the suckering and would have to be taken up as soon as it was done, on his foolish refusal of Sutcliffe's money for the two hundred acres. It didn't work. He was too weary to think anymore: all he could do was bend a little lower and feel the coarse stalks and break off the new growth so the old growth might flourish.

He reached the end of an east-worked row and looked longingly down the length of the field to the oak tree beneath which half a bucket of water still stood with its dipper at the ready. He was wretchedly thirsty, but the pain in his hips and the ache in his knees made the walk seem far too long to be worth the return. Besides, he thought, the minutes he would spend trudging down there and back were minutes wasted; minutes when he wasn't picking. He shuffled past the rows his men were working, and started on a new one. He was working into the sunset now, and he kept his chin tucked to his chest in an attempt to shade his eyes.

A strange sound came through the heavy air; like a swarm of bees droning behind a heavy velvet curtain. Frowning, Cullen tried to follow the sound without looking up from his work. At last he realized it was coming from further up the field and that it was Elijah, singing softly to himself while he worked. Somewhere deep within a part of him chuckled. How the old man could find the strength or will to sing after thirteen hours of bowing and stooping he didn't know, but he could not help but admire his spirit. For his own part he wanted nothing more than to sink down onto the crumbling earth of the furrow and curl up into a ball. Maybe then he could get warm again. His teeth were clattering against one another and the faint breeze that would have been so welcome at midday sent a chill into his marrow.

Still he kept at it, no longer a man but only a tobacco-topping automaton. His fingers seemed to move of their own accord, and his smarting eyes squinted to make out the invaders under the heavy shadows of the leaves. He couldn't keep his palm cupped around the bits of waste anymore, and his left arm kept up a constant relaying motion between his right hand and the sack on his shoulder.

Then almost without warning he could no longer see what he was doing. His hands were indistinct shapes only a little darker than the land around them, and the tobacco plant was nothing but a nebulous presence somewhere about two feet from his nose. He froze, momentarily taken aback, and then fumbled for his handkerchief. He tied it loosely around the stalk of the plant, working by feel and by the faint glow of the last light on grubby linen that had once been pristinely white. Further down the field Nate and Elijah would be doing the same thing.

Not quite able to lift himself out of his slouch, Cullen turned and shuffled down the row, fanning his foot in front of him before each step to make sure he did not trod on the painstakingly tended hills. The sky was the same thick dark blue it had been when he stepped out into the yard that morning, and he could just make out the contours of the land and the shapes of the trees and the drying barn. High above the first stars were showing, but he could not crane his stiffened neck to look at them. Finally the toe of his boot struck the little lip of sod and he clambered up out of the tobacco field. He stood there for a moment, swaying in the twilight. Then he turned towards the dark hulk of the oak tree.

He felt a strong hand grip his shoulder, and turned to look at Nate. His body was silhouetted against the last pink traces of sunlight, but his features were almost indistinguishable.

"I'll get them buckets, Mist' Bohannon," he said. "You head on back."

Cullen nodded his thanks, but his throat felt too dry and raw to speak. Strangely, almost frustratingly, he was still salivating. He took his bearings by the shadows of familiar landmarks and broke out in the direction of the dooryard. His steps were uneven and his course must have faltered at some point, because he reached his destination by slamming his left shoulder against the corner of the toolshed. Too tired even to curse, he groped his way around to the door. Inside he found the box of matches and lit the old tin lantern. His sore and tar-coated fingers fumbled with the buttons of the oilskin overalls, but at last he was able to let them fall about his feet. They did so with a soft squelching sound, still wet in spite of everything. He moved to pick them up and found he could not bend any further than the lowest tobacco-tending position. Instead he kicked at the heavy garment, snagging it with his toes and hoisting it high enough that he could grab hold. He hung them on their peg and looked stupidly at his woolen trousers where they dangled from the next one. They had been waiting there all day for him to come and fetch them back to the house. Nice work if you could find it.

Elijah came in and stripped off his own overalls. His cotton drawers were streaked with dark sap, and their knees were black with it. Cullen knew his own undergarments were in no better shape. Elijah tugged on his pants and thumbed the suspenders up into place, then grinned a grin that was rather short on teeth. "'Nother day done," he said philosophically. "Finish 'er tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

It was neither an affirmation nor a question, but a word saturated with all the soul-sucking frustration of a farmer's life. Cullen reached with an arm that felt ready to fall from its socket and took down his pants. He tried not to hold them with his whole hand, so as to avoid soiling them with the tobacco juice that coated it. He knew it was a futile endeavour, but still he felt bound to try. He looked down at his boots, and then made a faint attempt to shake his head. Never mind the damned pants, he thought. He'd only be getting them off again in a few minutes.

Nate came into the shed now, and went about his own shucking of gummy oilskins. He paused as he reached to hang them and frowned at his master.

"You bes' get up to that house 'fore Bethel come fetch you," he said. "You know she spen' all this time worryin'."

"Nothing to worry about," said Cullen thickly. "Good work today, both of you. I'll see you out there again at dawn tomorrow."

"Sure," said Nate. "Listen, you just stay in tonight an' let me take care of the stock. You white as an old haunt under that tan."

Despite himself Cullen bristled. "I can see to my own horses," he said stiffly.

"I know," said Nate. "But jus' you don't do it tonight. Get me some credit with ol' Bethel."

The tired ghost of a smile tugged at Cullen's cheeks. "You done something you shouldn't?" he asked. It was one of their childhood questions, bandied from about whenever one thought his playmate had been up to no good and might want to share the fun.

"Not yet," said Nate, almost playful despite his obvious weariness. "Boun' to happen someday, though."

Elijah said something about the mules, but Cullen didn't hear it. He dragged himself around Nate and out into the yard, stumbling past the chicken coop and somehow managing to lift his body up the back steps. He stopped at the door, leaning his head against the post and trying to gather his strength. If he went in there feeling as he felt at the moment Bethel would be sure to notice something was amiss, and he couldn't cope with too much of her fussing tonight.

From inside he heard Lottie's childish soprano raised in shocked protestation, and then Meg's voice saying proudly, "Then Mist' Cullen, he say 'Was you raised in a barn? Hard work don' make trash of no hones' man!'"

Bethel grunted, and Cullen could imagine the vindicated thrust of her chin as she did so. Then she said; "You two bes' run 'long now. Men'll be back soon an' wanting they suppers."

Cullen got himself off the doorframe just in time, stepping out of the way as the door swung open and Lottie came bounding out, still full of energy despite a sweltering day no doubt largely spent in running after Gabe. She was halfway through the yard by the time her mother stepped out onto the stoop, moving far more slowly but still with steady dignity. She didn't notice Cullen in the shadow behind the door, and moved off after her child towards the square of light spilling from the toolshed. Watching for a moment as if lost in thought, though it seemed his mind had finally snuffed itself out, Cullen turned at last and tugged at the back door. The toe of his boot caught on the threshold and he stumbled a little, catching himself against the dish dresser. From within the old china rattled, and Bethel turned from the kettle she had been hoisting onto the stove.

"What you doin', wanderin' round in your drawers?" she scolded reflexively, crossing the room and snatching his pants away from him. She examined them thoroughly, rubbing with her thumb at the places where his fingers had left smudges of tobacco juice, then folded them over her arm and gave his efforts the tacit approval of deeming the garment clean enough to be set on the kitchen table. "You was raised with better manners, Mist' Cullen, an' I know that."

"They'd only have to come off again," he muttered, grabbing for the edge of the table and easing himself down onto the corner of the bench. The boot jack was lying ready for him, and he used it to lever first one and then the other off his tired feet. As he had expected his socks were black with grime and the insidious tar that seemed to creep into every crevice. Not willing to try to reach down, he used the side of one foot to roll of the first one, and then hooked the bare great toe into the top of the other. His fingers, stiffening already, scrabbled at his shirtfront until Bethel, with an exasperated little noise, reached in to swat them away. In a trice she had his buttons undone, and she helped him out of the foul-smelling thing. Even before he could think about trying to roll up the hem of his undershirt she was easing one arm out of the sleeve in the same way she undressed Gabe.

"You anywhere near to finished?" she asked as she reached for the other cuff and repeated the process.

"Twenty rows left," he fibbed. It sounded as though his voice was coming through a railway tunnel, and Cullen had to fight to keep his eyes open. Even in the heat of the kitchen, so smothering in the summertime, he felt miserably cold. Bethel hoisted the undershirt over his head, and the tobacco tar that had soaked through to it tugged at the fine hairs of his chest and back. He grimaced a little at the sharp and superficial discomfort that distracted him momentarily from his much deeper aches. "Do 'em tomorrow."

"Whole week in the tobacco no good for any man," Bethel said darkly. "Bad enough you got to do that come pickin' time, never min' high summer."

"How is it you never worry about Elijah and Nate in the tobacco?" Cullen asked dimly. He curled forward over his lap and rested his arms on his thighs. Somehow it just seemed easier to keep his back bent.

"I said any man, didn' I?" demanded the old lady. "But Nate 'n Elijah was brung up to do it. They been out there every day since they was big 'nough to be call'd men. They's used to it, an' you ain't yet."

"I been at it three years now," he argued. "More or less."

"Three year ain't twenty, an' you know it!" Bethel said sharply. The kettle was bubbling and she hefted it off the stove, rounding to the far side of the table where the big tin washtub stood three-quarters full. She poured the steaming water in and bent to stir it with her hand. She lifted it, shook it, and dried it on her apron. "There," she announced. "Warm bu' not too warm. You scrub up good, now. Missus Mary waitin' for you in the dinin' room."

At this Cullen finally raised his leaden head. "In the dining room? She's out of bed?"

"Came down to give Mist' Gabe his supper," Bethel confirmed. "She ain' ready for her corsets, but she up out of bed. Lookin' better for it, too."

She retreated to the dining room door and put one hand on the latch. "Use plenty soap," she advised. "You look like the tar baby."

As she retreated Cullen tried to laugh at that, but it hurt too much. He struggled with the buttons on his drawers and then hooked his thumbs over the waistband before jimmying himself up by virtue of his left elbow and the table top. He shoved the filthy garment as low as he could, and then stood with some difficulty and pushed it the rest of the way with one foot and then the other. Naked now, he padded on tender heels to the tub and folded his long body into it. There was soap in a pot on the floor, and an old and much-stained sponge for scrubbing. He knew he could scour until he took off a layer of skin and he'd still be stained in black streaks, so he settled for rubbing away the stickiness and getting rid of the mud. The nail brush was also within easy reach, and he made the best use of it he could, but he was too tired to care much about doing a proper job. He was shivering again, though the water was perfectly tepid and the stove still radiated great waves of heat from the embers within. Hurriedly he struggled to get out of the tub so that he could wrap himself in the towel warming for him on a stool by the hearth.

_*discidium*_

Mary sat at her accustomed place at the table, waiting to welcome her husband in after his long day of work. She was wearing the cherry silk dressing gown that had been a part of her trousseau, belted with a sash over her nightgown. At home in New York it would have been unthinkable to be seen out of her bedroom in such dishabille, but here such things did not seem to matter quite so much. Part of that was there was no one about but Bethel, who seemed to share her belief that it would do Cullen good to see her out of bed even if she couldn't bear her corset yet. She knew that he had been worrying for her, and she knew that his concern was due at least in part to whatever vague diagnosis Doctor Whitehead had given him. He would rest easier if he had evidence that she was recovering.

The interminable wait ended at last, and the kitchen door swung open. Mary wanted to leap to her feet, but she restrained herself and rose slowly out of deference to her weakened body. Cullen was smiling, but his eyes were dull with fatigue and brightened only a little at the sight of her. He was moving stiffly, like a rheumy old man, but he came around to her before she could take more than a step towards him and bent to kiss her forehead.

"You look beautiful," he said softly. "You're feeling better?"

"Yes, much," she promised. Bethel, who had been waiting by the sideboard just beyond the glow of the lamp, retreated to the kitchen to fetch the master's supper. "Sit down," said Mary. "You must be so tired. When did you sneak out this morning?"

"Half-hour or so before dawn," said Cullen, tugging out his chair and then looking at hers where it stood at the ready. "I s'pose I really didn't wake you, then?"

Knowing that he would not sit until she did, Mary resumed her place and adjusted the smooth folds of the dressing gown. She seldom had occasion to wear it nowadays, and it made her feel curiously young and amorous despite her recent ordeal. Satisfied that she was settled, Cullen planted his palms on the table and eased himself down with a low grunt of relief. He was also half-dressed, wearing long drawers and an undershirt beneath his father's old smoking jacket, and his bare feet were tucked into a pair of down-at-heel slippers. He crossed his arms on the tabletop and stared down as though he wanted nothing more than to bury his head upon them and fall asleep where he sat.

"You didn't come to bed until midnight last night," Mary protested. Small wonder he looked so exhausted, if he had been abroad before the sun. "How did the picking go?"

"Suckering," corrected Cullen dully. "Hard work and not much to show for it. Gabe behave himself today?"

"Yes; I think the heat stole a little of his fire," said Mary, noting with relief that Cullen's expression brightened a little at the thought of their son. She studied his face in the warm glow of the kerosene flame. It was impossible to tell much about his color, but the fine lines just starting to appear at the corners of his mouth seemed deeper than their wont and his eyes were shadowed. She had known from her youth that farming was a hard life, but it seemed a very different thing when one was married to a farmer and watching him endure it. _Planter_, she corrected herself, somewhat chagrined. She was still a stranger to the intricacies of Southern etiquette, but she knew enough to realize that this distinction was somehow very important.

Bethel came in with a bowl of barley soup and a plate heaped high with food. She set both before Cullen, and then returned bearing a mug of steaming coffee in one hand and glass of water in the other. Apparently she had kept back a little of the dried lemon that afternoon, for there was a curl of rind floating in the clear fluid. Cullen shifted in his chair so that he was sitting a little straighter, and dragged the bowl towards him. He picked up the spoon that lay beside a clean napkin and started to eat.

Satisfied, Bethel retreated to the kitchen. The sounds of the washtub being bailed came through the door, left artfully ajar. Once Mary would have thought this a clever bit of servants' subterfuge of the sort her mother never would have tolerated from their Brooklyn-born housemaids. Now she was wise enough to understand that it was because Bethel was anxious and wanted to be immediately available if her hands were needed.

"You didn't finish, did you?" Mary asked, trying to keep her voice light and conversational.

Cullen grunted softly and shook his head, still intent upon the soup. His lips were cracked and sun-weathered, and even through the quilted cloth of the smoking jacket Mary could see the tightness in his back and shoulders. He was always so stiff and sore after working the tobacco, though he would never admit it. Once Mary had suggested that she too might be of use in the fields, if Meg was, and such a wild look had come into his eyes when he told her he wouldn't stand for it that she had never dared to raise the subject again. She thought of her quiet day, and she was smitten with sudden guilt. She could have been helping Bethel with the house, or out in the garden tying up pea-stalks with Lottie. She was not entirely useless around the plantation when she was well, even if he wouldn't let her help beyond the edge of the vegetable patch. But today, the hottest day they'd had all year, she had been lying abed like an invalid.

She sat back and let him eat in silence. He finished with the soup and moved on to the plate. Bethel had laid on a good nourishing supper: cold ham and new bread, mashed sweet potatoes from the root cellar, and peppered succotash. Lottie had gone out to thin the garden in the late afternoon when the heat was no longer quite so oppressive, and so there were dainty young radish greens cooked with butter, and tiny baby radishes on the side. Gabe had enjoyed this last treat especially, but Cullen hardly seemed to notice it. Indeed, from the disjointed way in which he lifted food to his mouth Mary could tell he did not really know what he was eating, nor did he care. He was too worn out.

He seemed to be having trouble with his fork, too; now fumbling to get a good hold, now dropping its contents. The flickering light again obscured clear sight, but after a couple of minutes of close observation Mary saw that his hands were shaking. He lodged the fork in one slice of ham and stared at it bewilderedly.

"Let me," said Mary gently, shifting her chair a little nearer and reaching for the fork and knife. While he watched the glinting silverware hypnotically she cut his meat for him, all the time torn between anxiety and sadness. The mere fact that he was allowing her to do this told more about the depths of his exhaustion than anything else.

When she was finished she put the fork back in his hand. "Finish up," she said. Cullen took two more clumsy mouthfuls and then let the fork fall onto the heap of enticing warm yams. "You should try to eat a little more than that," Mary coaxed.

"I'm not hungry," he said. He raised his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Headache," he mumbled before she could inquire. "C'n I have a drink? Please?"

"Coffee or water?" she asked, anticipating his answer and reaching for the coffee. "Bethel, did you put the sugar in this?" There was no need to raise her voice at all.

"It sweetened up like he wan' it," said Bethel from the kitchen. There was a dull ringing as something struck the empty tin tub.

Mary offered the china cup to Cullen, holding her palm beneath it in case his sore fingers should slip. He reached for it with a sun-browned hand scrubbed almost painfully clean but still stained with the dark tobacco sap. His thumb slipped through the handle and he raised it to his lips, sniffing in puzzlement. "Coffee?" he asked.

"Would you sooner have water? Fresh up from the well, and there's a bit of lemon for flavor," said Mary. She was starting to feel rather like she did when coping with Gabe's fussy days, trying her best to entice someone who was not in the mood to be swayed by any manner of food or drink.

"No,_ brandy_," he said in an irate voice. He seldom took such a tone with her, but Mary was glad of it now: it was the first real emotion she had heard from him. "Man says he wants a drink, he don't mean water."

"Bethel, would you bring the brandy bottle, please, and one of the small glasses?" she asked. She took the coffee from Cullen's loose grasp and put her hand on his arm.

"He don' need brandy," Bethel said, coming into the room and frowning at the master she had raised up from babyhood. "You don' need brandy. Nice cool water an' a good night sleep, that what you need."

"I need brandy," Cullen insisted. At last he raised his eyes, but he did not look at either of the women. Instead he stared into the lamp flame. "I did a damn fool thing today, Mary," he said bleakly.

"What is it?" she asked quietly, almost certain she knew what he was about to say. It could hardly be anything else, if it was driving him to use foul language in the house.

Suddenly deep crevices of care seemed to open in his face, deeply shadowed by the kerosene glow. In an instant he seemed to age ten years. "I just turned down six hundred dollars for land I have no earthly use for," he exhaled; a confession weighted with enormous weariness. "Six hundred dollars."

Mary nodded. "I know," she said. "Meg told us. You did the right thing: there wasn't anything else you could have done and still lived with yourself."

"It was still a damn fool thing to do," said Cullen, but he no longer looked quite so drawn. His eyes fell to his almost-full plate and he pushed it away. "What 'bout that brandy?"

"No brandy," Bethel insisted, crossing her thin arms and frowning at him.

Cullen rolled his eyes. "Who's master here?"

The frown only deepened. "You drink up that water an' finish your supper," she said. "Horses be waitin' to get theirs, an' then you goin' go straight to bed: no readin' an' figurin' tonight."

"Don't think I could if I wanted to," said Cullen, his lips tightening as he stretched his arm to take the water. "I'm not going out again: Nate offered to see to the stock."

"Good!" snapped Bethel, jerking her chin. She watched intently as he lifted the glass to his lips and took a wary sip. It seemed to awaken his thirst, for he tipped the vessel again and drained it in a series of hasty gulps. He set it heavily down and exhaled noisily before bestirring himself to blot at his mouth with the napkin. His eyes closed briefly, and on his lashes tiny salt crystals glistened where his perspiration had dried. He made no move to try to resume his meal.

"Where your appetite at?" Bethel asked. "Eat them greens, anyhow. They be no good tomorrow: jus' a waste to leave 'em."

Cullen opened his eyes to slits, rolling them to look at her without turning his head. He took in her unyielding expression and the insistent set of her jaw, and reached awkwardly for his fork. He munched tiredly on the tender little leaves, and when they were gone abandoned his plate again. Bethel picked it up and frowned at it, but she seemed mollified.

"I go fetch some more water," she said, scooping up the glass and disappearing into the kitchen.

Mary mustered a smile. "I think she's the only person on earth you'll actually listen to," she observed.

Her husband raised an unsteady hand to rub at his temple. "I still want a drop of brandy," he said. "This headache…"

"I'll go and get it," Mary promised, rising to her feet. As she passed him she let her hand trail down to rest on his shoulders. The muscles beneath her hand were strained and hard as knotted ropes. She pressed gently with her thumb, sweeping it in a slow arc towards his neck and pushing the tension with it.

Cullen let out a low moan. "Don't start a job you can't finish," he mumbled. "Time you get done it'll be sunup."

She turned so that she could lay a hand on the opposite shoulder too. She worked them together, gripping with her fingers and pressing with her palms. Her legs were unsteady after days in bed, but she braced her hip on the back of his chair and worked to the base of his neck. She didn't really know what she was doing, of course, but it didn't seem to matter. She could feel some of the miserable tightness leaving his flesh, and he sank a little lower in the chair as he began to relax. She made her way up towards his skull, fingertips twining in the fine damp hair at the nape of his neck. The side of her thumb seemed to snag against his skin, and she leaned down to squint into the shadow cast by his head. There was a dark smudge of tobacco sap just under his hairline, crusted and sticky.

"You missed a spot," she whispered, leaning forward to reach over his shoulder for the dinner napkin. Wetting a corner with her tongue, she wiped the offending blotch away. Its shadow remained, soaked through into his skin, but at least it wasn't gummy anymore. "How do you get tobacco juice all the way back here?"

"Tryin' to do for myself what you can do better," he drawled, reaching up to curl his fingers around her wrist. He drew her arm around his head and kissed her palm. "You got mighty gentle hands."

Mary felt the urge to slip around him and climb into his lap, but she restrained herself. She wasn't well enough yet for lovemaking, and he needed to lay by his strength for tomorrow's work. It would only be cruel to both of them if she instigated anything. _Don't start a job you can't finish_.

"I'll just go and get that brandy," she said quietly. As she disentangled her arm from his calloused but tender grasp, Bethel came up from the kitchen door.

"I got it," she said, setting one of the delicate cut-glass snifters that had been a wedding gift from one of Mary's father's business associates. Its bottom was covered with a thin layer of caramel-colored liquor. Cullen picked it up ham-fistedly and tipped it to his lips. He drained it in one quaff and swallowed.

"Thank you," he said. He sat still for a moment as if locked in some internal debate, and then gripped the edge of the table and got stiffly to his feet. "Think I can just about make it upstairs."

He shuffled into the hallway, one old slipper snagging for a moment on the edge of the rug. There was a creak as he took the first stair, and then his plodding footfalls moved up and away.

Mary turned to Bethel, who was gathering the remaining dishes. "Why did you change your mind?" she asked. "About the brandy, I mean."

The old woman looked suddenly very tired. "I was goin' dose him with anodyne powder for that headache, Missus, but we's all out," she said. "Turns out brandy the bes' I can do."

She shook her head sadly and moved from the room, leaving Mary alone in the ring of lamplight. After standing for a moment in silent contemplation, she went to the sideboard and lit a candle. Then she paused at the table to turn down the wick of the lamp, snuffing its flame for the night. Through the front corridor she passed, and up the stairs, expecting to find Cullen in their bedroom. Instead she came upon him as she rounded the corner at the top of the steps. He had one arm raised, elbow crooked so that he could lean against the wall with his head hanging between shoulder and forearm. He was staring through the darkness at the closed door to the nursery, and blinked slowly as the glow of the candle drew near. Mary put a hand on the crushed pile of his sleeve.

"I didn't even get to see him today," Cullen said heavily. Then he pushed off the wall and left her, trudging into their bedroom with an unmistakable stoop to his back.

Pausing to compose her expression, Mary lingered long enough that he was on the far side of the room when she reached the door. He had shed the smoking jacket and slippers, and he had his nightshirt crumpled in his hands, staring down at it as if he had never seen the thing before. Whether he was lost in some unhappy reverie or merely too stupid with fatigue to remember what he was supposed to do with the thing she did not know, but she came to her side of the bed and reached to pull down the coverlet.

"Never mind changing," she said. "You're nice and clean. Lie down."

He looked up at her as if momentarily surprised to see her, and then nodded slowly. The nightshirt slipped from his fingers and, with a stiff and jerking motion, climbed into bed. He struggled a little as he tried to get his feet under the blanket, and then sank deep into the feather tick as his body gave way to the temptation to relax at last.

Mary set down the candle on the table by the bed and took off her dressing gown, smoothing it carefully and tucking it away in the clothes press. "Tomorrow will be better," she promised. She took out a pair of her husband's oldest socks and a fresh work-shirt, setting them out on the chair in the corner. "You must be nearly finished, and then you can leave the tobacco to grow on its own for a little while. Maybe you can even come in for dinner, and see Gabe then. You needn't feel that he—'

She stopped as she turned back towards the bed. The pool of candlelight danced over her pillow and the soft white sheet exposed by the turned-back quilt. Lying at its edge, Cullen had made a halfhearted attempt to drag the bedclothes up over his body. His hand had fallen to the mattress at a level with his hip. His fingers were still curled around a fistful of the coverlet, but there was no strength in them now. He was already fast asleep.

Silently Mary crossed the room, stepping out of her bed-shoes and snuffing the candle. By the faint glow of moonlight filtering around the muslin curtains she climbed carefully into bed, drawing up sheet and quilt into her lap. She reached over and carefully covered Cullen's rounded back, and then with her fingertips plucked up a stray curl that had stuck itself to his cheek and hooked it around his ear. She eased herself down beneath the covers, the deep muscles of her abdomen protesting a little. Nestled beside her husband, she closed her eyes.


	5. Tobacco Sickness

**Chapter Five: Tobacco Sickness**

When she awoke in the very heart of the night to the sense that something was amiss, Mary was not immediately certain what had roused her. It was not the heat, for she had come to her senses too abruptly. It was not her son, for she had neither heard him cry out from his nursery nor felt his small hand upon her arm. The bedroom was still and silent in the darkness, and beyond the open window the dooryard was peaceful. Down in the creek-bottom the crickets were singing, but that small sound had never troubled her. Nor was it her pain that had disturbed her, for the ache was dull and quiet now and she could feel her body settling slowly back into normalcy.

Then at last she realized the source of her disconcertion. Cullen was awake beside her, curled in towards the middle of the bed. He had his side of the quilt pulled up right under his chin, and although his whole body was rigid with the effort of remaining still he could not quite disguise the fact that he was shivering.

"What is it?" Mary murmured, turning in. His head was a mass of deeper black against the gloom of the room, but she caught the faintest glint of his eyes in the diffuse moonlight. For a moment his muscles released and the ticking between them rippled.

"Didn't mean to wake you," he whispered. His voice came through clenched teeth, almost but not quite stuttering. "I'm just… so damned cold."

This made no sense at all. The room was still thick with the heat of the day, and the air outside was not much cooler. Mary reached out to find her husband's forehead, feeling first it and then his left cheek with the back of her hand. His skin was slick with sweat, as was to be expected on a summer night, but it was neither clammy nor abnormally hot.

"You don't have a fever," she said worriedly. She shifted closer to him and slipped her arm around his chest. Now she could feel the shaking right into his ribs. He was hugging himself in an attempt to control it and as he let out an unsteady breath his teeth clacked against one another. As she spread her palm over his spine he got his top foot up behind the opposite knee and pushed nearer, drawn to the warmth of her body. She guided his head down against her shoulder and tried to adjust his pillow to support the shift.

"Feel like I'm frozen," Cullen mumbled. He bowed in closer still, and his nose brushed the hollow beneath her collarbone. His foot brushed her leg, and it too was comfortably warm. She could feel his heart racing through the muscles of his back, and she tried to pull the quilt more snugly around him.

"I'll go fetch another blanket," she said. She started to roll to her right, but he seized the front of her nightgown and clung to her.

"D-Don't," he stammered as his lips gave an involuntary spasm. He was pressing his whole front against her now, and she replaced the arm over his flank. "You're warm."

She let him lie like that until the frantic grip of his fingers eased and some of the tension ebbed out of his neck. He was warming or the fit was passing, because the tremors faded from a constant concussive shaking to the occasional shiver. He was panting with the effort of warming himself against whatever ghostly force had chilled him, and Mary found herself tracing reflexive circles on his back as she might have done to comfort Gabe in the wake of a nightmare.

"Perhaps you're ill," she said. "We could send Nate for the doctor."

"I don't need a doctor," Cullen mumbled. "I just need to get warm again."

"But why are you cold?" asked Mary.

His bottom shoulder jerked against the tick in an approximation of a shrug. "Workin' all day in wet clothes, I guess." His words were coming thickly now, as if he were fighting off sleep. Another spasm took him and then he was very still in her arms, the heat of his breath coming in waves through her linen nightgown. "Be all right directly," he sighed.

Mary pursed her lips, and then pressed her cheek to the crown of his head. She was pushed up awkwardly towards the headboard, but she did not dare to move lest she disturb him. His chest began to rise and fall with the slow rhythm of sleep but his fingers did not release their hold on the delicate pintucks between her breasts. Gently she slipped her arm out from under the coverlet, which she smoothed snugly against his back. Her hand travelled up to rest near the nape of his neck so that his upper arm supported her elbow in a more comfortable position. Her fingertips brushed the bare skin above the collar of his undershirt and she confirmed her initial assessment. He was not running a fever.

She felt a sudden longing for Bethel's experienced opinion. Bethel would know what was wrong, and whether the doctor ought to be sent for. She didn't really think they could afford to have him in twice in a single week, but they would manage if they had to. They certainly couldn't afford to have Cullen take sick, not this time of year. His pet assertion that the slaves knew their business notwithstanding, every man on the place was needed. Again Mary was stricken with her own uselessness. He might have been better off marrying some farm girl, or even a planter's daughter who knew a thing or two about how to manage a Southern household. Instead he had picked a New York debutante who didn't even have much of a grasp of home remedies. She couldn't imagine what might be wrong with him, that he should awake shivering on a balmy summer night, and she certainly didn't know what she ought to do for him. All she could do was lie here and hold him while he slept.

He stirred against her and mumbled something in whatever unsettled dream was gripping him. His left foot kicked reflexively at the mattress. Though he slumbered on she could feel the overworked sinews of his back flicking and twitching beneath her palm.

_*discidium_*

"_Look-here, what-cheer! Look-here! Chuck-uh-huh-huh._"

The trill of the oriole that nested somewhere down in the peach grove woke Nate up, as it did most mornings. That bird had an uncanny way of sensing the dawn still more than an hour off, and it never failed to call out to hurry Old Mister Sun along. It sure wouldn't sing like that if it had to be the one out breaking its back in the tobacco, but Nate supposed there were worse ways to be rousted out of bed. Over at Hartwood there was a great big gong in the yard at the quarters, and a little black boy who had to be up while the owls were still flying so he could beat it to wake the rest of the slaves. Here it was nothing but that damned cheerful bird, telling him to "look here" and get on with his work.

Reluctantly Nate rolled off of his stomach, the straw crackling in his mattress and letting off a faint scent of lavender. The new mistress insisted on putting dried flowers in with the Negroes' tick-stuffing; some fool city notion about it being healthier, or good luck, or whatnot. She was a strange one, Missus Mary. Sweet and well meaning, but strange. But then Nate guessed all Yankees had to be a bit strange. They were Yankees, after all.

Nate punched his pillow and pushed himself up so that he was sitting on the bunk. His feet slapped down on the floorboards, and he wriggled his toes against wood worn smooth by countless such landings. On most places a field hand like him wouldn't have a wood floor in his cabin, but in Duncan Bohannon's day this had been a fifty-hand place and though the crowds of slaves were gone their lodgings remained. Those who were left had their pick of the best of them. In wintertime he and Elijah shared the old foreman's cabin to save on wood and keep each other company in the long evenings, but in summer Nate had a luxury even rarer for a black man than a gentle awakening: privacy.

He sat where he was for a minute, back rounded and head bowed. The aches of yesterday's work were deep in his bones, and he didn't much want to get moving today. He hated tobacco-topping time, and twenty years of working the stuff hadn't done a thing to change that. It was hard on a man's soul, stooping and scraping, and the pain got right into the marrow. He reached up to knead at his shoulder with one broad, calloused hand. Summertime was misery time, and no mistake.

With a thick grunt Nate hefted himself to his feet and stumped over to the little pine table where he'd flung his clothes the night before. He'd worn his drawers to bed, so all he had to do was step into his trousers and pull on his shirt. It was still damp from yesterday, and the tobacco sap caught at his skin, but he did up the buttons anyhow and hoisted his suspenders. He had two other work shirts, but he didn't see any sense in fouling them up with mud and tar when this one was already dirty. He rammed his feet into his boots, which were wearing thin in the sole but couldn't be replaced, and stumped out into the gloom.

The door of Meg's cabin stood open to let the air in, and the light of her earthenware lamp spilled out onto the packed earth of the stoop. Meg and Lottie had the best of the cabins: the one Bethel and her husband had had once, before Mister Cullen's mother had died and Old Mister Bohannon had brought Bethel up to the house to care for him. Bethel's husband had been Old Mister Bohannon's manservant, so naturally he'd gone with her. After that it had been Nate's folks who lived in the big cabin, but after the field hands had all been taken by the bank it had seemed natural for Meg and her baby to take the place – not just because Meg had a child to look after, but because she served up the meals for the other slaves and that cabin was the only one with room for the big table.

Nate hesitated in the open air, not quite wanting to go in without Elijah. He'd carried a torch for Meg ever since he was seventeen, but she'd fallen in love with that big black boy who was now foreman over at Hartwood. Nate didn't know if she'd ever suspected his affections, as the new mistress might say, but he found it uncomfortable to be alone with her nonetheless. Lottie's presence never helped matters, because when it was just the three of them Nate sometimes found himself imagined Meg was his wife and Lottie their little girl – and he knew that wasn't right. The Bible said a man shouldn't covet his neighbor's wife.

He shuffled over to Elijah's cabin and hammered on the door. An indistinct grunt came from within. "Time to get up, ol' horse!" Nate called. "Breakfast be ready soon, an' we got to get through that top field today. Come Monday them suckers' be takin' the life right out the leaves."

The door opened like a cork pushed from a popgun and Elijah's scowl showed faintly on his wrinkled dark face. "I'm up!" he said. "What you think I'd be doin' lyin' abed this late? You ain't got much respec' for an ol' hand, do you?"

"I figured you might be sore after las' night. We got no business being out there 'til sunset. Ain't right." Nate offered the older man his arm to balance against as he took the wooden step, but Elijah swatted him away.

"Work got be done," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "An' Mist' Cullen didn' ask us to be out there any longer than his own self. I tell you when that boy were runnin' wild, comin' home drunk mos' nights when he come home at all an' gettin' in fights with the other gent'man's sons an' catchin' a rump full o' shot doin' who-knows-what, I never thought he'd 'mount to much." He shook his head. "He a better man 'n his pappy, that I can say."

Nate grunted noncommittally, not wanting to agree but not able to argue. He had been doing his fair share of thinking since yesterday morning, and he had, in fact, been running a careful comparison between Mister Cullen and his father. Nate had been waiting all year for some suggestion that Lottie was old enough to start working in the fields, and it had been a surprise when it came from Bethel instead of the master. But then Bethel had a say in most decisions made around the plantation, and she had never taken to the idea of Mister Cullen laboring like a field hand. Still Nate had expected that the suggestion, once made, would be immediately implemented, and he had been bottling up his anger against the day when it was. Mister Cullen's father had put him into the tobacco when he had been only a little older and not an inch bigger than Lottie was now, and he remembered the misery of those early years. The old master hadn't had nearly as much incentive to promote Nate to adult toil, either. He'd never so much as toted a hoe, much less bent his skinny white back to grub for suckers. And here was his son, working from sunup to sundown right along with the Negroes and at the same time refusing to put a ten-year-old into the tobacco. Not that they couldn't use her: there was too much work for four people, and even a child would make a difference in the load. But it wasn't right, working a little thing like Lottie in the wet fields, and Mister Cullen actually seemed to understand that. It put him a cut above most white folks, and no mistake.

The only trouble with this was that it unsettled Nate's longstanding resentment; a resentment hatched on that first painful morning in the fields and nursed slowly through the years. It had come over him gradually, scarcely noticeable in his early adolescence but deepening in the long seasons after his one-time friend had gone away to university. They had grown up side by side, Nate and the master's son, and suddenly one was away at school in Tuscaloosa learning to be a fine gentleman and the other was sweating in the sun; dirty, illiterate, and robbed of any choice regarding his own destiny. When Mister Cullen had returned, practically unchanged, Nate had hardly been able to look at his old friend without bitterness boiling in his veins.

Even now, with the old master dead and hard times come, Nate was reluctant to think well of his owner. If Mister Cullen had lost the wealth he'd grown up with, that was just bad luck and poor management. If he worried about money, that was on account of the fact he owned too much land and not enough slaves. If he treated his Negroes better than anyone else in the neighborhood, that was only because Bethel had raised him up right. And if he had to bend his back like the rest of them, at least he was working his own lands through his own choice. He wasn't trapped here by anything.

But the matter of Lottie, that was something different. There was not a thing in the world to stop him putting her right in with the rest of them if he wanted to. The other planters would've done it that spring, and no doubt about it. He'd even had Bethel's approval, at least to have the girl _start_ taking on some of the work, and that meant more to him than public opinion. Yet he had still refused to do it. Deep in his heart Nate knew his old playmate had real worth to him, but he preferred not to see it. Something like this, though, made it impossible to ignore.

Elijah shouted back to him from the door of Meg's cabin, and Nate shook off his befuddled musings. He knew that all five of them had it better here than they would anywhere else nearby, but he couldn't quite bring himself to be grateful. No matter how he looked at it he always came up upon that one immutable fact: Mister Cullen _owned _them, and as bearable as life was under his ownership, they still weren't free.

He ducked his head to pass through the doorway, and took his usual place on the bench. Meg was at the stove, mixing butter and salt into the pot of hominy. The stove was a good one: a cast-iron thing with three lids and an oven. It had been the cookstove up at the house until Mister Cullen had come back from New York with a Yankee wife. He had bought her a new, modern stove as a wedding gift: a stove that burned cleaner and had two deep oven chambers that got hot enough for baking the outlandish Northern dainties that Missus Mary liked to make. But there was nothing wrong with the old stove, and it was Meg's pride and joy. She said it made cooking a pleasure, and she kept it glossy with a bucket of blacking she stored behind it.

On the other side of the room in the broad lower bunk, Lottie was still fast asleep with the quilt pulled up over her head and one bare foot sticking out over the edge of the tick. It did Nate good to see her, and to know that however his own back might ache and his own hips grind, at least she wouldn't be out there beside him struggling to keep pace with the adults.

The coffee was on the table, and Elijah poured it out. Meg used chicory in her brew to make the beans stretch farther, and the result was a full rich flavor that woke a man up and got him ready for his day. Elijah liked a dollop of sorghum in his, but Nate took it plain. He knocked back half the contents of his tin mug and reached for the pot to top it off.

"You men sore?" Meg asked, as if she hadn't been right out there with them until the last two hours of the brutally long day. Meg was a treasure, and Nate felt a stab of jealousy. He hoped Peter appreciated what he had in her. She came from the stove and set down two laden plates, then went to fill her own.

"No more'n usual," said Elijah. "What 'bout you? You work hard yesterday."

"Everyone work hard," said Meg. She looked over her shoulder towards her sleeping child, and smiled a little. There was almost a reverent tone in her voice as she repeated, "Everyone work hard."

She sat down on beside Elijah and tucked into her food. The breakfast was generous, and well-prepared. Nate scowled at it. Just another reason to feel uncomfortable, the way the master and mistress went about doling out food. What Bethel served up to the family wasn't supposed to be any of his business, but the underworked plantation was a small community and Nate had a way of getting to know things. The only difference between his breakfast and what the master was eating up at the house right this minute was that Nate got fresh corn pone right out of the skillet, and the master ate day-old wheat flour biscuits. Biting into the fluffy golden pan-bread, he wasn't at all sure the master was getting the better part of that bargain.

A low whine came from the doorway. Jeb was sitting on the stoop, too well-trained to enter the house but too eager to sit quietly. The old hound wagged his tail eagerly as Nate looked up, and the man grinned at him. "Massa up already?" he asked. Then he tore off a chunk of side-meat and tossed it to the dog. Jeb wasn't old enough to miss a trick, and he caught it in his jaws and retreated into the dim blue-grey world to devour it.

"You know he allus is," said Meg. "I never see'd a white man work like he do. I didn' think they even could. You know he look sick yesterday, an' still he out there 'til nightfall."

Nate sighed and scooped up another forkful of hominy grits. It was true: Mister Cullen _had_ looked sick, even as early as noontime. With white folks it was always so easy to tell: the color went right out of their faces and they got a kind of greenish-grey look. He'd been spitting an awful lot, too, and that wasn't natural on a hot day when he didn't take water any more often than the rest of them. And by the end of the day he'd had a dazed and dizzy air about him as if he couldn't even think anymore. Nate had thought he didn't look fit to be working, but it wasn't his place to say. Mister Cullen would only tell him to mind his business and remind him that every one of them was needed to get the job done. And he'd be right. Sickening or not they needed the master out there today. There just weren't enough hands for the work otherwise.

Elijah was washing down the last of his cornbread with another cup of coffee, and Nate hurriedly sopped up the gravy on his plate and did the same. Meg was still finishing her meal, but she ate more quickly now. She had to go down to see to the three milch cows before she went out to the fields, while the men were up in the stable. In summertime no one had an extra moment to spare in lingering.

As the two men struck out into the dim morning, they heard Meg call to her daughter. "Time t'get up, Lottie: them chickens'll be scratchin' soon."

Coming out through the willows Nate saw the glow of the lamplight in the windows of the kitchen. There was a thin stripe of golden light glowing from the upper floor, too: it seemed the mistress was up already. He was glad of that. Her illness, whatever it had been, had sent ripples of worry through the small world of the plantation. She was peculiar, and she was a Yankee, but he'd never wish her harm.

The lamp in the stables was lighted already, and Nate came in to find Mister Cullen taking feed for the horses. His eyes were fixed on the scoop, which shuddered a little each time he tried to lift it, and his face was haggard as if with suffering beyond what might be expected even after five days in the tobacco. When he became aware of the dark eyes staring at him, he looked up in irritation.

"Something paining you, Nate?" he asked, shaking down the pail full of grain and adding another trowelful.

"Nawsir," said Nate. His heavy brows furrowed. "You feelin' all right today, Mist' Cullen?"

"I'm stiffer 'n a cattail stalk, and I've got the kind of a headache you don't ordinarily find outside of a bottle, but I'm all right," he answered. "You?"

Nate frowned. "Me?"

"You feelin' all right? 'Cause I don't see you rubbing down them mules." Then he turned around to tip the feed into the mare's stall.

Shaking his head, Nate went about his morning chores. It wasn't his business, he told himself. Whatever was wrong, if it hadn't been enough to keep the master in bed it wasn't his place to suggest it. As he pitched hay for the mules he looked down to the far end of the barn. Elijah was cleaning out Pike's stall, and Mister Cullen was holding the horse while he did. He was leaning heavily against Pike's shoulder, and his face was buried in the horse's mane. He didn't look fit to be heading out into the dew, not at all.

"What say we three black folks take the tobacco today," Nate said, surprising himself. "That wagon axle need mendin', an' you the bes' man fo' that job."

"Tobacco shouldn't take us more than half a day," the master mumbled. "I'll see to the wagon this afternoon." He swayed a little as he led Pike back into his stall, but steadied himself against the gate and set his jaw determinedly. "The quicker we get it done, the better we'll all feel about it."

They would be lucky to have another week before they had to get in there and start all over again, but Nate did not venture this opinion. Elijah had been needling the master about putting in too many plants, but Nate could do his own figuring and he didn't think they'd put in enough; not enough to raise the money needed for another year. They were getting so they could see the end of the stores already, and it was only July. There'd be debts to pay off come fall, and unless Mister Cullen made a miracle of a bargain selling what they had the place would be in trouble.

Privately he thought that the master should have sold off that land yesterday. They couldn't work it anyway, not without at least ten more hands. Certainly he never should have settled the matter with such finality. He could have pretended like he needed to think it over and left the opportunity open. Maybe Sutcliffe would've spooked and offered a better price. At least if Mister Cullen hadn't spat at him there'd have been a chance to sell later if money got too tight. But Mister Cullen was the most prideful man Nate had ever known, and that talk of white trash had been too much for him to take. He always did stupid things when his dignity was hurting, and that had definitely been a stupid thing to do.

When they finished with the stock and headed out to the toolshed, Nate kept a sharp eye on his master's lean figure. He was trudging heavily, much as he had the previous morning in spite of his efforts to hide his soreness, but he kept a straight line as he walked and he didn't stumble. Only once they had changed into their oilskins and met up with Meg did he seem to run into trouble. They each took up their two buckets as usual: some water for drinking, some for dousing overheated heads. But Mister Cullen's arms trembled under the weight, and he kept slopping water over the side of the buckets, drenching the lower legs of his overalls. He was going to be half-soaked even before they got to the field.

Because they would be starting at the far end and working back to the plants they had marked last night, they left only four of the pails in the shade of the oak tree and took the other four with them. Water left in full sun would lose its coolness much faster, but the time they'd save not having to run back and forth was too valuable. Meg tied the red rag around the washing bucket so they wouldn't foul the drinking-water by mistake, and then she took up the very last row. Mister Cullen didn't say one word as he stepped down into the mud. He just hitched his cotton bag higher on his shoulder and bent down to work. In the growing light of dawn his eyes had the dead, glassed-over look of a field hand who'd taken one too many beatings and was expecting another before the day was much older.

Nate took his row, but found he wasn't working as well as he ought to be. He kept glancing up to look across to where the white man labored. After so many years he hardly even felt the dew as it drenched his sleeves and began to soak through his overalls, but even though the morning was already mighty warm Mister Cullen kept being taken with fits of shivering that only seemed to grow worse as the sun climbed higher. He wasn't straightening up between plants, either, and once Nate caught him bent double and clutching at his knees as if trying to keep himself from toppling over. Dizzy, Nate thought.

He suspected he knew what was wrong now, and as they each drew near the end of their first row he grew more and more certain. The master was coming down with a bout of the tobacco sickness.

It happened sometimes to people who weren't used to the work: young ones or women or slaves just bought up from a cotton plantation. Nate himself had had his share of it in the early years. Nobody knew what caused it, for it wasn't like the sun sickness and it seemed to strike in cool weather as well as hot, but it happened most often when the tobacco was wet and a body had been in it for a few days. A person got jittery, with the shakes in his hands and sometimes inexplicable chills, and he felt all the time like he was going to faint. Most times he _did_ faint if he wasn't careful, and that could be the worst of all if the overseer was in a bad mood – not that the master had to worry about _that_. Then came the headache; a heavy pulsating headache that didn't go away with water or even sleep. And next…

Just about on cue, Mister Cullen abandoned the plant he had been working. He staggered to the end of the row and bent out over the grass. Clutching at his abdomen he began to retch.

Meg reached him first, hoisting up her skirts and running fleetly through the mud. By the time Nate drew near she had a bracing hand on his far shoulder and had taken his mangled straw hat with her other. She tossed it some distance away and pressed her stained palm to his brow in the same way she had when Lottie had come down with a misery in the stomach that winter. "There, now," she soothed. "Bring it all up. That's it. Bring it all up, Mist' Cullen, an' you'll feel better for it."

There didn't seem to be much left to bring up. Nate averted his eyes from the mess in the grass, trying not to think of his own breakfast which seemed quite well-represented therein. He looked at the master instead, canted to one side as he leaned into Meg's hold and heaved again with no result.

"Go get 'im some water," Meg ordered, her soft round face suddenly hardening into an uncanny image of Bethel's lean, stern one. Nate was just about to turn and obey when Elijah hurried off down the row, moving at a great pace for a man of his age. Meg shifted her hand, wiping back damp hair from a forehead now unmistakable grey-hued despite its tan. The gesture seemed to restore Mister Cullen to his senses, for he straightened a little and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Leggo, Meg," he said hoarsely, trying to shrug her off and flinching reflexively at the demand this placed on shoulders still stiff and aching from yesterday's work. Meg withdrew her arm, but only as far as his elbow. Nate couldn't blame her for that: the man looked likely to tip like a ninepin at any moment.

Nate closed the remaining distance. "You bes' sit down," he advised, nodding towards an overgrown hillock near the corner of the field. Mister Cullen moved his head as if to nod and then screwed his eyes tightly closed, obviously giddy. Nate took his left arm and together he and Meg led the stumbling man to the slope. He sat heavily, legs bent, and crossed his arms atop his knees before lowering his head gingerly onto them. His mud-caked work boots dug into the grass at mirrored outward angles, bracing him in place.

"Shit," he said in an unsteady voice thick with irritation. "I don't know what's got into me."

"I do," Nate said, looking down at him. "You sick. Comes of workin' the wet tobacco."

A derisive snort came from the burrow of sodden sleeves. "Nobody else is sick. We've all been out here together."

"Sure we have. This year an' last," said Nate, almost chuckling. "But the res' of us been doin' this a whole lot longer an' we've had our turns. You ever spent a whole week in wet tobacco before? You ain't used to it an' besides, you ain't made for it."

Elijah was back now, carrying the drinking bucket. He set it in the grass and drew up a dipperful. Slowly, as if the very motion was torture, Mister Cullen raised his head and reached for it. His hands were shaking so badly that he lost half the contents before he got the tin bowl to his lips. Then he filled his mouth, swished the water 'round, and spat it out feebly at his side. Elijah took the dipper, filled it again, and passed it back.

"Slow," he advised, and the younger man sipped.

He grimaced as he swallowed, but the heaving did not start up again. Gingerly he took a little more. Then he looked up from one concerned dark face to the next and he tried to scowl. "No sense everybody lollygagging around," he said. "I'll be all right in a minute: let's get this job done!"

They all shifted out of the engrained instinct to jump to his command, but then too they all hesitated, looking at one another. In the eyes of the others Nate read his own reluctance: none of them wanted to leave him here like this, not even to work just a few yards away.

"P'raps one of us oughta get you back t' the house," Meg ventured. "You shouldn' go on your own."

"Hang the house!" Mister Cullen exclaimed. The volume of his own voice seemed to pain him, for his mouth contorted in rueful discomfort and he said, far more quietly; "I'm not going back to the house. I'll sit here a minute and catch my breath, then I'll get back to work. Same as I want the rest of you to do, right now!"

He was nothing but a stubborn fool, but Nate did not offer this opinion. Even when they were boys, Mister Cullen had been as bullheaded as a mule with a torn fetlock. There was no use arguing with him when he set his jaw like that. "Meg, you set with 'im a while," he said. "Me 'n Elijah can pick for two."

"Meg, you get back to work, or we're goin' be out here all day," said Mister Cullen thickly. He dropped the dipper into the bucket and lowered his head back down onto his arms with almost excruciating slowness. "Ain't one of us wants to be out here all day."

Meg stood motionless for a moment, looking at him with distress in her eyes. Then she strode over to pick up his hat. "You put this back on, Mist' Cullen, an' you sit there 'til you starts feelin' well again," she said, planting the broad straw brim on the back of his bowed head. "You lookin' awful poorly."

She turned from Nate to Elijah and back. "Bes' do as Massa say," she told them. As she moved past Nate to resume her row she added under his breath; "He only get up an' do it hisself otherwise."

The two men followed her example, but even once he was back into the rhythm of working the plants Nate kept one wary eye on the bowed shape on the slope.

_*discidium*_

Cullen seemed to be subsisting in a haze of utter misery. His temples throbbed with the frantic staccato of his heart, and every beat sent a bolt of anguish burrowing through his skull and into his neck. He was at once unbearably cold and sweltering in the climbing sun. His arms were shaking and he could not keep his lips still, and worst of all the nausea seemed to be rising again.

After his miserable midnight awakening he had expected trouble, but this was beyond anything he could have imagined. There was a weakness in his body more pernicious than any fatigue born of hard work, and the truth was it frightened him. He felt as if he were dying – or at the very least as if he might be better off dead.

He had managed all right that morning, dragging himself out of bed with only a little more discomfort than was usual for the time of year. He had dressed himself without assistance, and had somehow contrived not only to bend to kiss Mary as she sat up in bed, drowsily asking after his health, but to straighten up again afterwards. Not all the way, of course, but in this season there were times when he wondered if his back would ever be straight again. Bethel had laid out his usual breakfast and he had choked back about half. Though this had earned him several suspicious looks and not a few demands after his missing appetite, he had forced down enough to appease her. It was all gone now, of course: festering in the long indiangrass.

His mouth was watering as it had through most of yesterday: pointlessly and without any prompting from an uneasy stomach. Cullen was wretchedly thirsty, but he did not quite feel up to the ordeal of lifting his tormented head or reaching for the dipper. Yet he had to get up sooner or later; there was work that needed doing, and no other hands to do it.

That Nate apparently knew what was wrong with him was a comfort. If it was just laboring in the tobacco that was making him ill he'd be all right. Negroes took sick in the fields all the time, at least on other plantations, and most often they just took care of their vomiting and got back to work. If they could do it, he could do it. Surely it wasn't any more serious than sunstroke, and he'd had a bout or two of that since he'd started working his own land.

Gingerly he raised his head a few inches. The muscles of his neck screamed their protest, but he ignored them. He'd never given in to the dreadful aches that came with this work, and he wasn't about to start now. He tightened his jaw and straightened a little more. His hat began to slip off of his head, and before he knew he was moving it his right hand flew to clamp down upon the crown. The impact sent a concussive wave through his skull. Screwing his eyes closed, he hissed softly behind clenched teeth. This was worse than any liquor-induced headache he had ever had, and it hadn't been nearly as much fun to catch.

With his hat settled in place and his head more or less level, he took another dipperful of water and sipped at it. His stomach churned and his throat closed briefly with an abortive choking sound, but he kept it down. Squinting against the bright morning sun he picked out the dark stooped figures among the livid green tobacco plants. The others were back at their work in earnest, and his determination to get back on his feet grew stronger. Slowly he got one knee under him and twisted to plant both hands in the grass. He paused thus for a moment, breath coming in hot and labored pants. Then he turned, rolling first onto his knees and then digging in with his right foot. His muddy boot slipped a little and he dug in with his toes. Exhausted muscles trembled and his head reeled, but the grade of the little hill worked in his favor and at last he was standing – though not very straight. The bag had slipped on his shoulder and he used his thumb to drag it back into place. Slowly and not without some disoriented weaving he made his way back to his row. Nate called out something to him, but Cullen waved a dismissive hand. They were going to get this job done, damn it, if it killed them all.

He found his place by the deep bootprint left when he had broken into a run, and set back to work. The plant had three new stems sprouting where the top had been lopped short, and he snapped them off one by one. The juice trickled down the side of his finger, and he watched it like a man in a trance. Coherent thought was a distant thing now, but eventually he remembered what he was supposed to be doing and he stooped lower to check the base of each leaf. He had long since given up on straightening his back between plants, but now even the effort of hoisting himself to their tops sent his head reeling. His nausea rose again and he clamped his lips, refusing to give it any quarter.

In this way he managed to make it to the end of the row, but he was not making very good time. As he shuffled down past his people he noted dimly how they kept glancing up as if they expected him to drop right where he stood. He was positively determined that this should not happen. A niggling voice within taunted him. They would never respect him again if he couldn't finish what he had set out to do.

He was feeling the heat again, but this was almost welcome after the bone-jarring chills. If only the sun were not quite so bright! The flesh around his eyes ached with the effort of perpetual squinting, and the light made his headache so many times worse. Fingers scrabbled and vertebrae creaked, and his boots ground deep into the dirt. His arms were leaden and his hands blazed with tingling, and his knees locked and his shoulders cramped, but he kept on with the blind obduracy of a man who was not about to let anything, not even his own body, dictate what he could and could not do. In this way he inched along down yet another row.

Then without warning the nausea struck again, deep and insistent this time. Cullen coughed, fighting to keep his energies focused on the sucker he was trying to pinch, but his stomach would not be ignored this time. A ripple tore through his abdomen and he retched dryly, then fought to swallow. This was a mistake, for the thin, persistent saliva that had been plaguing him since yesterday was enough to send his innards over the edge. Hastily he whirled, clutching at his belly and bending low as he vomited again. There was nothing to bring up now but a little sour-tasting bile, but his body did its best to be sure that it all came up. He had only just turned in time to avoid hitting the plant, but in the moment of misery and mortification he could not be thankful for that. The ground seemed to spin beneath him, and he stumbled forward, boot-heel splashing in his mess. He took two staggering steps and then fell to his knees in the dirt.

Faint and sick and bewildered, Cullen crouched there. His balance deserted him entirely for a long and terrible span of time, and when he came back to dim awareness he was bowed right over his knees, arms thrust out and locked and hands planted deep in the earth before him. He stared at them, their skin almost entirely obscured by tobacco juice and grime, and at the mire that welled up around them. Spastically his fingers closed into fists, choked with the mud; the thick, dark, viscous mud that dragged at his feet and clung to his soul and was slowly smothering his spirit. It squelched beneath his palms and the knees of his oilskins, soaking through the heavy cloth to weigh down the cotton of his drawers. It was hot and hideously smooth in his grasp, with only the faintest traces of grit to sink deep in his nail-beds and the webs of his fingers. He could smell it, loamy and sour and still faintly stinking of the winter's manure. He stared at it, oozing out from his clenching hands like the blood of some great mythical monster beyond his power to vanquish. And he felt nothing but a deep and blazing hatred for the mud, the heavy unfeeling Mississippi mud that had somehow imprisoned him.


	6. Back to the House

**Chapter Six: Back to the House**

Mary sat in her rocking chair on the porch, Gabe's drowsy weight against her at once comforting and smothering. It took the ache from her arms to hold him, but his little body was hot and she was already sweltering in the heat, although it was only the middle of the morning. She seemed to be recovering her strength at last, and she had ventured to get up while Cullen was downstairs with his breakfast. She had laced her stays loosely and donned the generously-cut frock that she had worn through the middle part of her pregnancy. It was roomy in the waist and comfortable on her healing body, but it was also an autumn dress and so a little too heavy to be worn in July. She had tried to compensate for this by limiting herself to two petticoats, but the day was so hot that she probably would have been uncomfortably stifling even running about the place in nothing but chemise and pantalets.

She had done a little housework today; sweeping the upstairs hall and tidying the nursery and dusting the mantel and bookshelf in the parlor. But the effort had proved tiring and Bethel had noticed it, and Mary had been sternly commanded to sit down and rest before she put herself right back in bed. Even if she had not seen the wisdom in this edict Mary would not likely have dared to argue, and so she had retreated to the little veranda with her son. She had brought out his copy of _Tanglewood Tales_ and had been reading quietly to him until the little boy, tired out from stalking Lottie around the dooryard, had drifted into a shallow sleep with his head on her breast. Tenderly she petted his downy hair, and drank in the sweet and quiet moment of motherhood.

Behind her the house was quiet. Bethel would be skimming the cream, and Lottie had gone down to check on the peaches. It was one of the little girl's favorite chores next to blackberry-picking, and Mary suspected that a good many of the fruits were eaten before they ever got back to the house. It was the sort of thing that many of the county matrons complained bitterly about, as if a child who couldn't resist a fresh-picked peach was some kind of nefarious thief. Such assertions always puzzled Mary, for it seemed the most natural thing in the world for someone to want to devour a sweet golden orb plucked fresh off the tree. Peaches were plentiful, and there was no harm in it.

Gabe stirred against her, and his hand crept up towards his mouth, thumb outstretched. Gently she curled her fingers around his wrist and stayed the motion, rocking the chair with one foot. She worried sometimes about raising a little boy in this heat. His energy always waned on the hottest days, and they were in the midst of a spate of very hot days indeed. She had taken to letting him go barefoot, for his little soft-soled brogans were getting too small. He was growing quickly and would be ready for a real pair of copper-toed boots that winter, if only the tobacco crop came in well and fetched a good price.

The thought of the tobacco stirred up her concerns about Cullen. He had assured her over and over again this morning that he was all right, just tired, and that he was well enough to go out. She had had no choice but to let him go when her gentle reasoning failed. It wasn't a wife's place to forbid her husband anything, particularly not the fulfilment of his responsibilities. Still she had half-hoped that Bethel would step in with an ultimatum. Slave though she was, she never suffered the slightest compunction about speaking her mind, and Cullen had a way of listening to her. But when Mary had come downstairs she had found her husband gone, and the black matriarch of the family shaking her head over the jar of saleratus as she started the breakfast biscuits.

Her lower back was beginning to ache, and Mary shifted in the chair. As she settled again she glanced out towards the rise and was alarmed to see two dark figures coming down from the direction of the tobacco fields. One was a little ahead of the other, weaving aimlessly and staggering. The rear figure marched along with a heavy step, but did not falter. As they drew nearer her heart rose into her throat. The lead man was Cullen, stumbling down the slope towards the house, and behind him walked Nate, his face set in determined lines and his arms ratcheted with tension as if they might be called upon at any moment to catch his faltering master.

The moment struck about a hundred yards from the stoop. Cullen stopped abruptly, swaying. His dull eyes seemed to pick out the house as if amidst a heavy fog, and his neck straightened with a little jerk. His left leg trembled, then locked, and his right knee gave way.

Quick as a panther, Nate swooped forward. He clapped one hand around Cullen's waist, and with the other hauled the white man's arm up and around the back of his neck. With his broad shoulders supporting much of Cullen's weight, Nate hurried on, neither quite leading nor quite dragging his master.

Hurriedly Mary shifted Gabe's body up onto her shoulder and stood, the rocking chair thumping behind her. She went to the edge of the veranda, but Nate caught her eye and she stopped. Cullen's head was lolling, damp hair straggling down to obscure her view of his face. His booted feet kept up a pretence of walking, but they kept crossing feebly at the ankles and it was clear that only the black man's support was keeping him upright. Recovering her senses, Mary turned towards the open door of the house.

"Bethel!" she called, her voice rising above the volume ordinarily considered acceptable for a lady. "Bethel, get out here at once!"

The men were at the base of the steps now, and Nate climbed onto the porch, hauling Cullen after him. The last vestiges of strength seemed to leave the lean legs and he sagged, but Nate dragged him to the bench that sat under the parlor window and contrived to prop him up against the side of the house.

"What happened?" Mary demanded anxiously, wanting to go to her husband's side but hampered by the sleeping boy. She looked about for a moment, helpless, and then set Gabe down on the rocking chair. Apparently oblivious to the commotion he merely curled up against its back and slept on.

"He took sick in the fiel', Missus," said Nate, now down on one knee. With one strong hand he kept Cullen pinned upright against the wall, and with the other he was undoing the large buttons down the leg of the oilskin overalls. "Puked up his breakfas' an'… beggin' you' pardon, Missus," he said, evidently ashamed of his indelicate language. "It the tobacco sickness. Comes of workin' wet an' for too many days."

"Are the others ill as well?" Mary asked. She bent to loosen the collar of her husband's work-shirt, and was appalled to find that he was soaked to the skin with sweat and dew. Last night he had said something about wet clothes, but she had not expected this. By the time he came home in the evening his garments were usually only damp. She pressed her hand to one clammy cheek, and Cullen's eyes fluttered open for a moment. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

"No," said Nate. "We's used to it. Been six wet nights an' six hot days: too much fo' a white man to take, 'specially if he not brung up to it. They ain't made fo' it."

She had the cuffs of the shirt unbuttoned now too, and she held one filthy hand so she could slap her husband's wrist. A rush of air and the clatter of shoes announced Bethel's arrival.

"Lor' have mercy, what he done to hisself this time?" she cried. Nate opened his mouth to explain, but Bethel was already giving orders. "Get them boots off firs', an' them oilskins," she said. "We get him up to bed, an' you can ride that uppity mare int' Meridian an' fetch th' doctor. Oh, I knew he weren't right when he didn' eat hardly nothin' this morning. That boy al'ys had the appetite of a bear, an' he didn' even touch his meat…"

She elbowed past Mary to take over the job of keeping the sagging man upright, and Nate turned his attention to the muddied work boots. Mary's frantic patting seemed to take effect at last, for Cullen raked his lids open again and this time his eyes locked with hers. He blinked once, dazed, and then he gave a tiny pained shake of the head.

"No doctor," he muttered.

Mary spread her palm across his brow, trying to contain her worry. "Darling, you took sick in the fields," she said, unsure what he might remember in the haze of his swoon. "We're just going to get you up to bed; everything will be all right."

"Here, Mist' Cullen, you get your arms up 'round my neck," Bethel said, flinging one lifeless limb over her shoulder and reaching for the other. "Hol' on now, much as you can."

With no concern for his filthy clothes against her clean apron, she wrapped both of the arms around his chest and hauled him up a few inches off the bench. Nate dragged on the overalls and as they began to come away Mary hurriedly reached for the waistband of her husband's drawers, which seemed stuck with tobacco sap to the outer garment and likely to come right off with it. It was an unladylike gesture, but she managed to preserve his dignity as Nate continued to pull. In a few swift moments the oilskins were in a heap on the veranda floor, and Bethel eased her master back down onto the bench.

"Good boy," she murmured. Her dark hand patted at Cullen's heaving breastbone. His eyes were rolling under slitted lids as he fought off a fresh fainting spell. "Tha' my good boy. All done now."

"How are we going to get him upstairs?" Mary asked. "I don't suppose we could carry him…"

"You ain' goin' carry nobody!" Bethel cried. "You jus' give youself a rupture an' start bleedin' fresh. Nate on one side, me on the other, we'll manage."

With a soft cooing sound, Gabe sat up. He slid his bottom down to the edge of the rocking chair, gripping the armrests with his small hands as he twisted to look for the source of the uproar that had roused him.

"Mama?" he said. "Bet'l?" Then his face lit up with an enormous smile and he slid down off the chair, which tilted perilously with him before falling back with a _whump _upon the rear bow of the rockers. "Pappy!"

Gabe came charging, almost stepping on Nate's lap as he hurried towards his father. He shimmied between the two broad skirts and took a fistful of the muddy fabric stretched over Cullen's left knee. "Pappy?" he repeated. His small sweet face crumpled as he saw his father's lolling head. "Pappy, wake up. Why you sleepin'? It's morning."

Cullen's eyes focused sluggishly, and his hand twitched towards the child. Then his wan face contorted into an expression of dismay. "Dammit, Mary," he said thickly. "Don't let 'im see me like this!"

Mary turned and gathered Gabe into her arms. Nate was dragging on Cullen's right boot now, and it came free with a loud squelching sound. He reached for the right.

"No, no!" Gabe cried, kicking his bare toes against Mary's thigh and trying to twist to reach for his father. "Pappy, I's goin' be good! I wan' git down! _Pappy!_"

Mary found herself grappling ineffectually with the squirming child, still unable to tear either her eyes or her focus from her husband. She jiggled her boy and tried to soothe him. "It's all right, lovey," she said. "Pappy's just a little sick. We need to be quiet and stay out of the way so that Nate and Bethel can get him up to bed."

Bethel nodded firmly at this, adjusting her hold on Cullen as Nate's grip on the left boot almost dragged him off the bench. The black man rose and took hold of Cullen's wrist as he drew the arm across his shoulders. Bethel did the same, her lean jaw set determinedly. She was nearly sixty, but she was strong and she was determined. With her help Nate managed to hoist the semiconscious master of the house off of the bench. Mary stepped back hastily, still trying to settle her son, and let them past her into the house. Cullen's feet dragged for the first few steps, and then he seemed to realize what was happening, for he made a feeble attempt to walk. His knees would not hold him, however, and he still hung heavily between the two slaves.

Mary followed them into the entryway, but kept back as they started up the stairs. Gabe was crying out for his father in tones that were becoming steadily shriller and more anxious, and Mary tried distractedly to hush him.

From the dining room came the slap of bare feet and a cheerful young voice. "Missus Bohannon? I got twenty good ripe ones, an' there'll be more in jus' a couple days. I never see'd such peaches. I…"

Lottie's voice trailed off as she came into the front hall and looked up at the three bowed figures struggling up the stairs. She had a basket over her arm, piled high with soft golden orbs, and her sun hat was in her hand. "Massa…" she breathed. Frightened eyes turned to Mary. "Wha' happened to Massa?"

"He took sick in the tobacco," Mary said. Her arms were aching with the effort of keeping a grip on her weeping son, and the pain in her back was starting up with a vengeance. "Oh, Lottie, will you watch him so I can get upstairs?"

For a moment the child seemed utterly stricken with astonishment and fear, but then her mouth closed and her dark eyes focused and she nodded. Swiftly she set down the basket of peaches on the chair by the door, and tossed her hat beneath it. She held out her arms and Mary disentangled Gabe from her own grasp, handing him off to the girl. Startled and now panicking, Gabe wailed, "_Mama_!" He tried to fling himself backward, but Lottie was fast and she was stronger than her wiry little body seemed to suggest. She got her arm around his shoulder blades and hugged him tightly to her, using the other hand to heft his bottom onto her hip.

"Now hush, Mist' Gabe honey," she said firmly. "You pappy's goin' have his naptime, an' Mama gots to tuck him in."

Gabe ogled at her, shocked out of his tears, and hiccoughed loudly. "Pappy don' take no naps," he protested, his tone equal parts bewilderment and that particular superciliousness that only very young children possessed. _He_ knew his pappy didn't take naps, and Lottie wasn't going to convince him otherwise.

"Well, he goin' take one today," said Lottie, unperturbed. "Now you 'n me, we goin' have ourselves one of them peaches I picked. Missus? I kin give him a peach, can' I?"

"Yes, please, Lottie. Thank you," Mary said hastily. She would have agreed to the girl giving Gabe a coach and four, if it calmed him and pleased him and left her free to hurry after Cullen. "I'll be down as soon as I'm able."

"Oh, don' worry 'bout us, Missus." Lottie's chin jerked in a very adult gesture. Gabe had stopped fighting her, and had his chin on her shoulder as he looked at the basket of peaches behind her. She moved her hand from his back to pet his cloud of soft curls. "We's goin' have us a peach, 'n then maybe we go toss corn for the chickens."

Mary offered the best smile she could manage under the circumstances, and then seized up her skirts with a swoop of her left hand. Hoisting them higher than propriety usually allowed, she whipped around the newel-post and bolted up the stairs.

They were in the bedroom already, Cullen sitting slumped on the side of the bed. Nate was gripping his shoulders while Bethel had the china washbasin over his lap. With the other hand she held Cullen's head as he retched. She had eyes only for him, but as Mary entered Nate looked up with an almost imploring expression on his ordinarily implacable face. Hurriedly Mary closed the door so that Gabe would not hear. Then she rounded the bed. Cullen gave one last deep, sundering cough, and spit feebly into the thin puddle of water and acid in the bowl. Mary tugged her handkerchief out of her cuff and bent to wipe his mouth as Bethel took the dish away.

"There," she said. "That must feel better. Nate, please help me lie him down."

Nate cast a doubtful eye at the bed. "He goin' dirty them sheets," he warned.

"Never mind the sheets," said Mary. "Bethel, can you lift his feet, please?"

"I can lift my own feet," Cullen muttered, but he did not resist as Bethel seized his ankles and lifted. Nate shifted his body and a moment later Cullen was supine on the bed. Bethel peeled off his socks, and Mary started to unbutton his shirt. He was perspiring profusely but seemed a little more lucid than before.

"We'll get you some water," Mary told him; "and then you can sleep. Nate is going to go to fetch the doctor to have a look at you, and—"

"Uhh. No doctor," Cullen said. His voice was so slurred that he sounded intoxicated, but his eyes were bright and fiercely focused. "All I need's some rest and I'll bounce right back. Ain't that so, Nate? You took your turn, you said. Pappy ever fetch you a doctor?"

"Nawssir, he didn'," said Nate darkly. He caught a cold look from Bethel, who was filling the water glass and added in a deliberately offhand way; "But then I's only a nigger, an' I's built for such work."

There was an undertone to his words that Mary did not like, but Cullen's face twitched into a painful rictus that was something like a smile. He made the shallowest of throaty chuckles. "That's so," he said. "But you come out of it all right anyhow, didn' you?"

"Yes, Massa," said Nate. His tone was very flat now and he refused to look at either of the women. He kept his eyes intently on Cullen. "Two-three days res' an' you be jus' fine."

Cullen exhaled heavily and his head sank more deeply into the goose-down pillow. His sweat-soaked hair was already darkening the slipcover, and his face was a ghastly grey against the creamy muslin. "There, you see?" he said, shifting his gaze to Mary without moving his neck. "Two or three days and I'll be just fine."

Bethel snorted. "How Nate s'posed to know what wrong with you?" she said. "Could be you got the ague or sumthin', an' he wouldn' know. Nate nothin' but a young fool."

"It the tobacco sickness," Nate said. "Six days, six wet mornings, him not used to the work. Boun' to happen sooner or later." He ticked off symptoms with one calloused finger. "Pale, dizzy, headache, shiverin', pukin', faint dead away. Tobacco sickness."

Bethel had her arms crossed belligerently over her chest, and she was glowering at the black man. "You a fool," she said stoutly. "Now jus' you get on out of here an' back to your work. Leave the nursin' to folks as knows what they doin'."

Nate was cowed, but as he retreated he muttered discontentedly; "I thought you was sendin' me fo' the doctor."

"No doctor!" Cullen exclaimed. He flinched at the sound of his own voice and the drawn look about his face deepened. "Get on out back to that field. Nate," he said, making the obviously sickening effort to turn his head towards the door. "You know we got to get them plants finished today. They'll be ruined by Monday."

"Yassir," said Nate, and now there was nothing but grim agreement in his voice. "I know."

He bowed awkwardly at Mary and retreated from the room. For a moment there was silence, and Mary reached down to take her husband's hand. It was coated thickly with mud, now drying and coming off in crusted flakes that fell upon the counterpane. Slowly and excruciatingly he straightened his head again and tried to smile for her.

"I'll be all right," he promised. "Just this derned headache."

He was feeling well enough now to mind his language, at least: surely that was a good sign. Bethel rounded Mary and curled her arm under Cullen's neck. She tipped the water against his lips and he licked at it, then sucked in a small mouthful. Warily he swallowed, and then closed his eyes and sighed. "No doctor, Mary. I mean it," he mumbled.

She was easing his arm out of its shirtsleeve. "We'll see," she said. "If you get any worse, or you're no better tomorrow then I'm sending for him and you won't be able to stop me. Bethel, what about some soap and rags so we can wash his hands?"

"Yass'm," said Bethel. "I might fix some ginger-water, too. It don' sour in the stomach like well water do. I 'spects Nate be right: it sure do look like tobacco sickness. But we got to keep a watch out." She shook her head dolefully. "I tol' you this weren't no fit job for white folks, Mist' Cullen. I tol' you."

Bethel moved to the door, calico skirts whispering, and slipped out into the hall. Mary was working on her husband's other sleeve now, and her eyes were drawn to his face as he tried again to smile.

"To hear her talk, I'm only out there to make her crazy," he said, his voice hoarse and breathless.

"Hush," said Mary, making an effort to turn up the corners of her own mouth. "You've gone and given her a scare today. She's bound to scold."

"Don't know why I stand for it," he said. Locking his jaw, he braced his elbows and lifted himself off the mattress so that she could pull the soiled work shirt out from under them. When he fell back he lay panting quietly for a long minute.

The urgent energy born of fear was beginning to fade a little, and Mary felt wrung out and exhausted. Her back and her pelvis were aching, and the perspiration at the nape of her neck began to grow cold. She cast about for something useful to do, and saw the water glass. "Do you want more to drink?" she asked gently.

Cullen's head twitched, but he thought better of shaking it. "Prob'ly just come up again," he muttered, eyes closed.

The door opened and Bethel came back in bearing the pot of soap and an old towel. "Bes' let me get 'im clean an' out of them wet things, Missus Mary," she said. "Ain't no good you stayin' an' strainin' youself. You could see 'bout that ginger-water if you want to. Have Lottie bring it up col' from the well, an' you add one teaspoon sugar an' one pinch ginger an' mix it up. Make sure it col'."

Mary was reluctant to leave, but glancing at Cullen she could see the faintest flush of embarrassment on his pallid cheeks. If he didn't want her to witness these proceedings then she would spare his dignity. "I'll be back soon, dearest," she said, and bent to kiss one tar-smeared cheek. He made a quiet hum of assent, and she withdrew.

In the corridor she halted, her back to the door, and pressed her fingers deeply into the flesh of her abdomen just below the bottom of her corset. The pressure eased the grinding ache a little, and she composed her expression. Her mother would have been dismayed by her display in front of the servants, but Mary was far more concerned about how she would look to her son. Gabe had been badly frightened by the chaos on the veranda, and she did not want to upset him further. When she was certain her expression was serene – though surely her face was pale – she smoothed her hair with her palms and descended the stairs.

At the bottom she halted, for a moment startled to see a figure standing out in front of the house. Then her breathing eased and she moved towards the open front door. Nate was on the bottom step of the porch, banging Cullen's work-boots together so that the mud came flying off in sticky clods. Folding her hands neatly before him, Mary stepped out under the whitewashed roof.

"I wanted to thank you, Nate," she said, conscious that she sounded rather prim but not quite sure how to change that. "You've been very good today."

The Negro looked up, apparently unfazed by her quiet approach. "Only done what a good han' would, Missus," he said.

"All the same, thank you. You're going back out to join the others?"

"Goin' work that tobacco, yass'm. I jus' saw these here boots an' thought they bes' get a good beatin' fo' the damp spoil the leather." Nate bent to set them down on the top step. When he straightened he did so with the same stilted stiffness that Cullen always exhibited at this time of the year, and Mary was stricken with the sudden realization that he must be hurting too.

"Is there… is there anything I can do to help?" she asked, inexplicably uncertain. "The situation in the fields, I mean. You'll be a man short now."

"Yes, Missus, we be that," said Nate inscrutably. "It goin' take us longer, jus' three of us workin'. You wants to help, maybe you sen' Lottie down in a couple hours with fresh water an' somethin' to eat. We'll work on through, hopefully get done 'round two-three o'clock." He paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Massa ain't tol' us what he thinks we ought do then," he muttered.

"Oh." Mary sifted through the last half-dozen conversations she had had with her husband, but she could not recall him mentioning what else needed to be done around the plantation. He had been looking no further ahead than finishing this pass through the tobacco. "What would you suggest?" she asked.

Nate shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, refusing to meet her eye. "Ain't my place to say," he hedged.

Then she remembered that today was Saturday, and that generally Saturday afternoons were given to the slaves to rest, at least as much as the needs of the farm and the care of the stock allowed. Her discomfiture eased a little. "Well, once you've finished with the tobacco then your time is your own," she said with what she hoped was a suitably Southern dignity. "Please tell the others. I may need you to ride for the doctor if Mr. Bohannon takes a turn for the worse, but I hope it will not come to that."

"Yass'm," said Nate. "I hope it don'." He touched the brim of his battered hat and bowed to her. "I bes' get on back. Elijah 'n Meg mos' likely worried for the massa."

He strode off back towards the rise, and Mary watched him as he went. She was fond of the family Negroes, and full of fine feelings about abolition and equality, but the truth was she still did not really understand them. Still she felt she had done what Cullen would have wanted, and that bolstered her. She retreated into the house again, leaving the doors wide to catch the air.

Gabe and Lottie were gone from the dining room, and so she was spared the ordeal of putting on a brave face. From the kitchen she could hear them, laughing together out in the yard as the chickens sent up a chorus of eager clucking. Gabe let out a shrill, delighted shriek, and Lottie chuckled and said something to him. Relieved that her child was happy and cared-for, Mary searched the kitchen for the things she needed. She did not want to call for Lottie when she was doing such an important service with the little boy, and so she took the pail and went down to the well herself. The children were intent on the chickens and did not see her as she passed. Cullen kept the windlass well-greased and properly tightened, and it turned with ease despite the weight of water pouring from the bucket. Mary filled her own vessel about halfway with the cold water, and splashed a handful on her face. The droplets sparkled as they flew from her fingers, like a fistful of diamante shining in the glorious summer sun.

_*discidium*_

Cullen did not want to wake up, but it seemed his body had other ideas. He surfaced on a rising tide of a hundred different aches – in his arms, in his hamstrings, in every fibre off muscle wrapping his back and ribs – but it was the pulsing in his head that was the most unbearable. He felt as though he had been thrown from a horse, and quite possibly then trampled by it, and he tried to remember with whom he had been drinking and why, whether he had lost any money on a bad wager, and what sort of a reprimand he was in for when his father found out.

Then it came back to him with a faint whiff of lilac sachet borne on the hot and unsteady breeze that was falling across his face and shoulders. He was no longer a wild and carefree youth charging about the county in the company of the other planters' high-spirited sons. He was a grown man and the master of the plantation now, with a wife and a child and responsibility for five other hungry mouths besides, and he had taken ill in the tobacco. Under the scent of his wife's pomander he found more unpleasant aromas: the sharp strong smell of the homemade soap they used for every day because store-bought bar soap was too dear, the sour reek of his own stale sweat, and the low and almost intangible stench of the Mississippi mud. He wrinkled his nose in distaste and parted his lips so that he might breathe through them instead.

The air upon his face fell still for a moment, and then gusted more quickly. A soft voice called out to him, his name a question saturated with equal parts love and worry. Warily, dreading the glare of sunlight that would send daggers of pain through his throbbing temples, Cullen cracked open his eyes. The lashes were stiff with salt, and they crackled as they fluttered, but the room in which he was lying was mercifully dim. Someone had drawn the muslin curtains to filter both the light and the heat of the day. His eyes wandered over the familiar ceiling, and then found the sweet, beloved oval of Mary's face. It took a tremendous effort to focus his gaze, but when he did he found her smiling. Or rather, her lips were smiling. Her eyes were clouded with sadness and something else. Something he earnestly hoped was not pity.

"Good morning," she said gently. She seemed to know that he needed her to keep her voice soft and low. She had her palmetto fan in one hand, and she was swishing it back and forth over him: this then was the source of the breeze in this still and muggy room. "Or good afternoon, I suppose. How are you feeling?"

He tried to speak, but his throat was closed and he managed only a croak. Grimacing thinly he tried to wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. He tasted perspiration, salty and faintly sweet, and the acid undertone of bile, and… ginger? He dimly remembered Bethel holding a glass to his lips and telling him to drink it all down, because he needed water and this wouldn't sour in his stomach. He had obeyed her unquestioningly, comforted by the capable black hands that had nursed him through his boyhood afflictions: everything from measles to the aftermath of his first encounter with good Scotch whiskey.

Mary's face looked pinched and pale, and the shadows beneath her eyes that had just begun to fade after her mysterious illness were dark again. Concern for her roused him to find his voice. "How long've I been sleeping?" he croaked.

"About four hours," she said. "Do you feel any better?"

It was an impossibly abstract question. Instead of trying to dredge up some sort of answer that would probably be more than half a lie, Cullen offered his own. "Did you send for the doctor after all?" he asked.

"No." Mary's brow furrowed. "You told me not to."

He closed his eyes, relishing the small release of tension from the muscles at their corners. "Good," he said. "Waste of two dollars." The wafting of the fan was stirring the fine border-hairs of his beard so that they tickled his cheeks. "Leave off with that thing awhile," he said crossly. "You ain't going to raise a wind on a July afternoon no matter how you try."

He opened his eyes again abruptly, afraid that he had hurt her with his words. To his enormous relief he saw that her smile had deepened now and there was a faint flush in her cheeks. "I know you must be feeling better," she said; "if you're well enough to grouse."

Cullen made a hoarse noise in his throat that under other circumstances would have come out as a chuckle. Good old Mary: she knew him, all right. "I guess I must be at that," he said. He hitched up his elbows and tried to push himself into a sitting position. He did not quite manage it, but immediately Mary was rearranging the pillows so that when he did fall back he was propped up at a comfortable angle. Riding a wave of swirling dizziness, he smiled for her. "There any water about, love? I'm thirsty."

From the table by the bed she took a glass and held it out. He curled a quaking hand around it, but she kept her own grasp too, and together they navigated it to his mouth. He drank cautiously, his stomach churning a low warning, and then let out a satisfied sigh. "Much better," he said.

Mary replaced the vessel on the table, and was just turning back with a question on her lips when there came a soft rapping at the door. "Come in," said Cullen, turning his head too quickly and sending it reeling again. By the time his vision had cleared Bethel was well into the room, a pair of napkins draped over one wrist and a little china sorbet bowl in each hand.

"Good: you awake," she said. She looked at Mary with an expression of exasperated commiseration. "He tell you how he feelin', or he jus' dance 'round the question?"

Mary smiled. "I think he's feeling a little better, Bethel."

"He sittin' up at least," said the older woman. Then she frowned. "You didn' hois' him, did you?"

"I hoisted myself," said Cullen in some irritation. They could at least stop talking as if he weren't even in the room.

"I only moved the cushions," Mary promised.

Bethel offered a terse nod of approval and came around to Cullen's side of the bed. She rounded Mary's chair and looked from master to mistress. "Jus' you try an' eat this, now," she said. "I'll bring you up some dinner direc'ly, Missus, but I think it bes' Mist' Cullen take it slow."

She handed one bowl to Mary and placed the other on Cullen's stomach, her hand lingering until he took reflexive hold of it. A light and sugary scent reached his nostrils and he tipped the dish. It was filled with diced watermelon from which the seeds had been carefully picked. His mouth began to water, but his face crumpled into a grimace. "Aw, Bethel," he groaned. His free hand gestured at the bowl and fell exasperatedly onto the coverlet. "You know I was saving this for tomorrow so everyone could have a bit of a Sunday treat."

"Well, they's havin' it now," Bethel said stoutly. "You think I'd waste a whole melon jus' so you could have a taste? I slice't the res' up, an' we all goin' have some. Them others is in from the field: got her all done. They deserves somethin' nice 'n cool, an' you needs somethin' in you that's like to stay down."

Cullen felt his tired shoulders relaxing a little as one worry ebbed. "They got her done?" he echoed reverently. He picked up the silver desert fork and studied it. It looked impossibly dainty in his work-roughened hand. "Well, that's a mercy."

"Hmph," grunted Bethel. For a moment she was silent, and then she added; "An' they get her done without you out there tryin' to kill youself. World go right on turnin' without you breakin' your back at the grindstone."

Not wanting to start up another quarrel in which he argued necessity and she railed about his health, his standing in the eyes of the slaves and the neighbors, and what she in general considered fitting for a gentleman, Cullen speared a piece of the luscious pink fruit. The fork trembled only a little as he raised it to his lips, and in the fragrant explosion of bliss he forgot about his miseries for a moment. The watermelon was crisp and cool from three days in the springhouse, and as he pressed the little cube against the roof of his mouth it burst in a flood of scrumptious juice. He sucked at it slowly, still wary of his unsettled innards, but when no nausea arose he swallowed and chased after another bright shard.

Mary was chewing hers thoughtfully. "Thank you, Bethel: it's a lovely treat," she said upon swallowing. She berthed her fork and reached to take the napkins. "Go and enjoy your share. And do please tell Lottie not to let Gabe swallow any of the pips."

"Oh, she know that already, Missus Mary," Bethel promised. She strode halfway to the door and turned to add, with an arch look at Cullen; "That chile gots more sense than a heap of grown folks."

Then she whirled and disappeared from the room, her steady footfalls sounding on the stairs. For a moment husband and wife sat motionless, staring after her. Then Cullen turned his head gingerly back to his bowl, chuckling softly. Mary let out a silvery giggle, and then the two of them were laughing like a pair of young lovers lately relieved of an over-strict chaperone. Cringing a little as his ribs, still sore from days of stooping, protested the exertion, Cullen did not notice that Mary too seemed to be laughing despite some unseen pain.


	7. Day of Rest

**Chapter Seven: Day of Rest**

Leaning into the corner between the wall and the footboard of Gabe's little bed, Cullen watched the slow rise and fall of his son's stomach as he slept. One hand cupped a small bare foot, and the calloused thumb traced a tender semicircle along the knob of the ankle. The darkened nursery was heavy with the immutable summer heat, but despite this and the stiff constriction of his Sunday clothes Cullen felt more comfortable in himself than he had all week.

Spending time with his boy always steadied him. When he couldn't remember quite why he kept on toting his responsibilities, the sight of the trusting child who relied upon the fruits of his labor set him right. When he found himself mired in frustration and impotent rage, a few joyful minutes with Gabe washed him clean again. Even his back, which after spending most of yesterday in bed was now a mass of tangled pains fissured with constant shallow spasms of agony, didn't hurt him half so much when his son was perched high on his shoulders, laughing delightedly. In summertime when there was so little leisure and Cullen's day of work began with the light and dragged on well past sundown, he didn't spend nearly enough time with his child. There were too many days when he didn't see Gabe at all. So on Sundays the two were virtually inseparable from the moment Mr. and Mrs. Bohannon got back from church to the moment when Gabe finally fell asleep for the day.

Today, of course, there had been no question of going to church. Even if Cullen had been up to it, Mary was only three days out of bed herself and still not lacing her corsets snugly enough to wear one of her good dresses. It pained Mary when she couldn't make her weekly outing; bred in the city, she sometimes suffered from a feeling of isolation on the quiet plantation. But though his conscience pricked him Cullen was glad of the respite. He didn't mind the service itself: they had a good Methodist preacher in Meridian, and the congregation knew its way around the hymnal. It was the hanging about afterward that he didn't care for, when half the neighborhood (the other half went to the Baptist church, which let out forty minutes later) turned out to gossip in the churchyard. He had always been out of place among the planters and their wives, even as a boy, and although his pedigree demanded that they continue to include him in their social circle they resented his disregard for their rigidly enforced niceties. It bordered on iconoclasm, and his choice of a Northern bride had not helped his standing in their eyes. Some of the men were willing to overlook his eccentricities out of respect for a straight-talking and straight-shooting neighbor who was always willing to help a fellow out of a bind, but the women were a different matter. They saw him as an unwelcome companion to their husbands and a dangerous influence on their sons, and the fact that most of the young belles of the county seemed half-taken with the poor but dashing Mr. Bohannon did not help his cause at all. There was always a great deal of whispering behind fans and gloved hands when he escorted Mary out of the church, and although he didn't much care what they said about him he didn't like exposing his wife to that kind of unfavourable scrutiny.

So it had been a welcome treat to stay at home this morning, moving gingerly about the house out of deference to his sore body and still-unsteady head. He had spent a highly amusing hour trying to teach Gabe to play draughts. The boy was really too young for the game, but that was the fun of it. He would grab one of his little red men and send it leaping willy-nilly around the board, sweeping up half of Cullen's pieces in one enthusiastic – and highly illegal – charge. Then he would whoop and clap and bounce up and down on his tucked-up knees and demand that they play again. After that he had wanted to wrestle, but Cullen had declined even without Mary's disapproving glance. They had settled instead for a raucously noisy but largely sedentary game involving a dishtowel and the turkey-feather fly swisher. Mary had watched all of this from her chair in the corner of the parlor with eyes that seemed by turns merry and unspeakably sad.

After the family finished a cold dinner that spared Bethel any excessive kitchen exertions on what was her day of rest as much as theirs, Cullen had brought Gabe upstairs to settle him for his afternoon nap. It had taken the little boy a long time to calm down enough to sleep, for he had missed his father during the week and he had endless eager stories to impart. There was one in particular about Pappy taking a nap with a peach that Cullen could not quite decipher, but he listened gravely all the same, making what he thought were appropriate responses and offering the child his complete attention. Cullen believed folks didn't spend enough time listening to their children, and he made a point of doing it whenever he could.

Now at last Gabe was dreaming, his eyes flicking to and fro beneath their lids while a lazy smile played on his round baby face. It was time for Cullen to bestir himself and head back down to the parlor. Sunday or not, he had some figuring to do, and without the happy distraction of his son the problem just wouldn't let him alone.

Still it was with reluctance that he finally shifted one leg and inched off the little feather tick. Gabe did not so much as pause in his rhythm of breathing when Cullen's first attempt to stand on cramped and unsteady legs sent him falling back heavily against the mattress. He gripped the bedpost and levered himself up with greater care the second time, and shuffled quietly to the door. Working the tobacco always left him feeling crippled up with aches, and yesterday's disaster had done nothing to change that. He tried to square his shoulders, but he could not quite manage it. Slipping into the upstairs hallway, he drew the door most of the way closed before descending to rejoin his wife.

Mary was working on her embroidery, sitting in the bright patch of sun admitted to the room through one tied-back curtain. She didn't have much time for fancy stitching during the week, when in the ordinary way of things she was busy with her child and the running of the house, the care of the garden, and the family mending that seemed to grow more and more voluminous as clothes began to wear out that could not be readily replaced. Knowing the pleasure she took in her bright silks and intricate samplers, Cullen regretted this almost more than anything else. If she had married some Yankee businessman she would have had all the leisure she wanted.

As he came into the room she looked up and smiled. There was such a determined air of serenity about her, but he could read her own weight of worries behind the smoky blue eyes and he wished all at once that he couldn't. "Finally got him to sleep," he said. "That boy of ours talks three times more 'n any politician I ever met, but he's at least twenty times more interesting."

"Did he tell you about Jeb chasing that frog?" asked Mary. "He's been saving that up since Thursday afternoon."

Cullen flinched inwardly at that, but he was on the far side of the parlor now and was able to avoid any response by taking out his small ring of keys. He took his time in looking them over each in turn, though he could have found the one he wanted in a moment. He only had half a dozen keys, and most of them didn't see much use. There was the key to the front door, a big iron thing that weighed down his pocket; the keys to the springhouse and the smokehouse; the key to the strongbox in the crawlspace where he kept his store of ammunition for the rifle and the shotguns. He had a key to Mary's jewel-box, which he never used, and he had a key to his grandfather's desk.

The desk was a colossal old secretary, and family lore had it that Duncan Bohannon had hauled the thing with him through five states on his pilgrimage to settle in the Mississippi Territory. What might have possessed the man Cullen could not imagine, and it was one question that he had never dared to ask his redoubtable grandfather, who had died when he was nine. Whatever the case, the desk had occupied pride of place in this room since the house was built, and Cullen's father had transacted almost all plantation business seated in the elegantly carved Empire chair before it. Cullen himself seldom used it, not only because he had precious little time for sitting around at a desk, but because the stolid formality of the mahogany façade with its inlaid drawers and its intricately cast handles had always made him feel profoundly uncomfortable and not a little ridiculous. Its function now was primarily one of storage, housing not only the trappings of literacy but also nails and carpet tacks, scissors, twine, wallpaper paste, Mary's collection of odd buttons, and the small cache of tobacco that Cullen kept back every year for his personal use. Nevertheless it was the only writing surface in the parlor, and it was rude to leave a lady alone to scribble at the dining room table.

He unlocked the fall front and drew out the props to support the writing board. Behind it were pigeonholes stuffed with a clutter of old correspondence, railroad bills of lading, and draft sketches done on scraps of paper. There was also a drawer, secure unlike those in the cabinetry above, in which Cullen kept what little money he had beyond the fifteen dollars propping open his credit at Madsen's Bank in Meridian. His finger crooked under the drawer pull for a moment, pensively, and then he sighed softly. He rummaged through the yellowing leaves of rubbish until he found an aged letter with a blank back. He smoothed it out on the drop-leaf and uncorked the inkwell. In his exhaustion on Thursday night he had forgotten to clean the nib of his pen before putting it away, and it was choked with dark flakes. He wiped off what he could with the corner of the paper, and then sucked off the rest. It had a bitter taste and it stained his lower lip, but he did not care. He dipped his pen and began to write.

Once he started the thoughts came more quickly than his fingers could lay them out. A column of sums appeared, almost of its own accord. He scratched succinct notes in the margin, thinking through the pen instead of out loud. The necessity of returning time and again to the inkwell interrupted his writing but not the flow of his reasoning. From the figures he turned seamlessly to a list of the dozens of chores, great and small, that had to be accomplished in a day, in a week, in the months between now and the end of the tobacco harvest. He didn't understand them all or why many of them had to be done, and he certainly couldn't perform most of them with much skill, but he had a quick mind and a flawless memory and by the time he had filled the last inch of useable paper he knew he had laid out everything.

He put down the pen and flexed his fingers. They had worked just as hard as any other part of him this week, and they were aching in protest of this additional effort. With his left hand he lifted the paper, its ink still gleaming and damp, and he exhaled heavily. He had four months' work summarized neatly on the page, but in reality that labor stretched out like an unending road before him – a road of drudgery and worries and uncertain rewards.

"Today's a day of rest, Cullen," Mary said gently. "Let that be."

"You don't even know what I'm working on," he said, setting down the sheet and rubbing thumb and forefinger together so that a smudge of ink spread between them.

"I know it's plantation business, and you should leave it. What do you _want_ to be doing today?" She buried the end of a strand of blue silk, and set the embroidery frame in her lap so that she could thread her needle afresh.

Cullen grinned at her, shoving aside his worries for a moment. "You got the most modern notions about Sundays," he said. "Shouldn't I be reading my Bible or preaching to the darkies?"

"My father said that if a man worked the whole week long, he earned the right to do as he pleased one day out of seven," said Mary. "Providing he wasn't drinking or blaspheming, of course."

"Of course," said Cullen solemnly. Whatever his feelings about the rest of his wife's family, he had always got on well with his father-in-law. Leonidas Tate was a sensible man, and he hadn't even looked surprised, let alone horrified, when Cullen had asked him for Mary's hand.

"Well, then, you've worked your six days. What do you want to do?"

Cullen spared her the argument that he had not worked all of yesterday. The shame of that still stung, though he still didn't know what he might have done to prevent it. "I meant to take Bonnie out for a gallop," he said. "Poor girl's getting restless shut up in the paddock all week." He sighed and scratched at his brow. "Fine lot of good it'd do us if I came over giddy while she was at speed and broke my leg."

Mary's placid expression faltered. "Are you still giddy, then?" she asked anxiously.

"Not so long as I stand up nice and slow," said Cullen. He shrugged ruefully, sending up a jolt of pain through his neck. "Don't know what I'll be good for on Monday."

"I thought you were going into Meridian to get the mail tomorrow," said Mary. "Surely in the buggy you wouldn't have to worry about getting dizzy, providing you kept a sensible pace. Or I could come with you, just in case."

He had forgotten all about his intention to go into town. It seemed as if he had forgotten most things in the single-minded drive to finish this latest pass through the tobacco. He had to stop doing that. A farmer - or planter - couldn't take the short view, not even for a little while: he had to look months ahead, planning and figuring and fretting. It wore a man out.

"You want to go into town?" he asked. "You're only just out of bed."

"Not particularly," said Mary; "but I will if you need me. Or if you want me," she amended. She added softly; "It's been four weeks since you've gone for the mail, and I know there are other things we need."

Her words pricked at him. Until that moment he had been convinced she was only suggesting the excursion to keep him away from the farm work for a half-day or more, but now he wondered. Four weeks between mail runs meant four weeks since she'd had a letter from home.

"I can go on my own," he said. "It'll do the horses good to get off the place for a while, even if they are pulling a buggy. What-all do we need?"

"I'll speak to Bethel and write up a list," Mary promised. "Now close up that desk and try to enjoy your Sunday."

Cullen did close the desk, locking it carefully and stowing his keys, but he took his sheet of scrawlings with him. Mindful of his sore head, he stood up slowly. "I think I'll take a little walk down to the cabins," he said. "See how everyone's getting along."

Mary gave him a long look, but said nothing to dissuade him. She took another tiny stitch and studied her sampler to consider the next one.

Cullen went out through the kitchen, moving quietly past Bethel where she drowsed in her chair beside the stove. The afternoon was hot and bright; the air heavy and the sky clear. It was a mercy it was Sunday, for this was no weather to be working in. That it was just the same weather in which they had all been working for days did not even cross his mind.

The dooryard was quiet; Jeb was sleeping in the shade of the chicken coop, and in the paddock behind the barn Pike and Bonnie were grazing contentedly. The four mules were also out, standing off to one side as if they realized they were the social and natural inferiors of the horses and feared to encroach upon their space. Cullen took the shortcut through the willows, emerging from their shade just behind Meg's cabin. It was shut up, for Meg would be over at Hartwood visiting her Peter, and Lottie was probably down at the creek. Meg didn't take her onto Sutcliffe's land anymore, and hadn't in over a year.

He found Nate sitting in the doorway of his cabin, puffing on his old clay pipe and whittling something shapeless. Seeing him, the black man shifted as though to stand. Cullen held out a staying hand. "I'm not here to intrude on your rest," he said. "Where's Elijah?"

"Lyin' down out the sun," said Nate. He shifted the pipe in his teeth and let a long stream of smoke out of his nostrils. "Guess it _his_ res' you be fixin' to intrude on."

He kept his tone neutral, but it was the sort of statement that smacked of subversion. Cullen's eyes narrowed, but he could see nothing in the impassive dark face to indicate what his old friend was thinking. "I need his help," he said. "His expertise."

Nate scowled. He didn't like it when Cullen used words that showed his education, and Cullen tried not to do it. But today he was still suffering under the weight of that intractable headache and he had forgotten. "What that?" the black man grunted.

"His knowledge," said Cullen. He opened his mouth again and thought better of it. Using the master's prerogative, he simply walked past to Elijah's cabin.

The door was agape, and the one room dark. Cullen stepped over the threshold and out of Nate's intense line of sight, standing for a minute while his eyes adjusted. Elijah was lying sprawled out on his bunk, naked to the waist. His ropey old chest moved with breath that was too quick for slumber, but his eyes were closed and one arm flung up across his brow.

Cullen rapped lightly on the small table under the window. It rocked with the motion and he made a note to have a look at it later. Elijah stirred. "I tol' you I aimed to get some rest," he said sourly. "Get on outta here an' keep youself busy."

"All right," said Cullen. "When can I come back?"

The old man stiffened and got hastily up onto one elbow. "Massa!" he exclaimed. "I didn' know it were you. What you want from this ol' hand on a Sunday?"

Cullen glanced back at the open doorway, but decided to leave it alone. If Nate wanted to eavesdrop no door would stop him. The cabin walls were adequate for the mild Mississippi winters, but they didn't muffle much sound. "I need some advice," he said. "Don't get up."

He stooped, feeling the motion in every bone of his spine, and hooked his fingers around the stool tucked under the table. He dragged it over to the bunk and sat, shaking out the paper he held with a flick of his wrist. "It's about the tobacco."

"I see." Elijah shifted so that he was leaning against the weathered wall, one knee drawn up. "Thinkin' mebbe we oughta let a few rows go after all?"

"We can't afford to let a few rows go," said Cullen. "If we make a decent quality crop I'll still have trouble meeting expenses, and if it's anything like last year…"

"Las' year was a bad one," Elijah agreed with a regretful nod of the head. "Too dry. Tobacco need the rain more 'n cotton do. Tha's why mos' folks 'round here don' grow it."

"Look," said Cullen; "Nate said I took sick yesterday from too many days working in the wet. Bethel seems to think he's right. You agree?"

Elijah shrugged. "It part of this job," he said. "We all take a turn now 'n then. Meg have a headache las' night too, on'y she used to the work so it don' go so far."

Cullen frowned. No one had said anything to him about Meg suffering a headache. "Well, that's what I mean," he said wearily. "What can we do to stop that from happening?"

"Ain't a thing we can do," said Elijah. "'Cepting keep out the tobacco when it wet, an' not spend five full days straight in it. Never was a nigger solved that problem yet."

"What do they do on other plantations?" Cullen pressed. "What about in the Carolinas, where it's wetter? Their folks must run into this all the time."

"Sure," said Elijah, shrugging. "But they's jus' slaves. They take sick, they jus' pick up 'n get back to work. Lotsa places the overseers beats 'em if they don'. Not many white folks careful of their people like you, Mist' Cullen."

The words of approval were lost in a fit of humiliation. People came down with this affliction all the time, so Elijah said, and they just picked up and got back to work. They didn't let themselves be chased back to the house to languish all afternoon on a feather bed in a shady room. Again Cullen wondered whether he'd ever be able to get his people to respect him again after such a show of weakness.

"What about this," he said. "The worst of the dew's gone by the time we've had our dinner break, wouldn't you say?"

"Yassir," said Elijah. "That about right. But ain't no good wastin' a whole mornin' letting her stand. Never get her done at that rate."

"Right," said Cullen, squinting in the gloom to decipher his numbers. "But we usually spend four and a half, maybe five days suckering at a time. That's four and a half, maybe five days dawn 'til suppertime. Five and a half this week, and one day 'til nightfall, but that was a bad one."

"Yassir, Mist' Cullen. Bad one," the old man agreed with a queer lilt to his voice.

"Day's fourteen hours long in July, so that's between fifty-four and sixty hours on average every other week. This week you three put in just about seventy." This was a guess: he wasn't certain quite what time they had finished yesterday.

"You was right out there with us," Elijah said quietly, peering pensively at Cullen's face. "Right up 'til you couldn' hardly stand."

"Never mind that," Cullen said brusquely, anxious to put the whole thing behind him. Nate at least seemed willing to do that: if only he could get the older folks to do the same. "Say it does take seventy hours every other week to get through those fields. Couldn't we do the same work in half-days if we didn't take the week away? Starting after dinner and working through 'til supper; sunset if we had to?"

Elijah frowned, the skin about his eyes crinkling and his lined brow furrowing in thought. "Ye—es…" he said slowly. "I reckon we could."

"By then the tobacco wouldn't be so wet; our clothes wouldn't get soaked; we'd have a better chance of keeping healthy." Cullen was speaking very quickly now, carried away with the rapidly brewing idea. "Instead of trying to get it all done at once, we could just put it in steadily, and if we could do a full pass every two weeks the suckers wouldn't be left any longer than they already are."

"What 'bout the other work?" asked Elijah. "Plantation don' jus' run itself. Yams want tendin', an' the corn goin' be ready in a few weeks. Wagon need mendin', that new fence still on'y half done, somebody got to help get in the beans, they's shingles come loose on the end dormer, an' the hay—"

"We can tend to those things in the mornings," said Cullen eagerly. He had found a solution; he knew it. The jubilation of that was enough even to blunt the effect of hearing this litany of heavy labor recited aloud.

Elijah's lips thinned. "Never been done that way," he said. "Week in the tobacco, week out: you' pappy al'ys done it like that."

"I'm not my pappy," Cullen pointed out. "And we don't have thirty field hands to do the work anymore, nor four hundred acres in tobacco. We've got fifty, and it's killing us. Something has to be done different. Forget 'bout how it always been done: could it work my way?"

Elijah seemed to consider this for a long while, mouth moving silently as he studied his fingertips. Finally he sighed. "Reckon it could," he said. "But you got to know, Mist' Cullen, that mean we got to be out there ev'ry day, ev'ry single day, pullin' them suckers. We lose a day, we spoil them rows."

The excitement of having found the answer to his dilemma suddenly vanished, like a campfire doused in a bucketful of freezing water. Cullen felt his shoulders sag, and he rounded over his lap, bracing his arms on lean thighs and running his hands through his hair. The weight of reality came crashing back upon him, and the long months until the end of harvest stretched out like a prison sentence.

"Every day," he said bleakly, as if speaking the words aloud would somehow lighten their burden. The thought of stooping and scraping and scrabbling every damned day for three miserable months filled him with a weariness he could not quite countenance.

"Yassir," said Elijah soberly. "'Cept Sundays, of course."

_*discidium*_

Mary listened as Cullen explained what he intended to do. There was none of the animation in his voice that she had long ago learned to expect when he was striking his own course in defiance of long practice or convention. He spoke quietly and methodically, running through calculations she did not quite follow apparently based on numbers he had pulled from his head and kept to himself. The one thing that was very clear was that someone – Nate, most likely – had told him of Meg's headache and that he was more deeply troubled by this than by his own illness. When he came to the end of his plan he set down his fork and looked across at her expectantly.

"Well?" he said. "What do you think?"

"It seems sensible," she said; "only it does mean you'll be doing all the tobacco work at the hottest part of the day."

"We'll drink plenty of water," said Cullen. "But working wet is the most miserable part of it, and if I'd know it could make us sick I'd never have stood for it. Now I know I got to do something, don't you see?"

"I do see," said Mary. "I just wish there was a way you could do something and keep yourself out of it at the same time. You're not used to the work, Cullen, and it's taking its toll on you."

"Only way to _get_ used to the work is to do it," he said. "I'll manage. We need four people out there: can't do it any other way."

"What about taking on hired help?" asked Mary. "You could engage a couple of free Negroes, or a boy from one of the small farms."

"There ain't a free Negro in Lauderdale County," said Cullen; "and small farmers need their sons out there like I need Nate and Meg."

"A trapper, then, or one of the woodsmen…" she tried, groping for ideas and finding none at all.

"With what money, Mary?" He looked her straight in the eye, fork frozen halfway to his mouth. "I may not be much of a farmer, but I'm the equal of any woodsman at the job. And I work for nothing."

He was talking about wages, of course, but there was a strange note to the word _nothing_ that unsettled her. She looked down at her plate to escape his steely gaze. "It isn't right," she said. "White people aren't built to work in the tobacco: Nate said so yesterday. Twice."

"Well, Nate's wrong," said Cullen. "A man's built for what he's got to do in life." There was a curious pause, and Mary looked up to find him studying her thoughtfully. "What kind of a thing is that to say, anyway?" he asked. "You're the one always telling me the slaves should be set free."

Mary flushed. "I only meant… that is… it's this heat," she said. "Working in this _heat_. The darkies come from Africa: surely it must be just as hot there as it is in Mississippi, but you're Scotch, and…"

"I'm Mississippian," Cullen said. His voice was still mild, but his eyes were hard. "Born and raised right here, same as Nate. I growed up in this heat, and I can take it. Hang it, Mary, if even you don't believe I can do it what hope have I got of convincing the others? Elijah and Bethel been looking at me like I'm broke, and I never can tell what Nate's thinking. Meg… well, I think she'll look up to me no matter what because of Lottie, but—"

"What do you mean, because of Lottie?" asked Mary. "Because you wouldn't put her out in the fields?"

"Partly, yes. And… there's other things…" A shadow of anger passed across Cullen's face, and he took a wrathful forkful of his sweet potatoes. He seemed to be recovering his appetite, which was tremendously comforting. "But I can't run the place if they won't listen to me, and slaves don't listen properly to men they don't respect."

"They respect you," said Mary quietly. She believed it was true. She hoped it was true. But she didn't understand the full spectrum of the relationship between her husband and the people he owned – Bethel, who was almost a mother to him; Elijah, who had known him from babyhood; Nate, who had been his playmate; sweet, well-meaning Meg, whose love for her daughter encompassed all those who were kind to the child; and Lottie, who was as attentive as a sister to Gabe. It was such an intricate web of ties both intimate and impersonal, tangled throughout with the murky question of property and whether it was even possible under God for one man to own another. However long she lived here, Mary thought she would never fully understand it.

Cullen was cutting his ham now, holding the knife delicately in hands liberally stained where the tobacco sap had soaked into the skin. "Best hope you're right," he said darkly as he raised the fork to his lips.


	8. Meridian

_Note: History and canon are somewhat at variance. I've done my best to compromise._

**Chapter Eight: Meridian**

Morning was still young when Cullen hitched Pike and Bonnie to the jaunty little buggy. The horses were eager, and nickered happily as he snugged up the traces and settled the bits between their teeth. Bonnie was pawing at the ground, and she tossed her head when Cullen buckled the driving reins and flung them over the rail. Pike, far more patient, contented himself with a deep-throated whinny. Cullen stroked each velvet nose in turn and murmured soothing nonsense under his breath.

He had arisen as usual to help with the morning chores, and had settled the order of the day's labors with Nate and Elijah. The sweet potatoes were large enough now that they were in need of hilling before their spreading vines made the work impossible. That was the chief concern of the day. It was a grubby undertaking, but nothing to the misery of tending the tobacco. And when it was done the yams could be left to grow more or less unchecked, unless the summer proved unseasonably dry. Cullen's mind shrank from that thought. A dry summer meant hard work watering the yams and the garden, but it would be disastrous for the feed-corn and the all-important cash crop.

By Elijah's estimation and according to the previous growth pattern, they had a week yet before they would have to attack the tobacco in earnest, and Cullen hoped they could make considerable inroads in the other work about the plantation before then. The yams were in the most urgent need of attention, but the green beans were starting to ripen more quickly than Lottie could pick them, and some extra pairs of hands there would not be amiss. Soon the corn would need hoeing again, too, though the stalks were growing well and would soon shade out the worst of the weeds. If all went well they could start that on Wednesday. Then there were the hosts of small repairs to the outbuildings and farm implements that were waiting on Cullen, the most pressing of which was the broken axle on the wagon. They were down to their last cord of stove wood, and more had to be cut soon so that it would be dry enough to burn cleanly when needed. Even as recently as the previous August Cullen had bought fuel from the back-country woodsmen, but this year he was trying to spare every expense he possibly could. So trees had to be felled in the creek bottom or along the west property line, and hauled back to the heart of the plantation: for that they needed the wagon.

This morning, however, he had other business to attend to: tasks that only the master of the house could perform. With his good felt hat on his head and Mary's list tucked into his pocket, Cullen was going into town.

He had changed out of his work clothes before indulging in the rare treat of breaking his fast with his wife and child, and was now clad in the best of his day wardrobe. The neat black trousers with their somber grey stripe were set off by the dark watered silk waistcoat that he had worn to his wedding. His frock coat was also black: light summer wool that Mary had brushed meticulously for him. He wore a fine Holland shirt, the left cuff of which had been so carefully mended that the new stitches could not be distinguished from the old, and a blue silk cravat that had been a gift from his wife two Christmases past. His riding boots, now rarely worn, were polished to a sheen. They were two years past their prime, but well-tended and sturdy. In the pocket of his coat sat the last accoutrement of a country gentleman: his black kidskin gloves. He seldom wore them, but had brought them today because his hands were badly stained with tobacco juice and thick with callouses. If he happened upon certain acquaintances, Mary had reasoned as she tucked them into his pocket, he might wish to cover them up.

He knew that he cut a fine figure, but Cullen felt like a fool. By now news of his fallen fortunes had surely spread to the far corners of the county: Sutcliffe would have taken great glee in seeing to that. Suiting himself up like a dandy just to hear the news, collect the mail, and pick up a few necessities would not change that. But dressing up to go into town was one of those things that respectable people did, and for the sake of his family he had to cling to the veneer of respectability. It was impossible to transact advantageous business with the planters if they did not see you as one of their own, and Cullen felt certain that he was going to have to do a good deal of business with the neighbors this year.

He clicked his tongue and flicked the reins, and the Morgans were off. They were an elegant and high-stepping team, and if he wanted to sell them he could easily raise twice what he had paid for what had then been a three- and a four-year-old with basic carriage training, their worth chiefly in their pedigree and their potential. He had no intention of selling his horses, but if worse came to worst he could perhaps raise a loan on them. That was a risk, but it was preferable to mortgaging his land or his slaves.

Resolutely Cullen tried to shut his mind against his worries and to enjoy his drive. The sun was climbing now, glinting off the dew in the long grass. He came to the edge of his drive and without any prompting Pike and Bonnie turned out onto the mossy lane that wound down to the main road. Here there lingered still some memory of the wild country out of which his grandfather had carved a thousand acres of arable land: pines and willows and still, shady places where once the Choctaw Indians had hunted. The Indians were gone now, and the settlers who had replaced them had sired a generation of prosperous landowners who in turn had fathered indolent and entitled sons. These too had sons; the boys with whom Gabe would one day attend school. It was settled country now, but the wildness had not quite gone out of the land or the people. It was just that in Cullen's case it ran a little nearer to the surface than was considered perfectly genteel.

When they reached the main road, packed hard by the traffic from neighboring plantations, he slackened the reins and let the horses canter. They did so joyously, happy to be out in the open at last. The buggy was light and not much of an encumbrance, particularly with Cullen alone on the box. There was room for a second person on the board beside him, and behind the cushioned leather seat in the shelter of the folding cover would accommodate two more. Seldom did the vehicle hold more than two, for Cullen preferred to drive his own team whenever he could. The one exception was when he and Mary went to some do at one of the nearby plantations: a supper or a ball or a picnic. Then Nate would drive, and if the occasion called for a ladies' maid Bethel would ride along beside him. But such invitations were rare, and even when they went to church Cullen usually took the reins.

The road made a deep southwesterly sweep, passing by the cleared land at the edge of the Ainsley plantation. Beyond the stretch of pasture Cullen could see the first rolling rise of the cotton-fields, dotted with dark shapes moving between the rows: slaves tending to the half-grown plants. Among them passed a rider with the unmistakable bent of an overseer. The sun was bright here on the cleared stretch of road, and the horses' sleek backs seemed to shimmer. Bonnie was tugging on her bit, urging her master to give her a little more rein. He obliged and she quickened her pace, driving Pike to follow. They were almost at a gallop now, and the buggy rattled and jounced. Cullen wished he were astride one of them – either of them – rising and falling with the rhythm of their gait with his hat cast away and the wind in his hair. But he had to bring back goods from town, and so he needed the buggy.

He let them run for a while, and then slowed them to a trot. Too long at speed in this heat would do them no favors, and he did not want to risk either horse coming down with a bout of colic. Still the remainder of the six miles swept swiftly by, and soon he was turning out onto yet another, larger road that wound down a series of swells to the edge of town.

Meridian had only just been made a town, but as long as Cullen could remember there had been the roots of a community here. When he was a boy it hadn't been much more than a stretch of fresh-laid railroad with a general store and a couple of small clapboard houses. With the construction of the Mobile-Ohio spur line and the erection of a station house where it met its rival, Southern Railway, the village had grown in a rangy and disarrayed fashion around the junction. There had been a hearty quarrel a few years back over the name of the place, but to Cullen it had always been under that name that it had finally been granted its township status earlier this year, much to the excitement of the county denizens.

He slowed his horses to a walk, passing through the straggle of tents and shanties belonging to the newcomers who always seemed to follow the railroad. These were soon supplanted by neatly whitewashed houses in the old Colonial style, wherein the more established residents dwelt. There were vacant lots, either unsold or waiting for building to begin, but these were sparser now than they had been even a couple of years ago. Then the buggy bounced over a small rise and he turned onto the main street that ran down to the stationhouse that had given the town its name. This was the heart of the business district, and most of Cullen's stops lay along this road.

He drew up the buggy in front of the dry goods store and climbed down. He settled the feed bags for Pike and Bonnie, and looped the reins around the hitching-post. Then he took off his hat, smoothing his hair with one hand as he looked down the street. The midmorning train had not yet arrived and the town about him still had a drowsy air to it. Replacing his hat, he started down the street towards the station. He had no business there, precisely, but the postmaster worked out of the telegraph office, and that was right near the tracks. He glanced back at his horses as he passed the bank, but they were busy with their oats and apparently oblivious to his absence. There were some places, even in this state, where a man couldn't leave a good team unattended, but here they were safe enough. Not only was Meridian a quiet sort of town despite its railroad traffic, but the Morgans were known throughout the county and any stranger driving them would be stopped and questioned.

Cullen stepped into the shadowy front room of the telegraph office, not quite able to resist peering out its broad glass window at the railway his grandpappy had helped to build. From the back room came the low clacking of the telegraph machine, and behind a long counter sat the postmaster. He was perched on a stool before his wall of pigeonholes, thick spectacles perched on his nose as he pored over a newspaper bearing the banner _Scientific American. _Cullen strolled up to lean against the counter, waiting to be noticed. When a full minute had passed he cleared his throat.

"Morning, Mr. Boam," he said. "You think I could get my mail, or should I come back some other day?"

The postmaster looked up, somewhat startled, and then folded the paper with extravagant care and stowed it in one of the mail compartments. "Well good day to you, Mr. Bohannon," he drawled, hopping off his stool and scuttling like a cricket to the counter. He offered one thin hand, and Cullen shook it cordially. "It's been a while since you've been in. I was beginning to think you'd forgot about us."

"Just busy on the plantation," said Cullen. He nodded towards the postal nooks, many of which were just as thickly stuffed as his own. "What do you have for me?"

Boam reached and brought down a sheaf of mail. It appeared to be chiefly copies of the semi-weekly _Mississippian_ out of Jackson, but there were at least two envelopes and one thick paper that had been folded in on itself and sealed with a blob of red wax. The sight of the newspapers irritated Cullen. Meridian did not have its own newspaper, and so those who had an interest in the world beyond what county gossip could satisfy had to get them by mail. The paper cost one and a half cents an issue, with another penny for postage, and as much as he might miss the diversion Cullen simply could not spare a half-dime a week. He had written no less than three times to cancel his subscription, but they just kept sending them in the hope that one day he'd lose patience or resolve and pay to take them.

"Give me them letters," he said, holding out his hand. He restrained the urge to drum impatiently on the counter as Boam picked each one up and studied it.

"We got three here from New York, postage paid," he said ponderously, picking out another envelope from under one of the newspapers. He looked up and winked, his open eye strangely contorted by the lens of his spectacles. "Those'll be for the missus, I guess."

"It's no secret I got a Yankee wife, Mr. Boam. Hand 'em over." Cullen did not quite snatch Mary's letters, but his fingers clamped down firmly before the postmaster was expecting them to. He turned the envelopes and examined the handwriting upon them. The elegant copperplate was unmistakably that of his mother-in-law. The envelopes felt good and thick, too. Mary would be pleased. He tucked them carefully into the inner pocket of his coat and nodded at the other letter. "What's that one?" he asked.

Boam squinted and adjusted his eyeglasses. He held the paper back at arm's length and looked at it without the specs. He frowned. "Some place called Bangor? Two cents owing on that one. Bangor. Fool kinda name. Where's that at?"

The retort that _he_ wasn't the postmaster rose to Cullen's lips, but he restrained himself. "It's in Maine," he said. "I got a brother-in-law up there. Two cents? You sure?"

"Two cents," said the postmaster. "You want to leave it? Wouldn't give half a cent for a letter from _my_ brother-in-law."

Nor would Cullen, but Jeremiah Tate was Mary's second brother, and she'd be glad to hear from him. He drew out his pocketbook, retrieved that morning from the desk in the parlor, and sifted through the coins until he found two dull copper pennies. He set them down on the countertop and took the letter.

"Want them papers?" asked Boam. "You got eight waiting."

Cullen grinned. "Would you pay twenty cents for old news?" he asked. "Just tell me if there's anything interesting." The thin man bridled a little, and Cullen wagged a finger. "Don't pretend like you didn't read 'em. Anything interesting?"

"Not much," Boam admitted with a shrug. "Last week's were full of speculation 'bout the election, but you can save your nickel. Smart money's on Breckenridge for President."

"You think so?" asked Cullen. "His boss hasn't been doing him any favors."

"Oh, it'll be Breckenridge, all right," Boam said with authority. "He's got the Democratic nomination, and everyone knows the Democrats are bound to win."

"Seems to me that Buchanan's making that difficult," said Cullen. "He's tweaked noses North and South, and there's a lot of states in New England that'll vote the Republican ticket just to spite him. Hell, Breckenridge might even have a tough time in Kentucky."

"That's ridiculous!" blustered Boam happily. He loved to talk politics, and he was a better source of information than any newspaper: his predictions were seldom right, but his information was always solid. "Man's bound to win in his home state."

"I heard the senator declined to be nominated," said Cullen. "That so?"

"Yes," Boam said morosely. "Can't imagine why. Now _there's_ a man the whole country could get behind."

"Well, I can't say I blame him. He's not a well man, you know. Remember he took sick the second year of his term? Spent most of the summer—" Cullen slapped Jeremiah's letter against his palm. "—in Maine, trying to recover."

"What's that got to do with anything?" asked Boam. "He could still make a stand. He done good work and he's well-liked. What we couldn't do with a Mississippi man in the White House!"

"President ain't no easy job," Cullen reasoned. "Job like that could kill a man. Davis wants to stay in the Senate, I say let him. Who's Breckenridge up against?"

"Some senator from Illinois," said Boam. "Northern Democrats didn't like our candidate, so they nominated their own. Or was it the other way around? Name of Douglas, I think."

"Douglas?" Cullen sifted through his memories and settled uneasily on the name. "You mean Stephen Douglas. The one who pushed through the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The one who set up shop for John Brown to charge in and make trouble."

"That's him." The postmaster shrugged his shoulders. "Don't reckon he'll stand much of a chance."

Ordinarily Cullen might have agreed, but he didn't think the Vice-President was much of an opponent. Through Mary's correspondence with her family he had gathered that Buchanan's efforts to placate both sides of the debate on slavery in the West had wound up pleasing even fewer Yankees than Southerners, and Breckenridge was inexorably tied to that administration.

"Then there's the new party," Boam was saying. "Pack of Whigs got together, and they're calling themselves the Constitutional Unionists. They've got that no-good Yankee-loving Bell for their candidate. The one who says we should all just get along."

"The senator from Tennessee?" asked Cullen. When the postmaster nodded, he said; "I don't know. He talks a lot of sense. Says our rights are guaranteed in the Constitution, so there's no need to split off from the rest of the country. Sounds like a simple solution to me."

"Well, then, you definitely don't want these!" Boam said, gathering the newspapers into a sheaf. "'Nobody's man', they're callin' him: don't stand for nothing, and he ain't against nothing neither. Only chance he's got is if the other three split the vote, which they won't do down here. You mark my words, Mr. Bohannon. Breckenridge is our man."

"I guess I'll have to take your word on that," said Cullen. "You sure there's nothing in with them newspapers that you mighta missed? May be a while before I come in again, and I want to get everything."

Boam fanned through them to show there were no errant letters, then cracked the edge of the pile on the counter to straighten it and rolled the papers into a tube. "What you want me to do with these?"

Cullen shrugged. "Send 'em back. Burn 'em. I don't care. Old news, Mr. Boam. Old news." He pushed himself up off the counter and slipped the letter he was holding into his pocket with the others. "Good day, now." He got as far as the door before he paused and turned back. "Just as a matter of interest," he said; "what about the fourth candidate?"

"The Republican?" Boam snorted derisively. "What're Republicans good for any day? And this one's not even in the Senate. Some back-country nobody."

Cullen jerked his head appreciatively and stepped out into the blinding sunshine. The heat was mounting, and in the distance he heard the wail of a train whistle. He squinted up at the sky, gloriously blue and unblemished by clouds. But the talk of the upcoming election had left him troubled. A great deal was riding on its outcome, with all the uproar of the last four years finally distilled down to the platform agendas of these four men; scions of fractured political parties so torn apart by debate that they couldn't hold themselves together, much less a vast republic of quarrelling states. An inept Vice-President, two indecisive senators and a Republican nobody: what a choice! As much as he might respect as a man Davis's decision not to let himself be nominated, as a voter he had to regret it. At least then he would have known which way to cast his ballot.

There wasn't much sense in fussing over it now, he decided as he started back up the street towards the druggist's. November was a long ways off, and he had a heap of his own troubles to labor through before he'd be called upon to have his say in those of the nation. However the cards fell there wasn't likely to be any quick change. There would only be more talk; more quarrelling; more ineffectual legislation. Or perhaps, he could not help but think unquietly, more slaughter like there had been in Kansas in the wake of Stephen Douglas's piece of indecisive lawmaking.

He reached his destination and opened the door, hurriedly stepping back to hold it for a lady just exiting. Cullen removed his hat with his free hand and bowed neatly to her. "Good morning, ma'am," he said politely.

She flushed crimson and smiled shyly at him, and then hurried off. She wore a faded old calico dress over limp petticoats, and there was a drooping sunbonnet on her head: probably a resident of one of the new-growth shanties. He hoped he hadn't embarrassed her, and he wondered whether she might feel any less intimidated by his fine clothes if she knew how he'd spent the last week. Sometimes the intricate caste system of the county, with its conflicting strata of birth and wealth and breeding and behavior, seemed impossibly ridiculous.

The drugstore was cooler than the telegraph office had been: blinds were pulled closed over the windows, and of course the heat of the telegraph machine with its electrical current was absent. The air smelled strongly of camphor and liniment, and there was a certain sultry mystery to the dark shelves with their ornate glass jars filled with powders and crystals; in the cabinet full of tiny drawers that held the ingredients that the druggist mixed into his cures and his patent medicines. There were blown-glass vats of fluid in every shade imaginable – carmine and azure and a deep, eerie green – with spigots at their bases so the liquid could be easily extracted. One shelf held the mortars; glass and ceramic cruets in every size, each with its own pestle tilted against the rim. Another was filled with porcelain canisters painted with blue curlicues and arabesques and bearing inscrutable Latin words in gold leaf. Yet another contained two dozen identical bottles of quinine, each plastered with a printed label.

The druggist himself was a tall, bearded man whose left eye never seemed to follow the other. He had such a seamless habit of moving his whole head to shift his gaze that it had taken Cullen years to work out that the reason for this was that the left eye was in fact made of glass and set into an empty socket. How the original had been lost he did not know, but its absence was obviously not widely known because it was never discussed. Such a peculiarity, once recognized, would have done the rounds of the county in a matter of hours and become a source of endless speculation. Cullen was content to keep the man's secret, for he was a good sort and deserved his privacy.

He was behind his counter now, rolling pills between thumb and forefinger. He did so quickly, taking off a pinch of the putty he had mixed and whirling his digits in opposing circles five times. The resulting sphere was then deposited on a small tray for baking. Reluctant to interrupt this careful process and content to watch it, Cullen hung back in the shadowy front of the shop.

The pharmacist, however, noticed him almost at once. "Good day, there," he said, rolling one more pill and setting it down at the end of one neat row. "Mr. Bohannon, isn't it? From up Hartwood way?"

"'At's right," said Cullen, drawing nearer so that he stood in the light of the bright kerosene lamp hanging over the compounding table. "How's business?"

"Very good, I'm afraid," said the druggist dolefully. "There's an outbreak of typhoid on the other side of Sowashee Creek, and the ague's been bad this year, too. Still, that's summertime, isn't it? Nothing but work and worry."

"I know just what you mean," said Cullen.

"Yes," said the other man, tucking his chin to look down at his customer's hands. Cullen was suddenly acutely aware of the black smears he had disdained to cover earlier. His fingers twitched as if to curl into the shelter of his palms, but he refused to let them. "I heard."

The druggist raised his head again so that he could meet Cullen's eyes, and he smiled. "What can I do for you today, Mr. Bohannon?" he asked. "Soothing syrup for the little one, maybe? Liver pills for Mrs. Bohannon? Or is it one of your darkies who's ailin'?"

"What's a bottle of anodyne powder go for these days?" Cullen asked. There was something to be said for a man who knew what it was to earn his living, even if he did earn it by mixing nostrums and grinding powders in a tidy little storefront.

"Well, I've got a four-ounce bottle for a dollar-sixty, or an eight-ounce bottle for two," said the pharmacist. "I mix it up myself, so you're guaranteed the very best."

Cullen considered this. He had brought five dollars in notes with him, along with the assortment of small coins in his pocketbook. It was tempting to purchase the larger bottle at the better price, for they would use it eventually. But on the other hand they didn't really need more than a few of doses around the house just in case, and he was likely to need every penny of his money long before he sold the year's tobacco.

"Nothing smaller than four ounces?" he asked.

"No," said the druggist. "I do have sealed packets of some patent stuff from New Hampshire, but that's a dime just for one dose. Still, it's all measured out convenient if you need to take some on the run."

Cullen closed his eyes briefly, mulling over his decision. He didn't know how much of the stuff they used over the course of four months, but he did know he hadn't been sent to fetch any since Gabe was still in long gowns. He wished he could remember which size he had purchased then. It didn't matter, he decided. He couldn't spare a dollar-sixty, much less two, for something that might sit on a shelf almost untouched for another couple of years. The trouble with being short of money was that it cost a man more in the long run, because he couldn't shell out what was needed right off. "Give me four of those, then," he said at last.

The druggist moved to the cabinet behind him and opened one of the little drawers. He took out four small paper envelopes, sealed with paste and printed with the label of a New England manufacturer. He moved to set them on the countertop, and then withdrew his hand. He slipped the envelopes back into the drawer and closed it.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll just measure out an ounce: forty cents' worth. It'll only take a minute, if you don't mind waiting."

Cullen shook his head. "Don't do me no favors," he said defensively. He wasn't about to take charity: he hadn't sunk that far yet.

"It's no favor," said the pharmacist. "I buy the patent stuff for seven cents a dose and sell it for ten; I can mix up eight ounces for eighty cents, and sell it for two dollars. Better for me if you buy my stuff."

That did make sense, and Cullen reconsidered. "How many doses in an ounce?" he asked.

"Twelve or fifteen; depends how you go."

For a moment Cullen was flabbergasted. Presumably the company that made the patent powders could also produce them for a dime an ounce, and maybe even less. The money they had to be clearing on those little packets was mindboggling. No wonder Yankees had a reputation for sharp dealing. Then he shook it off and got back to the point. "I'll take it. Thanks."

"Sure: one ounce it is." He went to another narrow counter where a set of brass scales sat. With a pair of tiny forceps he placed a one-ounce weight on one side. On the other he set a small square of waxed paper. He took a bottle with a handwritten label from a shelf and carefully shook out an ounce. With a pinch of his fingernails he made a crimp in the paper, and used it as a spout to pour the powder into another small bottle. From a sheet of labels he tore one, wrote swiftly upon it with a pencil, and then licked the back and stuck it to the glass. He slipped a cork stopper into the neck of the bottle and handed it to Cullen. "Forty cents," he said affably.

_*discidium*_

His next destination was the grocer's, where he picked up two ounces of ground fennel, two pounds of dried cod, a small bottle of cider vinegar, and six pounds of soup bones fresh from the butcher. The last was not on his wife's list, but Bethel had whispered to him that morning that Mary needed some good rich beef broth to recover her strength. Bethel seemed to know or guess something about Mary's recent illness beyond what Cullen understood of it, but she had stalwartly refused to discuss the matter. That she was offering opinions on a cure now had worried him, and so he spared the extra quarter gladly. If nothing else it would make a nice treat for Mary, who was unaccustomed to the Southern diet dominated by pork and chicken. He wished he could bring her a packet of tea as well, but it was so very expensive. He watched the grocer weigh out the thinly-sawed bones, grained with marrow and with fine shreds of meat still clinging to them, and wrap it carefully in brown paper. He thanked the man, paid for his purchases, and went back to stow them under the seat of the buggy.

The dry-goods store was his last stop. There were two such stores in town now, but the Bohannons had been trading with Jack Townsend for twenty years. He was measuring out yards of daffodil-colored lawn when Cullen came in, but he looked up to grin his greetings. He was a portly gentleman rapidly nearing sixty years of age, with a balding head and luxurious mutton-chop whiskers. While he measured he made cheerful conversation with the lady who had chosen the cloth. Cullen tipped his hat to her, and wandered down the length of the counter, looking at the shelves laden with bolts of cloth; at pairs of stiff new shoes organized by size and style; at a velvet board draped with garters, and another with suspenders. There were kerchiefs in a bright rainbow spread beneath glass, and beside them a small selection of enameled cufflinks. There were scissors and thimbles and awls, buttons and hooks and roll after roll of braid and lace. A small sign advertised that a full selection of ladies' hoopskirts were available upon request. Along the back wall hung pots and pans, both copper and cast iron, and on the floor stood washtubs and butter churns. The other long wall was also lined with a counter, and beyond it were locked cabinets full of razors and hairbrushes, powder compacts, silk gloves in shallow pasteboard boxes. There were china tea services and practical tin dishes, wooden cases full of silver cutlery and simple camp utensils in leather sheathes. There were hunting knives and powder horns, and a long rack of rifles. Shotguns sat on brackets on the wall, and a selection of sidearms occupied its own case. Beside the door were the boxes of patent washing-powder, bottles of hair tonic and cologne water, and the pale and prettily colored bars of factory-made soap wrapped in translucent waxed paper. Townsend's skinny little Negro shop-boy was crouched behind the counter, unloading a crate of nail-brushes.

All the manufactured luxuries and necessities of the modern world seemed represented here, and almost all of them were brought in by rail from the North, or from the ports of New Orleans or Charleston, whence they had come by ship from Europe. Even the cloth that Mr. Townsend was now cutting with his heavy iron shears had likely been woven in Rhode Island or New Jersey, though the cotton from which it was made might have been grown less than two miles from this store. The vast and highly lucrative export of cash crops – cotton and sugar cane and tobacco and rice – allowed the South to purchase anything it needed from elsewhere in the world. It had no incentive to build its own factories or produce its own goods.

The fabric was wrapped in tissue now, and the lady gathered it into her arms and departed, broad tiered skirts swishing. Cullen wandered back down towards the shopkeeper. "Morning, Mr. Townsend," he said, pulling Mary's list out of his waistcoat pocket and consulting it.

"Morning!" Townsend said briskly. "You're out early. Wanting to beat the worst of the heat, I guess? It's been a month for heat, hasn't it? The thermometer at the railway office topped a hundred on Friday!"

"Did it, now?" Cullen asked politely. "I knew she was a scorcher."

"Don't get rain soon, it'll dry out the cotton," said Townsend. Then he laughed. "You won't have to worry about that, at least."

"Oh, tobacco dries out quicker than cotton," said Cullen. "We'll be out there with dippers and buckets, watering by hand, long before the cotton planters worry."

He meant to sound nonchalant, but something of his constant anxiety about the crop must have shown in his eyes, for Townsend's smile faded for a moment. Then he laughed. "Never mind!" he said. "We'll have us a thunderstorm one of these nights, and all the rain a man could hope for. Now what'll I be getting you today?"

"A paper of sewing needles and a card of shirt buttons," Cullen began. "The cheap horn ones, four holes. Small packet of writing paper."

"Flowers on the border, or birds?" asked Townsend. He grimaced in a prelude to sympathy. "You don't need the mourning paper, I hope?"

"No, just the plain stuff," said Cullen. "What's it selling for?"

"Plain white writing paper, one small packet, fifteen cents," Townsend recited, setting it next to the buttons. "What else?"

"A gallon of kerosene, and half a dozen of the tallow candles."

The proprietor wrinkled his nose. "Beeswax burns cleaner," he said. "Got some English ones in nine and twelve-hour lengths. They smell nice, too."

"I'll take the tallow," Cullen said. "Wrap them up so they don't get soft on the way home."

Townsend shrugged, but obliged. "Anything else?" he asked.

Cullen checked his list once more. "A roll of cheesecloth," he said, eyeing the growing pile of purchases with some unease. "And a hank of white linen thread."

"Shirt weight or wool weight?" asked the older man.

He studied his wife's neat handwriting and frowned. "She don't say."

"Take the shirt weight," Townsend advised. "Summertime sewing's most always shirt weight."

"Thanks," Cullen said earnestly. Townsend crossed to the other counter to fetch the cheesecloth, and then tallied up the prices on a small yellow notepad.

"Put it on your account?" he asked affably.

Cullen hesitated. He had just enough money in his pocketbook to cover the purchases, or he thought he did. He would have to count out the pennies to be certain, and that was sure to be awkward – still more awkward if he fell short. He already had goods charged here, and as a rule a man was more comfortable extending credit if he thought it wasn't really needed. He would be relying on Mr. Townsend's good graces and the longstanding trade relationship between them to carry him until winter.

"Yeah, on account," he said. He watched Townsend walk down to the big ledger on the corner of the counter and thumb through the pages until he came to the Bohannons' tally. He took a stubby pencil from behind one large ear and licked the tip, then jotted down the new total. Cullen tried to put on his very best indolent smile. "What do I owe you so far?" he asked conversationally.

"Twenty-six dollars and forty-eight cents," Townsend recited neatly. He stowed the pencil and grinned. "Hell, that's nothing. There's planters 'round here owe eighty or ninety. Least I can count on you to pay up without me houndin' you 'til Judgment Day. Some folks think they's too good to settle what they owe, even when they clear ten thousand on the cotton."

"Sure," said Cullen. He felt suddenly ill, and the headache that had finally abated a little in the night started to thrum behind his eyes again. He didn't like running into debt; didn't like the feeling that he was beholden to any man. That such things were the usual way of business for a country storekeeper did not comfort him much. "The minute I'm off that Louisiana train I'll be in here with your money."

"I know that," Townsend assured him. "Same as every year."

"Right," Cullen breathed, beating back his swarming worries. "Same as every year."

Hastily he gathered the smaller purchases into the crook of one arm and hooked his first two fingers around the handle of the kerosene can. But before he could push off the counter to make his escape, his eyes snagged on the tall glass jars standing near the window where the sunlight could catch their brightly-colored contents. For a moment he was frozen, transfixed and tempted. Then he yielded. "Gimme two cents' worth of them peppermints," he said, digging for his pocketbook with his one free hand and working out the coins with the side of his thumb. "Wrap 'em in separate halves. I got young ones at home could do with a treat."

"Young ones?" asked Townsend as he picked up the sugar tongs and put three small pieces of the brightly striped candy into each of two little paper sacks. "I know your boy'll dote on this, but a strip of sugar cane's good enough for a pickaninny."

"Naw, mine likes peppermints," said Cullen. He took the tiny packets and tucked them into his watch-pocket. "I thank you, Mr. Townsend. Good day."

He snagged the kerosene can, holding it carefully away from his body lest the cap should leak and stain his good pants. He opened the door with an elbow and stepped outside. As it swung closed again he thought he saw Townsend shaking his head in fatherly bewilderment as he turned to shout an order to the shop-boy.

Bonnie and Pike were waiting eagerly for him, having emptied their nosebags long since. Cullen spoke to them as he stowed the can on the floor of the buggy. He put the cheesecloth there also, and tucked the smaller purchases into his various pockets. The paper he put on the buggy seat, weighting it down with the packet of candles. Then he relieved the horses of their nosebags, unwrapped the reins and climbed up onto the box. "Home, Bonnie. Home, Pike!" he called, and the horses broke into their crisp, proud walk. He turned the buggy near the end of the street, where the mid-morning train now puffed and sputtered like a great black dragon and the platform bustled with men hauling baggage and loading or unloading freight. Then they were off, up the street again and on their way out of town.

The homeward ride was pleasant, though Bonnie spent most of it straining against the bit. Cullen restrained her despite the ache in his tired arms, for the day was hot now and he did not want his team overworking themselves. He was beginning to sweat in his fine clothes, and he shucked off his frock coat once he was out of sight of Meridian. It was a relief to reach the shady homeward trail, and he was almost at peace with stepping back under the yoke of farm life. He came to the fence at the edge of his own land just as the sun was cresting the apex of its daily course. He was beginning to feel hungry, and the thought of dining with his family twice in one weekday made him smile. He was whistling softly as he came over the last rise into view of the house, and then his heart dropped like a stone. There was a horse tied off on the paddock fence, grazing calmly in its tack. It was a bay gelding with a white star on its brow, and he knew it almost as well as he knew his own steeds.

It was Doc Whitehead's horse.


	9. Stilted Conversations

**Chapter Nine: Stilted Conversations**

Cullen was out of the buggy almost before the wheels stopped turning. He flung the reins over the porch-rail, not caring if the horses cropped the blossoms off the bluehearts, and cleared the veranda steps in a long leap. The front door was closed against the heat of the day, and he flung it open with a _bang_.

"Mary?" he called, coming into the shady entryway. "Bethel? _Mary?"_

There was no answer, and without pausing to call again he bolted up the stairs. His boots skidded on the smooth floor as he took the corner and he flew down to the closed door at the end of the hall. "Mary?" he cried again, his heart hammering and his throat tight with fear, and he burst into the room.

Mary stiffened in alarm at his inelegant entrance, her hand flying to clutch closed the front of her dressing-gown. She had been bent over the ties, sitting on the edge of the bed. The coverlet had been flung over the footboard and the sheet was untucked and rucked up on the mattress, but Mary was upright and apart from her sudden pallor looked much as she had that morning at breakfast. In his anxiety for her, Cullen had not immediately noticed the other person in the room, standing at the dressing table as he buckled the straps of his bag. He saw him now: another startled face, but set in it eyes that twinkled kindly.

"Doc!" Cullen panted. "Mary. Is everything all right?"

"Yes, of course," Mary said. He noticed belatedly that although beneath the dressing-gown she was down to her chemise, she still had her shoes and stockings on. "Doctor Whitehead stopped by to check in on me, and when I told him I was still a little sore he suggested a quick examination."

"Everything's fine, Cullen," the doctor said kindly, coming to put a hand on the younger man's arm. He drew him into the room and closed the door. "I just wanted to be sure. Never hurts to be certain when a lady's been ill, but everything seems to be in order. I'm sorry I startled you: I suppose you saw my horse?"

"Yuh…" Cullen looked from Doc Whitehead's reassuring expression to Mary's apologetic smile. "Everything's fine?" he parroted.

"Yes," promised Mary firmly. She got to her feet as if to prove it, and crossed to the chair where her clothing lay draped over the back. She picked up her pantalets, which were mercifully free from bloodstains. "Why don't you go and offer Doctor Whitehead a drink while I get dressed?"

"Sure." His panic had left him now and he felt bewildered and drained. For a terrible minute, coming into a silent house, he had been afraid that things had taken a terrible turn. He opened the door and held it. "Doc?"

The doctor stepped into the hall and Cullen looked back at his wife questioningly. Mary only smiled and shook her head ever so slightly, and so he retreated, following Whitehead down the stairs and then ushering him into the parlor.

"You know how to give a man a fright, Doc," he said as he went to the little table by the fireplace and plucked the stopper from the whiskey decanter. It was only about a third full, and there was no bottle in reserve, but he poured them both a generous glassful and offered one to the older man. "Coming to call when a fella's away from home like that."

"I didn't expect to find you away from home," said Whitehead, saluting his host and taking a swallow of the amber liquid. Cullen knocked back a quick shot from his own glass and felt it steady his jangled nerves. "This time of year I expected you to be out there working."

"I should be," said Cullen. "Only it'd been four weeks since I'd gone for the mail, and—"

"Miss Mary told me," Doc said. His eyes were gentle and his expression grave. "What's this about you taking sick in the tobacco?"

Cullen crossed to his armchair and flopped down in it, stretching his legs before him. He gestured that his guest should take a seat as well, and Doc settled on the horsehair sofa, leaning forward with his arms resting on his knees. "It was nothing," Cullen said. He swirled the fluid in his glass and watched it for a moment, then took another swallow. He had been missing his whiskey, he realized.

"Why don't you tell me about it, and I'll decide if it's nothing," said Doc.

"Not much to tell," said Cullen. "I came over dizzy and I made a mess in the grass. Guess I got up too soon, 'cause it happened again, and that time I couldn't get back to it. Spent Saturday afternoon in bed. That's all."

"Miss Mary said you had a terrible headache. And chills in the night?" the doctor pressed mildly. "Any blurred vision?"

"Sure," said Cullen. "Comes with being dizzy, don't it? I'm fine now."

"Are you, son? You're awful pale." The kind eyes narrowed a little, as if searching for something.

Cullen found it impossible to lie to Doc Whitehead. "I've still got a bit of a headache," he said. "Nothing I can't cope with. Certainly nothing you got to worry about. Nate and Bethel figure it's tobacco sickness."

"Tobacco sickness?" Doc frowned. "I've never seen it in a white man before."

At this Cullen snorted. "You know many white men, do you, out there six mornings straight topping fifty acres of plants?" He grinned to cover his bitterness and took another mouthful of whiskey. "Never mind, Doc: I got it figured out. We'll be taking it in half-days from now on. What makes me angry is that it seems the darkies have all had their turns at it, and none of 'em seen fit to mention it before this." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in an ineffectual attempt to ease the throbbing in his head. "Enough about me. Is Mary really fine?"

"She's still recovering," said the doctor; "and I'm a little concerned that she's still having pain. But the bleeding's stopped and there's no inflammation of the pelvis. She's young and she's well-fed: she'll be back to herself in no time." He shifted in his seat, turning more towards the other man. "I did want a word, though, about… well, son, about a husband's privilege."

His desire to press again for details of his wife's illness was momentarily diverted. Cullen nodded in understanding. "She ain't well enough yet," he said. "That's plain enough, forgive me for saying, Doc. I ain't pressed her. We don't got that sort of marriage: if she don't want it, I don't want it. Even when I _do_ want it, if you take my meaning."

"I do, Cullen, and that's admirable," said the doctor. "Trouble is, from the way she was sort of hinting at things I think she _might_ be wanting it, and she might try 'n set that hoop spinning before she's healed up proper. It don't do to take chances with this sort of thing, Cullen. I'm telling you even if she does try to… suggest it, you need to hold back for at least a couple weeks. I don't know that she'd approve of me coming to you with this, but you got to know. Any kind of strain at a time like this could do real harm to a lady, even a strong healthy one like your Mary."

Cullen's stomach did a slow, worried roll. "Time like what, Doc?" he asked. "What's _wrong_ with her?"

There was the smallest flicker of uncertainty in the older man's eyes. "I don't… there's things even modern medicine… it's womanly trouble, Cullen: that's all I can tell you. But it's on the mend, and there's nothing to worry about except making sure she gets the rest she needs. She's well enough to be out of bed, and she obviously feeling able to wear her corsets. What about her appetite?"

"I haven't much noticed," Cullen confessed. "Truth is we don't have more'n three or four meals together in a week these days. I'm up before dawn and out 'til after dark most of the time. Or was, until Saturday." He grimaced ruefully. "Got to see that don't happen again."

Doctor Whitehead took another sip of whiskey and stared down into the glass for a long moment. When he looked up again his brows were knit worriedly. "Is it really so bad, son?" he asked.

"Not if we can make this crop," Cullen said. "If we have a good yield and I get a good price we'll be all right. Just a lot of hard work and not much to hope for, that's all."

Doc's left hand opened, extending in a brief abortive motion as if he meant to plant it bracingly on Cullen's knee. He thought better of it, however, and let his arm fall back. "I know your father would have wanted to leave you better provided-for," he said.

"I can make my own living," Cullen said defensively. "Only… only so long as we get the odd rain between now and October. That's farming, ain't it?" He chuckled a little, bitterly. "One eye on the crop and the other on the sky. Big or small, planters all got that in common."

"Speaking of planters, Miss Mary said you turned down an offer on some land? You got more than you can work as it is. Why not sell a little?"

"It weren't as simple as that," Cullen said. "Abel Sutcliffe's tryin' to push me out. I sell to him, next thing he's got tax assessors crawling over the place, or the sheriff, or worse."

"You done anything to warrant attention from the sheriff?" Doc asked, looking suddenly concerned. He remembered all too well the wild youth of the Bohannon heir, for it had fallen to him to patch Cullen up after his various scrapes. "Man with a wife and child ought to keep his nose clean."

This time Cullen's laugh was genuine. Like the whiskey it warmed him, and he grinned. "Hell no, I been good," he said. "Don't mean I want the law poking around. I got a right to my property."

Doc Whitehead's eyes rolled dolefully. "Not you, too," he groaned. "Seems that's all anyone wants to talk about these days. You'd think the government was going to come swarming down here to dispossess us all."

"I didn't mean that property," Cullen said, his expression darkening a little. "Though I wouldn't put it past Sutcliffe to make trouble for them, too, if he thought he could get away with it. What he's got against me I'll never know, 'cept that I'm my own man and make no secret of it."

"And you spit on him," said Doc.

"You didn't hear that from Mary," said Cullen suspiciously.

"No, I didn't. I was up there looking in on Mrs. Sutcliffe and heard the whole story." Doc shook his head. "You need to stop butting heads with folks as can make your life a misery."

"If you heard it from him you didn't hear the whole story," Cullen argued. "And I spat _at_ him, not _on_ him. I was hot and tired and madder 'n a hornet. He implied I couldn't feed my family. Called me trash. He was eyeing up Meg. He deserved to be sent away with a flea in his ear, and he coulda got worse."

"Maybe." Doc shook his head mournfully. "But he's a wealthy man, and he's out gunning for you now. You know he'll tell everyone from here to Jackson that you're working your own tobacco."

"Then I guess he's pushed me out anyhow." With a jerk of his head Cullen drained the last of the whiskey. "Out of county society if not off my land. But county society ain't had much use for me since I brought home a Northern beauty and broke their daughters' hearts. Silly when you think of it, 'cause if I'd wed somebody like Greta Trussell her father'd be out here to shoot me the minute he heard I'm working my own fields."

"I won't deny it'll hurt your standing in the eyes of some," said Doc. "But you're well-liked by the right sort of people and you come from a good old family. That counts for more than money, and you know it. Lot of folks will just shake their heads and say it's a pity you got to do it, but after all your grandfather and most of theirs had to make do with one or two slaves in the early days. It takes time to build up a fortune."

"I don't give a damn about building a fortune," Cullen muttered. "I just want to keep a roof over my family and food on the tables of my people. And maybe buy my son a real pair of shoes. That's what Sutcliffe can't abide; him and his forty-thousand-a-year cotton fields. What'd I do with that kind of money, Doc? It'd only be a worry to me. I spend enough time worrying over the money I got."

Doctor Whitehead chuckled. "That's so," he said. "Seems nobody worries more about money than folks who got too much of it. But you _are_ keeping food on the table, aren't you, Cullen? I mean, Miss Mary seems well-nourished enough…"

"Hell, yes!" said Cullen. "We got food. It's simple stuff, but there's plenty. And now the garden's coming in we got something fresh with most meals, too. Go ask Bethel if you don't believe me."

"I believe you. Don't go looking for a quarrel where there ain't one, son." Doc smiled and finished the last sip in his glass.

There was a soft, respectful knock at the parlor door. Bethel stood on the threshold, eyes meekly lowered and hands folded in the posture she affected with company. "Beg pardon, Mist' Cullen," she said politely.

"What is it, Bethel?" he asked. He set his empty cup on the little round end table.

"Them horses is eatin' all the flowers," Bethel said. Her tone was meek, but her eyes were flashing. Had the doctor not been present she would have long since launched into a stern lecture. "Maybe you want me t' fetch Nate up from the yams to put 'em in the stable?"

"Hanged if I ain't forgot the horses!" Cullen exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "You'll excuse me, Doc: I got to—"

"Go on," the older man said. "I'll be taking my leave just as soon as I pay my respects to your lovely wife."

Cullen bared his teeth in a terse smile of thanks, gesturing apologetically, and then ran from the room to secure his forgotten team.

_*discidium*_

When the afternoon sun was casting long shadows and the heat was no longer so fierce, Mary tied on her work apron and her deepest-brimmed bonnet. Gabe was with Bethel, "helping" her with supper, and Mary was going out to see what she could do in the vegetable patch. Doctor Whitehead's impromptu visit had eased her niggling worry about the aches she still felt. He had told her that she might be sore for a while yet, and that she ought to do what housework she could tolerate. She didn't really suppose that he meant she ought to be working in the garden, but she intended to keep a close watch on her pain and to try it regardless. Bethel helped Lottie as much as she could, but they had put in an enormous quantity of vegetables this year and they all seemed to be ripening at once. Cullen had gone out after a hasty dinner to join the others in the yams, and Mary wanted to make herself useful.

Lottie was already out among the carrots, sitting crosslegged with a row on either side. Both her dark hands worked, one weeding in each row and depositing the useless harvest in her lap. Her bare toes wriggled now and again, flicking away an ant or evading the tickling hem of her dress. She smiled when she saw Mary.

"Basket's right there, Missus Bohannon," she said. "Beans be needing picking. Don' take none but the greenes' ones."

"Thank you, Lottie, yes," said Mary, somewhat amused. She had spent time in the garden before, but Lottie seemed to like having someone to instruct. She picked up the low willow basket and balanced it on her hip. The rows of beans were not far from the carrots, and climbing their stakes they were almost waist-high. She set about picking the slender green crescents with her free hand, setting them carefully into the basket. Once she had a rhythm to her picking, she felt able to resume conversation. "How are the carrots?"

"Growin'," Lottie said. "Be ready soon, at leas' for table eating. The horses, they'll have to wait a bit longer." She craned her neck, squinting into the sun. "Missus?" she said. "What the doctor say?"

"I'm better," said Mary. "I'm good as new."

"Oh, I's glad to hear that," Lottie said. "What we-all would do 'thout you I don' know. Jus' about break Mist' Gabe's heart, I think." She frowned thoughtfully. "But Ma say Massa littler 'n him when _his_ mama die. That so?"

"I believe it is so, Lottie, yes," said Mary. Cullen seldom spoke of his mother, who had died in unfruitful childbed. Suddenly she was tremendously relieved that she had enjoined Doctor Whitehead to keep the secret of her miscarriage. It would surely have terrified him. Casting about for some change in subject, she asked; "What did you do yesterday?"

"Usual Sunday things," said Lottie. "Ma 'n me said our prayers after breakfast, an' Ma went down Hartwood way to see Pa. Saw to the chickens, went climbin' that big oak tree by the tobacco fiel', came back 'n put on cold dinner fo' the men. Elijah said I were botherin' him, so I went down the creek-bottom. I jus' waded, Missus, I promise!" she added hastily. "I wouldn' go swimmin' on the Lord's Day."

A question that Mary had been meaning to put to the child for some time came to her. "Lottie, why doesn't your mother take you to see your father anymore?" she asked. "You haven't been to see him in such a long while."

Lottie shrugged her shoulders. "Don' know. I 'spects they wants their time 'lone, but then Ma say nex' week Pa goin' come over here an' mebbe stay late. Be nice to see him."

"I'm sure it would," said Mary. As usual when confronted with the uglier aspects of slavery she felt rather ill. The idea of a broken family filled her with dread. She could not imagine what it might be to have to wait an entire week to see Cullen, or to bring up her boy alone while her husband lived on someone else's land less than two miles away, unable to leave that land except on Sundays. She supposed perhaps the darkies were used to such things, but that did not make it right.

In Meg's case there seemed no solution. Her husband was a foreman, and a very valuable slave. Certainly Mr. Sutcliffe would never set him free. Even if Mary might have persuaded Cullen to free Meg and Lottie they would not have been welcome to live liberated on Hartwood Plantation. And Cullen certainly had no intention of selling them to Mr. Sutcliffe. He did not even particularly like Meg going over there, and when Mary had brought it to his attention that Lottie no longer made the trips he had responded strongly.

"Good!" he had snapped, steely eyes dark. "She's better off here."

Mary had protested that a child ought to be able to see her father. Cullen had countered that she could see him when he came over onto their land.

"But what about her friends at Hartwood?" Mary had asked. "She plays with the other children when she's over there. Surely she ought to have a chance to mix with boys and girls her own age."

But Cullen had been adamant that Mary refrain from raising the matter with Meg. Since then he had made it a point to take Lottie with him when he went calling on the Ainsleys or the Grahams so that she could spend time with the Negro children on those plantations while he saw to his business, but he refused to take her to Hartwood. He was equally stubborn in declining to explain his reasons.

There was already good heap of beans in the basket, but the row still stretched on ahead. Mary's back was starting to hurt her from bending to reach the lower vines, and she wondered how anyone could bear to work the tobacco, where the picking was harder and the stooping lower. She twisted her torso so that her stays shifted a little, exerting their gentle pressure on the sore place. She was getting well again, she reminded herself. Doctor Whitehead had said so. It had been very kind of him to drop by unannounced just to see how she was faring. She had not expected him to insist upon an exam, but the faint worry in his gentle eyes had swayed her. She did wish that Cullen had not had to come home to see the doctor's horse outside. He had looked half-crazed with fright when he burst into the room: she had never intended to scare him.

It was good of the doctor, too, to declare that as he hadn't been sent for there should be no question of a fee. Cullen had tried to argue this point, but Doctor Whitehead had remained firm. He had only looked in on an old friend, he had said, on his way back from his call on the Sutcliffes. He had insisted on checking Mary, not the other way 'round, and he wasn't in the habit of pushing his services on friends. He'd had a very pleasant talk, he said, and some very fine whiskey, but thank you he wouldn't stay to dinner. His affable manner and his firm words had finally won the day and Cullen had put away his pocketbook. He never would have done it if he had not been convinced the doctor had no ulterior motive, but Mary was glad. Over his hurried meal her husband had made passing mention of their bill at the dry-goods store: scarcely more than a word, but his shoulders had sagged and the corners of his mouth tightened in worry. It was early in the year to be in debt, and his small hoard of bank notes and gold would not last forever.

The thought of the journey into town made Mary's hands itch. She had four letters waiting for her on the mantelpiece in the parlor, but she was determined not to open them until the day's work was over. She was thirsty for news from home, and the letter from Jeremiah was a special treat. She could not imagine what might have driven her brother to write to her, for he was a staunch abolitionist and heartily disapproved of her choice to marry a slave-owner. He was a strong-willed man, and as much as she loved him she had to admit he had a rather officious manner. He had never got on well with Cullen: bringing them together was like mixing kerosene and wine, or setting a match to black powder. Mary had been mildly surprised to discover that Cullen had paid the postage due on Jeremiah's letter, but she supposed she ought not to be. He had done it for her sake, of course, as he did so many other unpleasant things.

If she shaded her eyes and craned her neck she could just make out dark shapes on the far end of the sweet potato field: two of them, crouching with arms outstretched. The other two were likely further along, out of sight beyond the roll in the land. At this distance she could not tell who it was she saw: lean bodies in work shirts all looked the same. She hoped the work was not too hard and that they would not keep at it past suppertime. Doctor Whitehead's carefully neutral expression had not wholly concealed his consternation when she had told him of Cullen's illness. She hoped they had discussed the subject during their short time alone.

Lottie had finished with her carrots and was now in amongst the beans as well. She picked into Mary's basket, which was soon brimming, and she hummed as she worked.

_*discidium*_

Cullen stood over the washbasin in the kitchen, scrubbing the grime from his hands and arms. The water turned swiftly black, saturated with thin mud, and he flung it through the open kitchen door before pouring out a fresh measure. Behind him Bethel was stirring the large stock pot, in which was brewing the beef broth that now filled the kitchen with its hearty dark scent. It would not be ready until morning, when it had simmered long enough to leach every drop of nourishment out of the bones, but when it was ready Mary could have all she could drink and Bethel had promised there would be enough to use as the base for a thick bean soup. His appetite definitely seemed to be recovered, for the prospect left him ravenous.

His hands were as clean as they were likely to get now, but he made one last pass with the nail brush just to be certain. Then he changed the water again and bent stiffly to wash his face. The cool water felt delicious on his dry skin and he rubbed enthusiastically. Then he groped for the threadbare towel and patted his beard dry. He had shed his work-boots outside, and he padded on stocking feet to the dining room door.

"Woah, hol' up there," Bethel said, hurrying to stop him. Cullen halted obediently, and she reached up to try to smooth his unruly hair. "I don' know why you doesn't keep a comb in here," she said. "You goin' in to see your wife lookin' like a lynx caught out in a thunderstorm."

"Wish I was," said Cullen. He glanced back out the door at the brilliant red glow of the sky. "Don't look like rain tonight."

"You goin' give yourself a misery waitin' for rain," Bethel said sagely. "It come or it don't: not a thing you can do 'bout it. Now you go kiss Missus Mary, an' I'll be in directly with supper. She pick them green beans herself, you know."

"She was out in the garden?" he asked. "She's not well…"

"She gettin' weller ev'ry day, an' it good for her to feel she helpin'," declared Bethel. "Don' you scold her. She weren't out there more'n a hour an' it put some color back in her cheeks. Jus' be sure you say how good them beans be."

"Yes, ma'am," Cullen said playfully. Despite his weariness he felt better for having spent the day well out of the tobacco. The yams were almost all hilled: he would let Nate and Elijah finish them in the morning while he took a look at the wagon. He let Bethel make one last attempt to tame his hair, and then he escaped into the dining room.

He was met with an unexpected whoop of delight, and felt his whole face brighten into a grin. Gabe, who was ordinarily abed at this hour, was sitting on his chair, perched atop the pear crate they used to boost him up to the table.

"Pappy's done workin'!" he crowed happily, kicking at the edge of the seat.

"Not quite," said Cullen, rounding the table to tousle his boy's hair. "I still got to see to the stock once I've eaten, but we did good work in the yams today. What are you doing up so late?"

"Mama say I may," Gabe informed him. "It a treat."

"Yes, it is." Cullen bent and kissed him, scarcely feeling the grinding of his vertebrae or the straining of his muscles in his happiness. "Ain't Mama good to us rascals?"

"I thought you might want to change for supper," Mary said pleasantly.

Cullen looked down at his rough shirt and his pants with the patched knees ground thick with dirt. "I can if you want me to," he said, puzzled; "but I ain't exactly in the habit these days."

"You might at least put on your waistcoat," Mary told him. There was a lilt to her voice, and he saw now the glimmer in her eyes. She gestured to his chair, from the back of which hung his watered-silk vest. For a moment he did not know what to think: surely she did not mean for him to put on one of his very best garments over a sweat-stained old shirt. Then he understood. His wife had been searching his pockets.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe Gabe would like to try it on. Would you like to try it on, son?"

He picked it up by the shoulders and shook it out. Gabe nodded eagerly. "I try it on," he said. "Jus' like Pappy."

He lifted his little arms and Cullen settled the garment over them. It was enormously too large, and slipped immediately down around his elbows like a robe of state embellished with jet buttons instead of sapphires.

"I wonder what you got in your pockets," Cullen said thoughtfully.

Gabe's brow furrowed as he considered this, and he bent over his lap. His small fingers went carefully to the pocket of his trousers and he tried to peel it open. So solemn was his expression and so intense his concentration that Cullen could not help chuckling. "Your new pockets," he hinted.

Gabe looked up at him, frowning. "New pockets?" he said. "I on'y gots one pocket. See?"

"In the waistcoat, darling," Mary said, smiling radiantly. "What's in the pocket of Pappy's waistcoat?"

The child reeled in the crisp cloth and plopped its corner in his lap. He squeezed the bulge of the pocket experimentally, and then put his whole hand into a space only just large enough for a watch. He let loose a shrill squeal of delight loud enough to make the lamp-glass shudder, and he brought out the two little paper packets.

"One for you," said Cullen; "and one for Lottie. You can give it to her tomorrow, but Mama will hold onto it for now."

Mary held out her hand and Gabe obediently deposited one of the crumpled bags into it. The other he tore open with vigor, sending the pieces of peppermint candy tumbling onto the table. He clapped his hands and seized one, popping it into his mouth and biting down noisily. Cullen watched delightedly as his boy's eyes rolled in bliss and he smacked his small lips. It would have been worth a hundred dollars to see that expression: at a penny it was a bargain.

"What do you say to your father, dear?" prompted Mary gently.

Gabe made a garbled attempt at speech that came out chiefly in vowels. Then he parked the shards of peppermint in his cheek like a squirrel and tried again. "T'ank you, Pappy," he said solemnly.

"You're welcome," Cullen said, enunciating carefully. Mary was trying to teach their son his manners, and that meant slow and careful reinforcement whenever they were plied. He scooped up the two remaining pieces and tipped them into his empty coffee cup. "What's say we put these on the sideboard, so you can have 'em tomorrow?" he asked.

An older child would have protested the confiscation of his gift, but Gabe was occupied with the sweet in his mouth, and he nodded affably. In spite of his excitement he was starting to take on that glassy, doe-eyed look that meant he was ready to fall asleep. "Should I take someone upstairs?" Cullen asked as he eased his son's arms out of the waistcoat and hung it on the fourth chair.

Mary shook her head. "Bethel said she would. He's had his supper, but I thought you might want to give him his present before he went to bed."

"Present?" Gabe said drowsily, the word coming out around a mouth still busy with the candy.

"What if it weren't for him?" asked Cullen, teasing.

"Then I suppose you'd be cross with me," said Mary.

"I could never be cross with you." He paused by her chair so that he could kiss her cheek. This time his back declined to bend as far as it ought, and he was obliged to crook his knees to reach his goal. Her skin was soft and warm beneath his lips and he felt a stirring of desire despite the weight of his fatigue. He quelled it as he straightened. Doc Whitehead had told him they had to take it easy for a couple more weeks at least.

Cullen sat down just as Bethel came out of the kitchen with their plates. She retreated again to bring in water and Cullen's coffee. Then she gathered Gabe into her arms.

"Come on, honey," she cooed. "It time li'l boys be off to bed."

Gabe made a vague, somnolent protest, but he was already nestling against her. Bethel cuddled him expertly, her age-wizened hands as capable now as they had been when Cullen was small. There was love in her eyes as she looked down at the little boy. "Say goodnight to Mama an' Pappy," she said.

"G'night, Mama. G'night, Pappy," Gabe obliged. His eyes were closed and his thumb began to creep up towards his mouth. So smoothly that her motion seemed almost a natural extension of her step, Bethel guided his wrist away as she moved to the door. They heard her steady feet on the stairs, and the creak of the nursery door. That was one set of hinges Cullen did not keep oiled, for there were times it was nice for a man and his wife to have a little advance warning if their child was abroad in the night.

As Cullen's gaze returned to the table he saw Mary smiling down at her hand. The other bag of sweets still rested in her palm. "It was good of you to think of bringing something for the children," she said. "With money as tight as it is I wondered if you would."

"When I was growing up that was the best part of Pappy going into town," said Cullen. "Up until I got old enough to go with him, of course. Then I liked walking tightrope on the railroad tracks and throwing rocks onto the stationhouse roof."

He picked up his fork and knife and started sawing at his slice of fried salt pork. His mouth watered as he bit into it, but he was thinking of fresh meat. It was too early in the year for good hunting, unfortunately. He might have considered going after a jackrabbit or two to satisfy the craving, if it weren't for Sutcliffe's taunt still ringing in his ears. Well, he thought, tomorrow night there'd be a bowl of rich beef soup. That was almost as good. He went next for a forkful of the green beans, parboiled and buttered, and remembered what Bethel had said. It was no challenge to raise enthusiastic words, for they were crisp and fresh, and they were sweet.

"These are delicious," he said happily. "It's a fine thing to have fresh vegetables again, ain't it?"

"Yes," said Mary, a faint blush of pleasure on her cheeks. "The garden is coming along beautifully, though I think I might water the peas tomorrow. Some of the leaves are looking a little crisp in the tips."

Cullen's high spirits evaporated as thoughts of rain came back. It could not be another dry summer. It must not be another dry summer. "You be sure and have Lottie tote the bucket," he said. "I don' want you doing yourself harm."

"Yes, of course," she said serenely. She was focused spreading a thin scraping of butter over her bread, and she did not seem to notice as he studied the sheen of her auburn hair in the glow of the sunset.

"Mary?" he said softly. "What'd Doc Whitehead say to you 'bout what was wrong? I know he says you're getting better, but what made you take sick in the first place?"

She looked up, her bright eyes suddenly dimmed and guarded. "Why, Cullen, it was just a spot of lady's trouble," she said. "Surely he told you that."

"Yes he did," said Cullen with care; "but the truth is I don't rightly know what that means. I didn't grow up 'round womenfolk – well, apart from Bethel, and she's as healthy as a horse."

"It's nothing." Mary was flushing now, not the pretty pink of delight but a hot red flare that sat in a livid blossom on each cheekbone. "Just my monthly time come in badly, and early."

"Come in late by my reckoning," Cullen murmured. His chest felt tight, but he couldn't say quite why. Did not, in fact, want to say.

"Oh. Maybe it did," she said nebulously. "Please, Cullen, this really isn't suitable talk for the supper table, even if it is only the two of us."

He breathed a little easier at that. Of course she was right, and her discomfiture made sense. Surely there wasn't anything more to be concerned about, or she would have told him. Still he felt a small unsettling mass at the back of his throat. "Mary, you would tell me, wouldn't you, if something's wrong?" he asked.

She looked up at him and smiled unsteadily. "There's nothing wrong," she sighed. "Not anymore."


	10. Under the Wagon

**Chapter Ten: Under the Wagon**

The kitchen door swung closed and from the stoop came the heavy sounds of Mister Cullen sitting to drag on his boots. Bethel listened to the familiar creak of sunbaked leather, and the leaden fall of a freshly shod foot. Then with a shifting of sweat-stiffened cloth and a creak of weathered wood he rose. He groaned as he did so: a low, unhappy sound that tore at Bethel's heart. Poor fool boy: it never occurred to him that she could hear every sound on the other side of that door. Had he even suspected, he never would have allowed himself to give voice to his pains and the weariness that was grinding away at him slowly day after long, hard day.

When the sound of his doggedly plodding feet faded off towards the barn, Bethel picked up the rag and got back to wiping the supper dishes. The fine old china that Miss Caroline had brought with her from Charleston all those years ago was chipped and fading now, but it was still beautiful. The pattern of vines and flowers, delicately painted by craftsmen in France, always stirred Bethel's emotions. The vines were something Miss Caroline had called 'Canthus leaves, but it was the blossoms that Bethel cared for: the five-petaled blossoms like little blue stars twinkling amid the greenery. "They're forget-me-nots, Bethel," her young mistress had said as she lifted a plate carefully from the straw in the packing crate. Her eyes had sparkled with the dazzling delight of a young bride. "They're a symbol of love that goes on and on, even in death."

Of course Miss Caroline had been young; sheltered and idealistic and both eager and anxious as she stepped into her new life. But then Miss Caroline had never had the chance to be anything but young, and her short years of marriage had done nothing to blunt her innocence. Still it was at that moment Bethel liked best to remember her: with her curls swinging down to kiss her smooth cheeks, and her high-waisted muslin gown festooned with blossoms gathered from the magnolia tree, as she unpacked her wedding treasures in her new home. It was better than remembering her toiling under the bulk and nausea of her first difficult pregnancy, or wan and weakened from the effort of the birth and the baby's constant tending, or writhing in agony on bloodied sheets as the second child, early and stillborn, snatched her fragile life away. It was so much better to remember her with the ivory-colored plate in her hand, tracing the gilded rim with one slim finger while she spoke of love that went on and on.

Bethel had been a house-slave in Miss Caroline's parents' stately home overlooking the sea. When their daughter was born she had been newly promoted to the position of upstairs maid: half a year younger than Lottie was now, skinny and gawky in the new dignity of her real shoes and starched apron. By the time Miss Caroline was old enough to go to balls and musicales and to receive beaux, Bethel's duties had been extended from making beds and laying fires and drawing baths to dressing hair and lacing dainty satin evening slippers. She had become Miss Caroline's confidante: the one who undressed her after a late night of dancing and heard the breathless stories of handsome young men and gallantly foolish old ones, of scrumptious midnight dainties and the daring new waltzes that sent the matrons into flurries of disapproval. She had listened to the young girl's eager fantasies about the man she would marry; the house she would live in; the children she would have. It was to Bethel that Miss Caroline had first confessed that one of her many suitors had at last caught her eye.

It had been the expectation of the family, and indeed of Miss Caroline herself, that she would marry a scion of one of Charleston's old families. These dynasties, descended from the early settlers who had come from England under the auspices of King Charles, represented some of the finest bloodlines of the South. Coming as she did from one of these families, it had seemed only natural for Miss Caroline to marry among them. But when the time came for her to give her heart she bestowed it not on one of the boys she had known since babyhood, but upon a stranger from far-off Mississippi. He had been staying at the home of Mark Craven: the two had been at the College together, and the out-of-state planter had come to town for a summer to visit old haunts and make inquiries about a new venture he had in the works. He wanted to put up some of his father's cotton land in tobacco, and he spent his days riding out to survey plantations growing the crop, or buying up experienced slaves at auction. His nights he had passed trailing his school friend from party to party in and around Charleston. Miss Caroline had inevitably caught his eye, as she did most men: she had been as beautiful as a wax doll, as light on her feet as a pepperseed moth, and as quietly charming as a lullaby. The gracious sweetness so aggressively cultivated in girls of her class had come naturally to her, but beneath that soft and silken wrapping was a thin blade of steel; as supple and unyielding as the sabre her grandfather had swung for Liberty.

It was that secret rod of courage that had carried her, head held high, down to her father's drawing room to tell him that she meant to marry the vivacious, hard-riding Mississippian. She had borne her sire's imperious refusal with grace, and countered with her own quiet but immutable arguments. When he grew still and wrathful, she remained collected and unintimidated. When at last he had bellowed that no daughter of his would ever go off to wild Indian country with some backwoods Scotsman, she had said, in a serene voice that nonetheless had carried through the heavy inlaid doors and up to the first landing where Bethel stood listening; "I shall marry him, Papa, and we shall be very happy together." Only when she had retreated at last to the safety of her boudoir and the comfort of Bethel's faithful presence had she collapsed on the velvet stool of her dressing table, quaking like a leaf in a hurricane at her own temerity.

The war for Miss Caroline's hand had been a fierce one, and Bethel had never learned the details of many of the battles – for they had been fought in gentlemen's clubs and smoking rooms, or up on the heights above the port by two ramrod figures on horseback. But she had known every intimate detail of the other campaign: the one waged quietly and gently over the breakfast table, among the roses in the walled garden of the beautiful house in town, on the shady carriage-trails of the family lands. Slowly and tenderly, Miss Caroline had brought her father around to her way of thinking: helping him to reimagine his dreams for her, showing him the happiness she found in her paramour, and above all quieting his terror at the thought of losing her to a distant state and a husband he could not rule from afar. In the end he had relented, and had given his consent to the marriage.

There had been nothing really objectionable about Mister Bohannon. To be sure, he had been a little rough around the edges by the standards of South Carolina, and his grammar had been deplorable. But he had been a man of exquisite manners and good education, with a mastery of all gentlemanly pursuits. The worst of it was that he lived in Mississippi: despite her soothing reassurances to her father even Miss Caroline had been frightened by the prospect of moving so far away from the city of her birth. She had been equally anxious at the prospect of suddenly finding herself mistress of a plantation full of unfamiliar slaves. It had been her mother's suggestion that Bethel might make a very suitable wedding present, and at that offer Miss Caroline had very nearly wept for gratitude and joy.

"You must come with me and help me to establish myself, Bethel dear," she had said on the last night of her maidenhood. "Oh, I know I shall make a success of it if you are there to help me! I want to be a good wife. A good _Mississippi_ wife. You must help me to do it. And when I shall have babies… oh, Bethel, I wouldn't want anyone but you to look after my babies!"

And Bethel, of an age then to be aching for children of her own, had undertaken that sacred trust. She had come to Mississippi with her mistress and had helped her to establish herself. She had helped her to become a good wife in the vital young air of Lauderdale County. And when the baby had come she had helped Miss Caroline to look after him until the second pregnancy, which never should have been allowed to happen, had carried her off and left Cullen Bohannon without a mother more than a month short of his third birthday.

The ropy muscles along the inside of Bethel's elbows, made lean and strong with hard work of the sort that she never would have turned her hand to as headwoman of a large Charleston house, ached with emptiness as she dried the dome of the butter-dish and set it on its base. She remembered holding the small body clad in a somber black mourning frock, too worn out with weeping to writhe anymore, his sweet soprano voice too hoarse to sob. He had hiccoughed quietly against her breast, one small white hand clutching at the row of buttons down her front while silent tears trickled down the side of his nose. Bethel had tried to shelter him as much as possible from the comings and goings of the neighbors, from the obligatory wailing in the slave quarters, from his father's grim misery and his grandfather's respectful sobriety. It was impossible that so small a child could have understood all that was happening, but one thing was very clear to him: his mother was gone. He wanted her and she was gone, and where she had gone he could not follow.

Bethel had consoled him then, and she had comforted him through the piteous, weeping weeks immediately following Miss Caroline's death. Next had come a period of irrational rages, when he would scream and kick and fling himself off of the veranda steps or out of the arms of his unsuspecting father. In these fits of inarticulate torment Bethel had simply hefted him, still kicking and shrieking and struggling, onto her shoulder and carried him off to the kitchen or even, when it was particularly bad or the master had visitors, down to Cap's sister's cabin on the other side of the willows. Sooner or later he always exhausted himself, and when that happened she would ease her deep, bracing grip and let him sleep in her arms where he might feel safe.

Then one day, when the cotton was budding and the young tobacco plants were above his dark little head, Mister Cullen had awakened happily. He had gone about his business that day as if he were any other little boy: climbing the back of the horsehair sofa, hiding under the sideboard to leap out and startle his grandfather, sneaking fingerfuls of strawberry jam behind Bethel's back. At first she had thought they were only in the eye of the storm, but as days turned to weeks and weeks to months his temperament had remained sweet and his approach to life eager and mischievous. Though for years afterward he had sometimes awakened weeping in the night, mourning in his dreams a mother he could scarcely remember, he had been for the most part a merry little boy.

And he had been Bethel's boy. Cap, though in every other way an ideal husband, had not managed to discharge that particular marital duty with much regularity. He had been fifteen years older than Bethel, and she thought maybe some harm had been done to him in his early years growing up in the humid and disease-riddled rice fields of the Carolina coast. Only once had he successfully made her skip a course, and she had lost the little one in the August heat of her first Mississippi summer before she even felt it quicken. Early on she had felt keenly this absence in her life, but when she was brought into the house – despite its lack of proper servants' quarters – to care for Miss Caroline's son, she had all but forgotten any wish she might have had to bear children of her own.

She had a child, just an overgrown little baby really, who needed her; who came to her with the hurts and outrages of his day, and ran first to her to boast of his triumphs. It was to Bethel he had come to confess when he had pried the back off his grandfather's watch and pulled out all the springs, and Bethel who had given him the courage to own up like a gentleman and take the consequences. It was Bethel, too, who had bathed his face and salved his pride after the resulting caning. Bethel had taught him how to take off his hat for a lady, and how to draw out a dining chair smoothly that she might sit. She had refined his father's lessons in etiquette and Southern courtesy with the lessons she had learned in the stately old house where she and Miss Caroline had both been born – one above stairs and one below. It was Bethel who had packed his trunk when he went off to university, and Bethel who had unpacked it again when he came home to stay. He had been her master's son, and he was now her master himself, but though he owned her in law she knew she owned him too – and in a deeper and more natural way than any law of man could touch. She loved him with all of her heart, and she would always love him.

She carried the plates to the dish-dresser, her left hip grinding a little as she walked. Bethel liked to think that despite her age she was as spry and strong as ever, but sometimes she felt the years in her bones. She had long since stopped counting her birthdays, but she had certainly had a good many of them. She didn't mind the occasional twinge, but she worried about growing old. She was still as useful as she ever had been – more useful now, when every pair of hands had twice the work and many times the value they had had in prosperous times – but she feared the time when she could not carry her share. It was not a fear for her own future that drove this anxiety: she knew the family would take care of her to the end of her days whatever it cost them. But she was needed, so very badly needed, and she could not bear the thought that one day her body might leave her unable to fill that need for those she loved.

Mister Cullen was out there now, shoveling feed and pitching down hay for bedding the mules when he ought to be sitting in the parlor with his wife and enjoying the peace of the evening. He had spent the afternoon crouched in the dirt to hill the yams, instead of dandling his boy on his knee or listening to Missus Mary read out her letters from home or riding off to a neighbor's for a lazy day of hunting. Desperate to keep the plantation afloat, he was working himself harder than any field hand over at Hartwood, and if his collapse on Saturday wasn't proof of what it was doing to his health, Bethel didn't know what was.

She knew what he was doing was necessary, if they were all going to stay fed. He had to raise a fifty-acre crop out of the tobacco if he was going to pay the taxes and buy the winter's stores and put by a little for Mister Gabe's schooling. He had to help tend that tobacco with his own dear hands, because three people couldn't work fifty acres and there wasn't money to take on another man. He'd had to spend two weeks fighting one of the two moldboard plows and the thick spring mud to put in the corn, because Elijah was too old to drive a mule team anymore and they couldn't afford to buy the year's feed. He had to tend his own stock in the lamplight, because these days it seemed he couldn't look himself in the mirror unless he'd put in just the same long and backbreaking day as the two black men. He'd have to dig the potatoes and bring in the corn and haul wood for the stoves and turn his hand to a thousand other hard and menial tasks before the year was out. And he had to do all this while still discharging the duties of a master: keeping the family finances, planning the work for next year, going in to town when they needed what they could not produce, making arrangements to have the tobacco crop packed and shipped, travelling to New Orleans to sell it so he could be sure of getting the best possible price, and doing what he could to keep friendly with the neighbors. All of it was so vitally important, and he could not lay by any of it.

Still, it pained Bethel to see him wearing himself down like he was. He was thinner now than he'd been as a boy of eighteen, though his arms and back were packed with hard lean muscle from the ceaseless labor. He still walked with pride and held his head high as his mother had always done, and stood up to worthless rich whites like Sutcliffe even when he was tired and filthy and shamed, but his spine had been stooped for weeks from the ache of bending in the tobacco and his eyes were always shadowed with weariness. He didn't laugh as often as he used to, and though he was kind to his folks and sweet with Missus Mary it was obvious at least to Bethel's keen eyes that he was suffering. Just about the only time he looked young and carefree like he ought to was when he was playing with his son.

The worst of it was that she didn't think it was the work that was getting the better of him. He had never been afraid of hard work, and he did what had to be done without complaint. But she could see the worry in his eyes and the knot of care he bore at either corner of his mouth, poorly hidden by the beard she had never been able to talk him out of keeping. She thought that was what was hurting his spirit: the worry, and the constant helplessness of farming. His fretting about the rain was a perfect example. A man born to be a farmer, he might hope for rain and mourn it when it didn't come, but he didn't spend his days with an uneasy eye on the sky, watching every minute for a hint of a cloud. Mister Cullen had never been a one to accept there were things he couldn't change if he tried hard enough, and he would break himself slamming into a wall he couldn't move.

Bethel wiped the table and swept the floor, then went to the stove to stir the contents of the big boiling pot. Bones and vegetable scraps and three diced onions were brewing with a cheesecloth bag full of herbs, percolating into a broth for the mistress. Bethel didn't need to be told that Missus Mary had lost a baby. She could see it in her eyes: the haunted shock of a woman who had felt a life slip out of her very hands. It surfaced in quiet moments, when the girl's thoughts wandered from immediate questions of the day. It flickered behind her smile when she saw Mister Cullen. And as surely as Bethel knew that she knew that Missus Mary was keeping the secret to herself. If the doctor knew – and sometimes they didn't, white men that they were – he hadn't said anything either. Mister Cullen didn't know, and Bethel aimed to help keep it that way. Something like that, she feared, would be just about enough to shatter him, the strain he was under now.

The back step creaked and Bethel hurried to get the boot jack into place by the bench. She was back at the stove in a flash, so that he should not suspect she had been waiting for him. The broth was coming along nicely: she would be able to strain it in the morning and maybe take a cupful to the mistress before she got out of bed. Mister Cullen could have a taste with his breakfast, too. They hadn't had any beef on the place since before the last crop had started to fail: even soup would be a treat.

The door opened and Mister Cullen came in. He sat down at once to work at his boots, but though he moved stiffly he did not need to grab the table to steady himself. That was a salve to Bethel's worries: he wasn't lightheaded.

"There a spot of coffee lef'," she said as he flung his boots over the threshold and kicked the door closed with his toe, not troubling to stand. "You want to drink it?"

He looked up at her, and the fog of fatigue glistened bright across his eyes. He blinked slowly, which seemed to clear it, and he offered her a half-smile like a wilted daisy picked by small and eager hands. "That'd be nice, Bethel, thank you."

While she fetched a cup he dragged himself to his feet and went to wash his hands of the smell of the mules. As his left hand put the towel back on its rail, his right crept up so that his fingertips could press against his temple. His eyes closed briefly and he exhaled slowly through his nose. Watching from the corner of her eye, Bethel knew that his head was still plaguing him. Quickly she picked up the bottle of anodyne he had bought in town that morning. She removed the stopper with her thumb and tipped a fine sprinkling of powder into the cup. She put down the vial and went to the stove, pouring out the last of the coffee over the small hill of medicine and the faded petals of the forget-me-not painted in the bottom of the dainty china vessel.

"Might be bitter," she said, setting the mug on the table with a teaspoon beside it. "Been brewin' all day."

"It'd suit me if it was strong enough to stand a spoon in," Mister Cullen said. Instead of sitting down again he planted his fist on the tabletop and leaned forward over it. He poured a dollop of sorghum syrup into the dark fluid and stirred it vigorously. He raised the steaming vessel to his mouth and took a long swallow. He sighed contentedly. "It's perfect," he promised. He looked around the kitchen. "Sorry I can't sit a bit," he said. "Mary'll be wanting to read out her letters."

"You go on," Bethel told him earnestly. "Put up them tired feet. Jus' be sure you drink that all down, now: don' do to waste nothin'."

He raised his cup in a quick salute and disappeared through the dining room door.

_*discidium*_

Cullen was on his back in the damp grass, one leg stretched out straight and the other bent so that his knee grazed the edge of the wagon box. Eyes wide in the shade beneath it, he pulled slowly at one of the axle pins. Nate had helped him lever the rear end of the buckboard onto blocks before heading out to the yams, and Cullen had managed to drag off both wheels on his own. This was no mean feat, for the buckboard wheels weighed close to forty pounds each and they were so tightly fitted to the axle that it took a couple dozen blows with a heavy oak mallet to pound them on. Getting them off again after years of the rod marrying to the hub was not a task to be lightly undertaken. Cullen had raised a sweat and let loose several very choice words while wrestling with the right-hand wheel, and had finally resorted to bracing one foot against the wagon box and hauling with his whole weight. He had only just managed to regain his balance and get his foot out of the way when the wheel finally came free and crashed to earth. After that struggle he had found the left wheel much easier, and both were now canted on their sides beyond the toe of his outstretched boot.

He shifted his body to the left and grabbed hold of another pin. In anticipation of this work he had pared his nails before breakfast, but the third one was still ragged and it snagged, lifting from its bed with a sickening bright flash of pain that faded almost at once to an irritating sting. Cullen hissed and tried again to get a good grip on the stout peg.

He had slept heavily the night before, and awakened feeling parched and groggy but stronger than he had in days. Even the overworked muscles of his back had quieted their blustering, and lying now with his spine stretched he felt almost well again. His headache was gone at last, after plaguing him for the better part of four days, and its absence left him feeling remarkably cheerful. The morning shadows were still long and the whole day stretched before him, but it was not such a dreary prospect as many that had come before. He hoped to have the wagon put right by noon, and then he could take it down to the creek bottom and start felling timber. There was a heady catharsis to working an axe, and hard labor though it was it was at least labor in the shade, with a convenient and quick-running source of water nearby.

First, however, he had to get this pin loose. He grabbed again, and again his fingers slipped. They were slick, and he wiped them on the front of his shirt before making another attempt. The wood was smooth and weathered, and trying to get a firm grip was like trying to carry a half-pint of loose cornmeal in your teeth.

Cullen's memories of the previous evening were dim. He had joined Mary in the parlor, where she always went when she had letters from home. He had settled in his chair with his feet, as instructed, on the old tapestry footstool. Between the coffee and the thin homemade cigar he had expected to keep himself awake while his wife read, but her voice seemed to fade in and out as she ran through the news of her parents, her sisters, and the oldest Tate brother who was now taking a hand in the family's business interests in New York. Finally she had opened the letter from Maine, but she had scanned it silently with her eyes before offering the simple news that her other brother and her sister-in-law were well, and that their two boys were doing splendidly at school. Their daughter, who had just celebrated her seventh birthday, was also healthy and content, and that was all she had to offer him. There was undoubtedly more in the letter, for it was composed of two full sheets of good stationery, one covered on both sides, but whatever Jeremiah had to say to his sister Mary did not think it worth repeating. Still she had seemed uneasy as they went up to their room, and unusually quiet as she performed her evening toilette. Cullen, by then almost a sleepwalker, had simply shucked his clothes and tugged on his nightshirt and tumbled into bed without pressing her.

Now he wondered whether he ought to have said something. He didn't care what her meddlesome and censorious brother was up to, but if whatever it was truly bothered Mary he owed it to her to hear her complaints. He didn't like how their conversation had been left at supper, with something intangible and somehow horrific dangling between them. Maybe he was just too worn out to give her the attention she needed, but was that any sort of excuse? A good man ought to find time for his wife whatever his other responsibilities.

He tilted his head back in the grass, peering above him up the length of the wagon in the direction of the house. He could not see anything, of course, except dead grass under the box and green grass beyond, and the wagon-tongue bisecting the small stripe of sky. Apparently, however, all that was needed was to divert his eyes from his work for a moment, for his fingers found their hold at last and the pin came free. The axle shuddered and he slapped his hand up to steady it. His palm came down square across the place where the shaft had split, and a splinter drove into the pad of his hand. He snorted in irritation and moved his eyes back to his work. He tossed the pin after the others, and then placed his left hand more carefully. He retracted his right and looked at it. There was a dark globe of blood where the shard had slipped in, and he bit at it, digging with his teeth until he found the little piece of wood. He yanked it free with a scowl.

There was one pin left, but instead of trying to pull it immediately he took hold of the axle on either side of it and began to jimmy it. The pin creaked and the wagon-box rattled, and the split in the shaft shuddered and widened. Cautiously Cullen eased back on the supportive pressure of his arm, letting the weight of the beam fall on the pin. For a moment nothing happened, and then the peg gave way and the axle was loose. The muscles of his forearms stood out starkly as he resisted the inclination of the heavy beam to come crashing down across his ribs, and he lowered it slowly, shimmying out from under it as he let it fall in an arc that just cleared the crown of his head. He let go before his fingers could be crushed, and cringed reflexively at the clatter when the axle hit the ground.

Using his planted foot to propel himself, Cullen slid out from under the wagon and sat up. He wiped his hands on his trousers and looked again at his palm. There was still a shadow under his skin where a fragment of the splinter remained buried, but he was not going to be able to dig it out with his teeth. He'd have to have Mary try to hook it with a sewing needle when he returned to the house that evening. He got to his feet and went around to the side of the wagon, bending to grab the axle rod so that he could drag it out into the open.

The fissure was deeper than he had thought, sinking almost three-quarters of the way through the axle. They had been lucky that it hadn't snapped in two. The sudden loss of an axle from a loaded wagon could crack a supporting beam or break the tongue, to say nothing of the risk such a jolt posed to the team and the rider.

"Good to know I've got a bit of luck, anyway," Cullen muttered to himself, swinging the elevated end of the axle around and then letting it fall in the grass. It was good for nothing but kindling now.

He had a fresh axle waiting: the last time he had broken one he had ordered a spare in a fit of longsightedness, and now he was glad. He had neither time nor money to spare the wheelwright, and at least the cash he had laid out for this repair was already long spent and forgotten. Of course, he would have to invest in a replacement sometime, but with just a little more Providence he could delay that a while.

He slid the new shaft under the wagon directly underneath its point of attachment, and then moved to the other side to make sure it was squared. This was much easier to do now that it would be when he was under the cart again. He gathered the pins in his left hand, tossed them thoughtfully so that they clattered in his palm, and then shoved them into his trouser pocket. The mallet was sitting on its head in the grass, and he snagged it deftly by the handle. He sat down parallel to the left side of the wagon, and got his legs carefully around the block supporting the wheelless back end. Then he lay down, his hips twisted at an awkward angle, and planted the mallet just over his head where it would remain within easy reach when he got to where he needed to be. This part of the job was best achieved by three people: one to hold up either side of the axle and a third to do the undercarriage work, but he didn't have three people to spare. The problem had occupied his mind through a whole day of tobacco-topping last week, and he thought he knew how he could manage it alone.

Cullen lay down on his back with his knees still bent as high as the wagon-box allowed. He took a moment to center himself, bracing for the task ahead. Then with his left elbow bent high and his right arm reaching across his chest he grabbed hold of the axle rod and lifted it, careful not to let it wander too far from straight. Using his legs and his shoulder blades he lifted his body and shifted it a few inches to the left. Then he adjusted his hold further along the axle, lifted again, and hoisted himself again. In this way he was able to work down towards the middle of the wagon, until at last he reached the point where the axle rod was settled in its grove at his right, and could not be lifted any higher. Inhaling deeply in preparation for the strain, he reached as far as he could along the grounded side. Then, hoisting slowly but smoothly he lifted the other side of the heavy bar into place.

The axle wobbled and his arms strained. For a breath he thought he could hold it, and then it slipped. It would have come crashing down across his body with rib-snapping force, but his reflexes saved him. Before he could even think of a fix, his right knee came flying up towards his chest and his calf slid under the shaft. There was a dull crack of wood hitting bone as the weight fell against his shin, but his hands hastily shifted to steady the rocking axle while his leg bore the weight. Panting shallowly in the wake of narrowly-avoided calamity, Cullen lay very still for a moment or two in this contorted position. Then he lifted himself onto his left foot and his upper back, and moved a little to his left. He slid his knee until it rested just beside the hole bored for the first peg. His left hand kept the unbalanced left portion of the axle while his right gingerly released its hold. When he was certain that arm and leg could support the shaft he reached into his pocket and dug out a pin. He fitted it into its hole and then groped above and behind until his hand closed on the mallet. Pounding upward with the rebound coming straight for his chin was awkward and risky, but strangely exhilarating. He beat the peg tight and then put down the mallet and felt for another.

The second peg was the most difficult to place, because although he tried he could not quite keep the axel from shifting and so its hole was did not remain aligned with the hole in the carriage-beam. But the third was easier, and by the time he had finished with the fourth he was able to give his off-hand a rest and let his leg bear the load unaided. He pounded the remaining pins with vigor and then scooted down the breadth of the wagon giving each one a final ferocious tap. Finally he was able to get back out into the sunshine. He stretched his arms, massaging his aching left shoulder as he surveyed the neat placement of the axle rods in their grooves. Then he picked up the brackets and reattached them. With the axle snug in place and likely to stay that way, he went over to the shade of the stable and helped himself to a dipperful of water.

Next it was time to get the wheels back on. He tackled the right one first. Lifting it onto the tip of the rod was the easy part, but beating it down into place was another matter entirely. The fit between the hub and the axle had to be as snug as possible while still allowing the wheel to turn freely, or the jolting of the wagon would snap the axle over the first good bump. With the weight of the wheel dragging down on the rod, it took some awkward maneuvering and a great deal of pounding to get it settled. At last it was, however, and Cullen fixed the hub pin and gave it an experimental spin. It whirled almost silently and with no discernable wobble. Satisfied, he went to retrieve the other wheel. It was lying dish-down in the grass, and as he bent to lift it onto its rim he hesitated. His fingers moved to the center of the hub, brushing at what he fervently hoped was a stray blade of grass made to look dark by the glare of the sun in his eyes. But his fingertip snagged deeply on a fissure in the wood.

"_Shit!_" he snarled, straightening up and kicking the wheel with the side of his foot. The iron tire sent a jolt into his great toe, but in his frustration he could not feel it. No wonder the left wheel had been easier to remove than the right. When the axel had broken, it had cracked the hub of the wheel.

He crouched down to make a closer inspection. The largest fracture, the one he had noticed, was about half an inch deep and sank well into the heart of the hub. There were several smaller cracks too, spread like the rays of a sunburst from the center hole. The iron brace was still intact, but if he tried to haul lumber on a compromised hub it wouldn't stay that way. Sooner or later, quite likely sooner, the hub would fail and the wheel would collapse. That was a guaranteed broken axle at best. At worst, a demolished wagon and a lead mule with a broken shoulder – which would quickly turn into a dead mule, for what was there to do then but shoot it? Trying to make do with a bad wheel was a false economy of the worst kind.

Resignedly Cullen collected his tools and tossed them into the bed of the wagon. He checked to be sure the blocks were still straight, and then righted the broken wheel. Guiding it with his fingertips like a child with a hoop and stick, he rolled it along beside him and around to the stable door. It stood closed, for when the stock was in the paddock the back door was left open so that they could wander in to graze at their feed or drink at the trough when they wished to. He let the wheel lean against his leg while he opened the door, and then rolled it inside. He opened the low buggy door and lifted the wheel up into it, sitting on the floor with the hub against the leather seat. It looked perfectly ridiculous, but with his wagon on the blocks he had only the one other vehicle. He studied the spectacle for a minute or two while he turned the matter over in his mind. Then he left the stable and went up to the house.


	11. West Willows Plantation

**Chapter Eleven: West Willows Plantation**

The kitchen was empty when Cullen came in. He scraped his boots, but did not trouble to take them off. Hurriedly he washed his hands and face, and wiped the sweat from behind his ears and the back of his neck with a corner of the towel. The dining room door stood ajar, and he passed through to the corridor. He glanced into the parlor and then went to the foot of the stairs, crossing his arms to lean against the newel post. "Mary?" he called.

There were footsteps above, and she appeared at the top of the stairs, a bundle of sheets in her arms and a question in her eyes. Clearly she had not been expecting him back so soon.

"What are you doing with those?" he asked. "You ain't meant to be making the beds."

"I'm not," she said, coming down and stopping at the third step where she had half a head on his height. "Bethel's stripping them down and I was just about to take these outside. It's washday: you know that."

"So it is," Cullen said. He had lost track of the household chores, now that he spent so much of his time in the fields. "Listen, I got to go out to West Willows. If Nate and Elijah finish up with the sweet potatoes before I'm back, send 'em out to mow the clover."

"I thought Meg was taking care of that," said Mary.

He shook his head. "I got her watering the peas," he said. He looked around. "Where's our boy?"

Mary shifted her bundle to one arm and brushed at a flyaway lock of hair. "Up with Bethel. Probably trying to burrow under his tick. Why have you got Meg watering the garden? I said that I would."

"You got enough to do. It's washday." Cullen did not like the idea of Mary wringing out clothes or wrestling with wet sheets either, when she had admitted herself that she was still in pain, but at least under Bethel's watchful eyes she was not likely to stretch herself too far. "I may be back straight away, but if he thinks he can get it taken care of quickly I might just wait. I'd like to finish up today if I possibly can."

"What is it you need?" asked Mary.

"We've got a wheel with a cracked hub," he told her, not quite able to keep the weary irritation from his voice. "Might've known it was too good to be true when I got the axle changed without more than a splinter."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to see the wheelwright?" she queried. "I can't really see Boyd Ainsley mending anything."

"It's six miles in to see the wheelwright, and six miles back," said Cullen. "West Willows is just down the road a piece, and they've got a darkie cooper who should be able to take care of it. Besides," he added, chafing his hand against his beard; "I might be able to strike a bargain with Boyd."

Mary nodded. "Are you going to change your clothes?" she asked, reaching to straighten his skewed collar.

Cullen's hand closed on the front of his shirt, already damp with sweat. He was cleaner than usual for this time of the morning, but he was far from pristine. "Hadn't planned to," he said. "It's only Boyd. He won't mind."

"And Verbena and the children," said Mary. "And they may have visitors. I'm not saying you ought to dress your best, but you might put on something fresh."

"No time," he said dismissively. "If I'm lucky I might be able to get back here with a wheel for that wagon while there's still a few hours of daylight. I wanted to start in the corn tomorrow, but that means bringing up a load of timber from the creek bottom today."

"If you really think you might be over there for hours, you ought to take Lottie," said Mary. "She has friends at West Willows and I worry about her spending so much time working. She ought to have a rest; she's been so good with Gabe while I've been ill."

Cullen stopped short of reminding her that anyone of Lottie's age at the Ainsley plantation would have work of their own to tend to. There were at least a couple of children there of eight or nine, and Lottie was friendly with them. It wouldn't hurt to invite her to tag along. "All right: I'll see if she wants to. It might be a short trip, if Boyd can't get it seen to straight away. If his man can't do it at all, I'll have to go straight into Meridian. That wheel has to be mended. Or replaced," he added grimly, trying to remember what he had paid the last time a wheel had needed replacing. He could not recall, which meant it must have been in the days when money was plentiful.

"She wouldn't mind a trip into town, either," said Mary. "Go and ask her."

He nodded and reached up for the bundle of sheets. "I might as well take those, since I'll be passing that way. Could you do me a favor and get the money out of the desk. Just in case."

"Yes, of course," said Mary. She smiled for him and turned to go back up the stairs to fetch the keys from their bedroom.

Cullen went out through the kitchen, crossing the dooryard with long strides. On the grassy stretch near the twin clotheslines, the great copper wash-kettle with its three stout spider legs was heating over a fire. He tipped the sheets into the water and punched them down with the paddle. Instead of going around to the gate he climbed the rail fence and went down to the edge of the vegetable patch. Lottie was down near the far end, arms weighed down with one of the heavy watering cans as she swung it to and fro along the base of the row of peas. Cullen called to her, but she did not seem to hear him. He whistled sharply, and her head snapped up alertly. She looked first towards the well, where he now saw Meg was drawing water to fill the other two cans. Then she saw him and came swiftly running, bare feet scarcely skimming the soft earth.

"Missus Bohannon need me t' help with Mist' Gabe?" she asked as she skidded to a stop before him. Her bonnet was hanging down her back by the strings, and there was a smudge of dirt on her nose. Cullen shook his head.

"I've got business over at West Willows Plantation. I might only be there twenty minutes, I might be there a few of hours," he said. "If you want to come along you're welcome."

Her face lit up eagerly, and then she schooled her features into a dignified frown. "Ain't I needed 'round here, Massa?" she asked. "They's an awful lot needs doin'."

"Mrs. Bohannon and Bethel can spare you," said Cullen. "If your ma's got no objection."

"I'll ask her," said Lottie. She looked down at the fraying hem of her faded work dress. "I gots to change if I'm goin' visiting, an' wash my hands."

"That's fine," said Cullen; "but be quick. Soon as I hitch up the buggy I'm leaving, with or without you."

"Yassir," said Lottie, bobbing her head in solemn understanding. "Thankee, sir."

"Go run and ask your ma," Cullen said. "I'll meet you down in front of the stables."

Released by his dismissal, Lottie wheeled on her toes and bolted, fleet as a fawn, down the hill towards her mother. Brief words were exchanged, and Meg nodded. Then Lottie tore away towards the willows. Cullen watched her for a moment, then scaled the fence tiredly and started back up to the house. He bent unexpectedly into a detour and went to the woodpile. He gathered an armload of logs and moved it down by the laundry pot.

Mary was waiting for him in the dining room. The pocketbook was on the table, and Cullen scooped it up and rammed it deep into his trouser pocket. "Thank you," he said. "Looks like Lottie wants to come along. You don't need her help with the washing?"

"Bethel and I will manage beautifully," said Mary. "It ought to dry quickly in this heat, too. How long do you suppose this weather will hold? It's been a week now."

"Can't possibly be much longer," Cullen said. There was a bead of perspiration rolling down towards the corner of his eye, and he dabbed it with his cuff.

"Here," Mary said, handing him a fresh handkerchief with one hand. In the other, he noticed now, she was holding a neatly folded shirt, coarse but clean, and his old gabardine waistcoat. "I know Boyd won't expect your church clothes," she said. "But you might as well be decently dressed."

He offered a small, thankful smile and thumbed off his suspenders. As he undid the row of buttons his lips tightened. He slipped the garment off and smoothed his undershirt, then pulled on the fresh one. As he settled it on his shoulders each hand closed just below the collar. "Mary?" he said, his voice low. "Are you ashamed of me?"

"Ashamed?" she cried, horrified. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Because I work. Because I'm working in the fields like a…" He could not finish.

"Like a slave?" Mary asked. There was a note of challenge in her voice.

"It ain't the kind of life I promised you," he said hastily. "I ain't the kind of husband you expected. A lot of women 'round here would sooner die than be married to a man out grubbing in the tobacco and hoeing the corn."

Mary made a small, unsteady sound deep in her throat. "Cullen, look at me. _Look _at me."

Slowly he raised his eyes, unsure of what to expect. The mournful look in her eyes was worse than any censure he might have expected.

"I am not ashamed," she said, very firmly and clearly. "I know you work hard, just as hard as Nate and much harder than Elijah can anymore. And I know we never would have managed even to meet our obligations last year if you hadn't. You're doing what needs to be done, and there's no shame in that. I don't care what other women would think. I'm proud to have a husband who's not afraid to work. That's what props up this whole rotten system: people who are scared to dirty their hands providing for their own folk."

She reached out and took hold of his right hand, running her fingers along the thick callouses. Then she turned it over and raised it up so that she could bow her head to kiss his palm. "I'm not ashamed," she repeated. Her eyes fell on the shadow of the splinter deep in the little raw cut. "Oh!" She stiffened, and then turned as if to run away from him. "I ought to dig that out: just let me fetch my sewing box."

He caught hold of her arm before she could slip away, and closed the distance between them. His arm snaked around her whaleboned waist and he drew her to him, kissing her hungrily and full on the mouth. She gasped a little: a small and sharp intake of air. Then all at once she was reciprocating the kiss, one hand slipping up to stroke the damp hair at the nape of his neck. He could feel her heart hammering through her stays and he held her closer, careless of her neat workdress against his sweat-fouled undershirt, forgetful of the broken wheel and the too-thin pocketbook now pressed to his hip by hers. She smelled of lilac and the sweet scent of their child. A longing seized him to sweep her up the stairs and into their bedroom, to unbutton her basque and unlace her petticoats, to unhook the busk of her corset and lift her onto the bare feather mattress and…

But Doc Whitehead had warned him of this; had told him she wasn't strong enough yet, that it might be dangerous even to try. His body tightened against hers, and his arm slipped from her waist onto the pleats of her skirt. His mouth closed, though her lips still quested against his. Somehow his hand found her wrist and he pulled their two arms between them as he took a half-step back.

"I got to go," he said quietly, pressing his fingertip to her lips as she tried to find his mouth again. In that instant when the dreamy bliss faded from her eyes it left only bewilderment, but the lapse did not endure. She schooled her expression and tucked away her heart safe between the layers of necessity.

"Yes, of course," she said. "Of course you must."

Her hands went to his throat, and for a moment he feared she would draw him back into an embrace – feared it, because he did not think that he had the strength of will to resist his yearning a second time. But her fingers closed on the halves of his shirtfront and deftly fastened the long row of buttons. She picked up his waistcoat where it had fallen at their feet, and shook it out, brushing at a smudge of dust from his boot. Then she held it out so that he could slip his arms into it. Cullen hurriedly tucked in his shirttails and did up the front of the vest.

"How d'I look?" he asked, raking his hand through his hair.

"Very respectable, like a man who makes his own way in the world should," said Mary. "Where's your hat?"

"Out by the wagon," said Cullen. He looked at her, heart still thudding headily against his ribs. "You're a good woman, Mary."

She blushed prettily and waved him off. "Go on," she said. "You're wasting daylight."

_*discidium*_

He had just put Pike in the traces when Lottie came running, swinging one-armed around the doorpost of the stable to slow herself.

"I thought mebbe you'd gone, Massa," she panted. "I didn' mean to take so long, but I couldn't get the buttons done up right."

She twirled around so that he could see the fastenings up the back of her dress. Like her other one it was cheap calico, but it was neither so worn nor so faded. The fabric was a pale blue with small figures printed on it in a darker shade: either leaves or feathers, Cullen did not know which. The buttons were of wood painted blue, and several were chipping. Lottie had missed the buttonhole in the very middle of her back, and the top button was without a mate. For a moment he considered sending her to her mother or to Bethel to straighten out the confusion: certainly that would have been the proper thing to do. But he was in a hurry and he could not let the child go off the place as she was.

"Here," he said. He unbuttoned one at a time, fastening it into the proper hole before adjusting the next one, and worked his way up to the back of her neck. Lottie stood patiently, drawing with her great toe in the dirt of the barn floor. Cullen finished and clapped her on the shoulder. "Much better. Climb up and let's get on."

He stepped up and slid onto the driver's board, and Lottie clambered to sit beside him. She held tight to the rail with one hand, sitting very straight and fairly glowing with excitement. Cullen slapped the reigns, and the Morgans guided the buggy out into the sunshine. Almost without prompting they turned down towards the lane. Cullen waited until they were off the property, and then slackened the lines so that the horses quickened to a trot. Lottie swayed, and he glanced at her.

"Put your foot up on the other board there," he suggested.

She did so, and grinned. "They sure do go fas'," she said in awe. "I 'spects they's the fastest horses in the county."

"I don't know 'bout that," Cullen said; "but they're certainly some of the best. You want 'em to go faster?"

She nodded with a shiver of anticipation and braced herself. Cullen eased out a little further, and Bonnie took up the slack at once. She tossed her head so her dark mane flew, and patient Pike hurried on beside her. Lottie's eyes were shining and her breath came quick and shallow as she revelled in their speed. She was such a help around the plantation, and so patient and responsible with Gabe, that it was easy to forget that she was just a child herself. Cullen let out the reins a little more, but when the knuckles of her gripping hand began to discolour with the force of her hold he slowed a bit.

The ride was a short one, for the Ainsley plantation was really just down the road. The land itself was separated from the Bohannon holdings only by a thin stand of creek-bottom scrub that belonged to the butcher in Meridian. He only kept it for timber, and visited only when his woodpiles needed replenishing. But the lane to the house was near the other end of the property, and it was for the lane that Cullen was headed. He slowed the Morgans to a walk and took the sweeping turn with ease, the buggy bouncing cheerfully. The path was lined in drooping willow trees transplanted as saplings from the woods on the far side of the plantation. They were enormous now, and cast their broad bowers of shade close by the carefully raked track that coiled into a sinuous curl before breaking out into the broad lawn before the house.

The West Willows plantation house had finished construction about ten years before, and the old house – built at around the same time as the Bohannon home and in the same style – had been given over to the head overseer. The new building was a splendid neoclassical confection with vaulted windows and towering two-story white columns bearing up an elegantly shallow roof. Inside it was laid out for entertaining, with a vast dining room and two elegant parlours, a drawing room, and a room that had been meant to house a library but was used instead chiefly for housing Boyd Ainsley's extensive collection of unusual artefacts. Boyd had a habit of buying up curiosities and exotic statuary on his many trips to the major cities of the south, and his semi-annual visits to New York, Boston and Baltimore. He had acquired his taste for the unusual on his Grand Tour of Europe, and had pursued it to Morocco, Egypt and India as well before his father's illness had brought him home to attend to the family interests. Old Mr. Ainsley had suffered a series of strokes that had left him more or less a permanent presence in the back parlor, and poorly equipped to manage the plantation.

As the buggy drew up to the end of the drive, a rangy Negro boy of about sixteen came running from around the side of the house, hurriedly pulling on a rumpled jacket. Cullen hopped down and handed him the reins, but the boy paused at the sight of the wagon wheel.

"Take it 'round back," Cullen instructed. "I need to speak to your master about getting it mended."

"Yassir," the boy said. He looked Cullen over thoughtfully. "Should I tell him you're here, sir? Who should I say?"

"No, thank you," said Cullen. "I can see myself in." He turned to Lottie, who was just scrambling down out of the buggy. "You run along and say hello," he told her. "But don't bother folks who's working."

"Yes, Massa," she said. "Thankee." Then, in a flurry of bare feet and calico she was gone.

The carriage-boy was still looking uncertainly at the visitor, and when Culllen strode over to mount the broad front steps he opened his mouth as if to speak, but did not quite dare to do it. Cullen marched over to the broad doors with the bright stained-glass roses set in the windows. He raised his hand to knock, and then decided not to. He seized the brass door-handle and walked into the high-ceilinged entryway. His work boots sounded hollowly on the parquet floor, and from a side door a small old man in a smart black livery came hurrying. He had a startled, affronted look upon his face which changed to an expression of resigned comprehension when he recognized the intruder.

"Morning, Mist' Bohannon," he said with a stiff little bow. "Come to see Massa Boyd, I s'pose."

"That's right, Matthew" said Cullen. "He'll be in the library?"

"Nawsir," said the valet. "He in the back parlor with Miss Verbena. I kin go fetch 'im out to see you."

"That's all right: I'll go in," said Cullen. He crossed the chamber and rounded the foot of the splendidly carpeted staircase towards parlor.

"But they's folks in with 'em…" Matthew protested feebly, but Cullen was already over the threshold and it was too late.

Mr. Ainsley occupied his usual corner between one splendid window and the marble fireplace. Verbena, pale and lovely in a lavender frock, sat in her rocking chair with her broad skirts billowing over her hoops. And on the horsehair sofa sat the two Trussell sisters: Greta, a verified old maid at twenty-six, and Paulina, who at twenty-two was betrothed to a planter from Jackson. On the ottoman by the armchair sat Charity Ainsley, Boyd's oldest girl. She had a piece of fancywork in her lap, but she did not seem to be doing much sewing. She was listening avidly to something her mother was saying, but Verbena was cut off mid-word as Cullen came in.

Only once he was over the threshold did he see Boyd, leaning against the wall near an alcove housing a lusciously thriving rubber plant with a cigar clamped between his teeth. The ladies were all staring at the newcomer now, and he smiled politely and executed a tidy bow. "Good morning, Miss Verbena. Ladies," he said courteously. "Good morning, Miss Charity." He turned to his friend. "I wanted a word, Boyd, if your charming guests can spare you. It's business."

Greta blushed furiously and rather unattractively, trying to hide it with her ivory fan. Paulina managed a steady smile, and Verbena put on her very best blandly cheerful hostess expression. Charity, however, was frankly staring as though some new and exotic beast had just walked into the room under the guise of an old family friend.

"Ladies? Would you excuse us?" Boyd asked. He was taller than Cullen, but rail-thin and frail of bone. As a boy he had suffered from what Bethel called _a misery on the chest_, and it had held him back in his growth. He wore a crisp cream-colored linen suit, the lapels of which were dusted with flakes of ash from his cigar.

"Of course," said Verbena sweetly. "Do be sure to offer Mr. Bohannon a drink."

Greta's fan fluttered, and Paulina said something inanely polite, but it was lost on Cullen's ears as he followed the host back into the foyer and away from the eyes of the ladies. "What sort of business?" Boyd asked quietly when they were safely out of sight. "Good God, Cullen, what are you wearing?"

"And after I put on a clean shirt just for you!" Cullen said with mock indignation. He knew that his friend was referring more to the heavy boots, creased and discolored, and dusty, and his trousers with the grass-stains on the seat. "Look, I wondered whether you could have your cooper – what's his name?"

"Mark," said Boyd.

"—whether you could have Mark take a look at a wheel I brought along. I'm hoping he can fix it: I need my wagon this afternoon, and it's lame." Cullen scratched the back of his neck. "I know he only does wheels as a sideline, but if there's any way he could manage a quick mending I'd be grateful."

"I'll have him take a look," Boyd agreed affably. "He's been making casks for sale the last couple weeks. There really isn't enough work for him on the place."

Matthew came from the direction of the kitchen bearing a tray on which sat four glasses of lemonade and two silver cups. He pivoted smoothly to approach the men as if he had not intended to go straight through to the parlor. He offered his load, and Boyd took one of the goblets, carefully gripping only the rim. Below his fingertips a fine frost was forming on the thin wall of the cup. He gestured that Cullen should help himself, and he picked up the second. It was a mint julep, pale and sweet-smelling and floating with thick chips of ice. Cullen would have preferred the liquor neat, but he took a long swallow regardless. The drink was deliciously chilled, and he sucked in a small splinter of ice to melt against the roof of his mouth. Suddenly he changed his mind about the straight bourbon. A cold drink – truly and deeply cold, not merely the gentle cool of summer well-water – was something he had not had since February. The poor man got his ice in the winter; the rich man had it shipped packed in sawdust from New Hampshire to linger in the ice-house through the summer.

Matthew moved off to bring the ladies their drinks, and Boyd gestured with the three free fingers of his right hand. "Now tell me why you don't just take it into Meridian."

"I'm in a hurry," said Cullen. "I meant to haul firewood this afternoon: I need to lay up a good supply to dry, and for that I need the wagon."

Boyd grimaced almost painfully. "I forgot you only got the one wagon," he said.

Cullen grinned. "You know me: never one to hedge his bets." He swirled the cup so that the ice sang against the side. "The wheel's in my buggy."

Matthew was coming back with the empty tray, and Boyd crooked a finger. "Go and have Pip take the wagon wheel out of Mr. Bohannon's buggy down to Mark. Tell him I want it repaired right away."

The slave nodded and hurried off. Cullen took another long, savoring sip of his drink. "Thank you," he said.

"Happy to do it." Boyd nodded to the nearest archway. "Come through and sit down."

Cullen followed his friend into the cool and faintly spicy-smelling room with the tall dark-stained shelves built into its walls. He did not trouble to look at the clutter of small statuary, ancient coins and battered bronze jewelry on sloping trays, stone arrowheads and scraps of mosaic tile. He went instead to one of the chairs by the heavily-draped windows and settled in it, planting the elbow of the arm that held his julep on the armrest. Boyd settled near him, crossing his legs in their smoothly-pressed trousers.

"I heard you spat on Abel Sutcliff," he said.

Before he could restrain them, Cullen's eyes rolled heavenwards. "Is that what he's telling everyone?" he asked. "Doc Whitehead heard the same thing." He did not bestir himself to correct the story this time. He could not say quite why.

"I think he's saving that for special cases," said Boyd. "I guess you know what it is that he _is_ telling everyone."

"At least that's the truth," said Cullen. "No sense in keeping it hidden."

"The Trussell girls are certainly scandalized," Boyd remarked. "I'll bet they're mighty uncomfortable just about now: they had only just got through talking about it when you walked in. Heaven only knows what Verbena's thinking."

"I would've thought she'd have guessed by now." Cullen took hold of the base of his cup and adjusted his light hold on the rim. The frost was beading into droplets now, and he took another swallow. "Listen, about this wheel. I wondered whether we might do something by way of a trade for your man's services. Whatever you think might be fair."

Boyd considered this. "What do you suggest?" he asked. "I mean, what do you have that you suppose I might want?"

The bluntness of this question surprised Cullen. The other man had always had more of a roundabout way of broaching uncomfortable truths. Now that he said it, however, Cullen saw his point. He didn't have much to offer, and what he did was common. He might offer a cord of wood, but Boyd had slaves to cut his own timber. He might offer something from the vegetable patch, but the kitchen garden at West Willows occupied pretty near five acres of land. The loan of a mule team was meaningless to a man who owned half a dozen. He might have offered peaches, because by a curious fortune his mother had had a particular affinity for the fruit and his father had brought in saplings of a quality not ordinarily seen in Lauderdale County to supply her, but he had no idea how many dozens of peaches it would take to make fair recompense for the mending or replacement of a wheel. He scrubbed at his beard with the palm of his hand.

"You got me there," he admitted. "I'd be willing to do just about anything that's reasonably within my power, but I can't think of a single thing you might want."

Boyd smiled. He had always possessed a rather peculiar, thoughtful smile that had not served him well at all during his days of courting the various county belles. Girls in these parts didn't take to a man who seemed to do most of his thinking where they couldn't see it: they were used to the gallantly boasting types, or silly shallow young men. Even Cullen's careless disregard for convention was more desirable than Boyd's enigmatic reticence. To this day Cullen rather suspected that Verbena's choice of husband had been driven more by fortune than temperament, but she was a perfect Southern wife and Boyd thought he was happily married. It was not Cullen's place to disabuse his friend.

"Well, you could always work it off," he said. The curl of his lip suggested perhaps he was teasing, but there was no spark of mischief in his eyes. "I'm always in need of a good cotton hand. Can you pick a bole?"

"Better than you could," Cullen said with a note of acerbity in his voice.

Boyd laughed. "All right, that's fair," he said. "You could always offer to give me a hogshead of tobacco when the time comes."

"That seems like a mighty high price for one wheel," said Cullen.

His friend's thin shoulder shrugged. "Call it payment with interest. You won't have it ready 'til fall."

Cullen found his patience with this game was wearing thin. He knocked back the last of the julep, a thick and syrupy mouthful with more sugar than bourbon, and set the glass down on the little pedestal table between them. "What do you really want, Boyd?"

"Were you planning to write back and accept our invitation?" asked the other man, frank at last.

"Invitation?" Cullen was honestly flummoxed. He dimly remembered a letter brought by the house a couple of weeks ago by one of the West Willows footmen, but he had been much too busy to pay mind to it.

"To our little féte on the first. Supper with a dance to follow? Me and Verbena are celebrating ten years with our oars cast in together, remember?" There was a playful note to Boyd's words now, but it was hiding a tang of irritation.

"Aw, hell, I forgot," Cullen said, earnestly apologetic. "No, Boyd, you know I can't come to that. It'd mean losing a whole day's work, and anyway I'd only embarrass you."

"Why?" asked Boyd. "You know how to behave in company."

"It ain't that. If everybody don't know already about what I been doing, they'll definitely know by then. It'll be uncomfortable for everybody," he argued. "And I really can't spare a whole day; there's too much work for the people I got already."

"I guess it comes down to whether your time for a day is worth more than the cash price to mend a wagon wheel at a rush," said Boyd. "Wheelwright down in Meridian might charge ten dollars to have you jump to the head of the queue. You got ten dollars to give me?"

Cullen was stung. It was a hard thing to admit that he did have the money, and even had it on him, but that if he squandered it on mending one wagon wheel he would be hard-pressed to keep meat on the table until November. Harder still because if he did say that Boyd might try to retract his demand for payment entirely, and there would be an argument out of which Cullen could not possibly come with much dignity. He was floundering in search of a reply when there came a quiet knock at the open door.

Matthew was on the threshold. "Beg pardon, Massa Boyd," he said. "Mist' Bohannon, Mark say that wheel pas' mendin'. He goin' have to make 'her fresh. He got spokes the right size all ready: say it take two-three hours to put her all together."

It was quicker than Cullen might have hoped, and would get him home by early afternoon, but it was also a more valuable service. He nodded and thanked Matthew, because there was nothing else he could have done, and the black valet bowed and disappeared.

"Well, now," said Boyd when it was certain the slave was gone. "What d'you think the wheelwright in town would charge for making up a whole new one in two or three hours?"

Cullen shot a cold look at his friend. "It ain't just the awkwardness," he said. "I can't speak for Mary, and I won't have her going where she don't want to go or doing what she don't want to do just to settle my debts. You can have me if you want, and I'll lose a day's work, but I won't promise Mary."

"That seems fair," said Boyd. "Though it seems to me she'd not be much of a wife if she let you brave the lion's den alone."

"They're my lions," said Cullen. "I brung her down here; she didn' ask to take up with these people. You know them other matrons always treat her sort of cool because she's a Northern lady. Even Verbena ain't much more than polite."

"'Bena's silly that way," Boyd admitted. "Thinks all Yankees are about two steps from turning murderous abolitionist. She lives in terror that one night they'll show up and drag us out of our beds and behead us in the dooryard."

"Mary can't even kill a chicken," said Cullen fondly, and then immediately wished he had not. He had forgotten for a moment that his wife's household duties extended rather more broadly than those of the other county ladies. "I'll come," he said, forcing the conversation back to the issue at hand. "But if Mary don't want to I'll be coming singly."

"Just be sure and send word one way or the other," said Boyd. "Verbena couldn't cope with having an unbalanced table: if Mary ain't coming she'll need to find someone to make up the number."

Cullen shook his head. "I can't spare anyone to send word by," he said. "No one but my girl, and she's too young to be off the place unattended."

"I'll send someone 'round on Friday," said Boyd. He finished his drink and wiped his damp fingertips with a fine cambric handkerchief. "I find it interesting, Cullen. You won't promise me Mary'll come, but you don't say she won't, either."

"Like I said," Cullen told him; "I won't speak for her."

After that they fell to talking about trivial things: politics and county news, the highlights of Boyd's latest trip to Savannah, and how his investments were faring. Boyd had been having difficulty with a couple of ornery field hands, and talked at great length about the inconvenience of dealing with insubordinate slaves while Cullen listened quietly. They shared stories of their sons' achievements and antics, and just seemed to be running short of things to say when Boyd proposed they might go out to see his new hunter. Cullen, who despite his frustration over the lost morning had been enjoying his leisure immensely, readily agreed.

It was coming on to noon, and the plantation sweltered quietly in the balmy heat. Two turkeys chased each other around the dooryard, pursued by a hapless little boy flapping a bit of rag whenever they wandered too near the flowerbeds. From off to the west came the shouts of the overseer giving instructions to the darkies working the cotton. Boyd, so restrained in stance and motion within the house, strode with imperious purpose past the two stable hands who were busy mixing feed in one of the huge bins and down towards the neat whitewashed stalls that housed his pleasure horses.

Someone had unhitched Pike and Bonnie from the buggy and brought them in out of the sun. At Cullen's approach they nickered happily, raising their heads from nosebags filled with a mixture richer in oats that that they got at home. Cullen stroked each of them fondly and murmured his greetings, then followed Boyd to the last and largest stall in which a massive Thoroughbred was stirring restlessly.

"He's a beauty," Cullen said, eyeing the glossy flank and the strong withers. "Must be a fine jumper."

"The very best," said Boyd proudly. From his pocket he produced a lump of sugar, holding it out on an upstretched palm for the horse to nibble up. "He's calm as a standing pool in the field, too. Don't let the dogs spook him at all. It's a shame you sold Valiant: we've got a hunt over on the Trussell land on Saturday."

"I could ride Pike in a hunt," said Cullen; "but I can't waste another weekday gallivantin' with the county wastrels. I got work to do, remember? It'll be enough of a burden on my people having me off the place on the first for your damned party."

"That again?" asked Boyd. "Look, if it's such a sore spot—"

"I'll do it," said Cullen irritably. "I just don't understand why you'd even want me to."

"Isn't it obvious?" said the other man. "You're good fun at parties. You don't let anything fool thing that anybody says just pass. You say those exquisitely polite but incredibly shocking things to the old women. And when you get a bit drunk you're a mighty fine dancer. I'd be bored out of my mind without you there."

Cullen chuckled and was about to say something when a shriek sounded off in the distance. It was followed by another, and then by a chorus of high voices clamoring and chanting and laughing - not at all kindly. The two men looked at one another and then towards the stable door.

"Trouble in the quarters?" asked Cullen.

Boyd shook his head bewilderedly. "Maybe a couple of the women?" he asked. "Either that or the kids."

Cullen flinched. "Shit. It probably is the kids. I brought our Lottie with me: you don't suppose she might be scrapping with one of yours?"

"Over what?" asked Boyd.

For a moment they looked at one another, each thinking the matter through swiftly. Then Cullen started off on long strides for the door, and Boyd hastened after him.


	12. Breach of the Peace

**Chapter Twelve: Breach of the Peace**

The West Willows slave quarters ran along a dusty avenue that intersected midway down a northward rise with the workshops and assorted outbuildings common on a large plantation. The cabins were unremarkable: small, with bare weathered walls and roofs patched with tarpaper. Narrow glassless windows stood with shutters gaping to catch any stray breeze, and the doors on their leather hinges hung wide. Between the cabins were strung drooping clotheslines heavy with faded frocks and work-shirts. Apparently Tuesday was washday here as well.

Most of the adult slaves were abroad at their work, but in one doorway a wizened and toothless old woman sat. Two babies, one just new and the other surely close to six months, slumbered on a bit of quilt beside her. She looked up as her master passed, but neither bestirred herself herself to rise nor offered any greeting. Cullen, hurrying after the noise of the throng, scarcely glanced at her.

The sound was coming from behind the row of cabins, and they had to push through the burden of a clothesline to cut the quickest path. Boyd hesitated distastefully but Cullen did not, shoving aside a ragged towel and a petticoat from which lace trimming had been cut before passing it down to a slave. He emerged onto a packed-dirt yard crowded with sawn-down barrels, wooden buckets, spades and rakes and twig brooms. The henhouse stood on one side of the little square, and its residents were in an uproar. They had been disturbed by the shouting of the children: about a dozen of them, ranging in age from not much older than Gabe to not much younger than Lottie, gathered in a clamoring circle around two dark bodies grappling in the dust.

One of them was Lottie, her pigtails jouncing wildly and her nimble fingers scrabbling as she tried to throw of her opponent. She was pinned under a boy, surely no older than she but broad and husky, who had her by each shoulder. She kicked, striking him in a particularly sensitive area of the body, and he began to lift her and to slam her head against the earth. Her nose was bleeding and she was shouting a string of garbled invectives that Cullen was amazed to discover she even knew. The boy, intent on his business, was breathlessly silent. The onlookers cheered and jeered, and one or two of the smaller ones were crying.

"Stop it!" cried Boyd thinly. "Stop it, I say, or I'll sell you all off to Georgia!"

The children took no notice, and the two combatants did not even seem to have heard. Cullen steered one rabid-looking six-year-old out of his way with a firm hand to the crown of the head, and stepped around a squatting little girl. He marched straight into the fray, seized the boy by the ear, and hauled him up off of Lottie.

The boy began wailing at once, thrashing and trying to strike out at Cullen. With a sure hand, the man reached out and gripped the child's chin with thumb and forefinger, turning his head firmly but not cruelly so that the boy could not help but look at him. Seeing a stranger – and a white stranger, at that - he fell suddenly silent, eyes round as millstones. Satisfied, Cullen released his hold. The boy tried to bolt, but Boyd stepped into his path and he froze, smitten with dismay at being caught out by the master himself.

Cullen moved to kneel beside Lottie, but all of a sudden she was up on her feet, dancing to and fro like a pugilist. "Come back 'n finish what you started!" she shouted. "You git back here right now!"

"Lottie!" Cullen said sternly.

She glanced at him, and exclaimed; "Massa, he had it comin'! I had to hit 'im, hones' I did! If he jus' get back here I'll finish it, too!"

She moved to lunge at the boy, and the children in her path scattered. A valiant few retreated only a pace or two, but most of them vanished, running off behind the henhouse or back amongst the cabins. Those who remained were watching the two men with enormous eyes, waiting to see how the quarrelers would be dealt with.

Cullen hastily caught Lottie by the arm before she could leap onto her opponent. She struggled, but he held her fast. "Be still!" he commanded sharply and, startled by the tone of his voice, she froze. An anxious look was starting to creep into her eyes now, and her rage seemed to be fizzling out.

The boy looked close to tears. Boyd was staring at him with fury and disgust on his thin face. He turned his head and shouted over his shoulder, in the same stentorian voice he used when calling his hounds; "_Pip! _Bring me my riding crop!"

"You ain't goin' whip me, Massa?" the boy cried in dismay. He pointed over his shoulder at Lottie. "It was her, she started it!"

"I didn't either!" Lottie said, thrusting out her chin indignantly and looking up at Cullen. "He say things he got no right to say! I had to hit 'im. I _had _to!"

"That's enough," said Cullen. "I brung you over here to have a nice visit with your friends, and I find you fighting. What was you thinking of?"

"He said—" began Lottie. Then the rangy carriage-boy came running, fumbling with his jacket buttons with one hand and carrying a long black riding crop in the other. He pulled up importantly beside Boyd, and offered it with a stiff little bow. Boyd took it and the child before him cringed in fear.

"What's your name, boy?" he demanded.

"Ee-Eli, Massa," the boy stammered. He looked ready to faint from fright: it was unlikely that he had ever before come to his owner's attention, and this was surely not the way he had wanted to make that first encounter.

"Who's your mother?"

"Ti-ildy, Massa." The child's plump lower lip trembled.

Lottie opened up her mouth to say something, but Cullen tightened his hold on her arm and she hushed. They were both in a difficult situation at the moment. It was just lucky this had happened on Boyd's land: he alone of all the neighbors might be inclined to let the matter rest if Cullen handled him right.

"Shame on you," Boyd said. "Tildy's a good woman, and I never had trouble with her in all these years. Fighting with a guest's slave. And a _girl_ at that. Shame on you."

He flicked his crop at a nearby barrel, sawn in half and upturned to serve as a table of sorts. "Bend over that," he said.

Lottie took a quick half-step closer to Cullen, and his hold upon her arm shifted from one of restraint to one of protection. He couldn't prevent her from watching what was about to happen, but he wanted her to know that he would protect her from similar treatment.

Eli was crying now, and trying to hide it. But he hung his head and shuffled to the barrel. He bent over it, gripping the rim with trembling hands. Boyd strode over and raised the crop. He brought it down in a stinging blow across the boy's backside, and Eli yelped. Lottie flinched and Cullen ran his thumb along her arm in what he hoped was a consoling gesture. "Hush," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

Boyd raised the crop again. Eli bit his lip and kept silent through that blow, and the next, and the next. On the fifth he whimpered, and by the tenth he was sobbing noisily. Boyd lifted his arm once more, and the child cowered like a battered hound. Then the crop fell to the man's side and he shook his head, saddened and disgusted. "Shame on you," he said again. "A man oughtn't never hit a girl, you hear me? The only reason I ain't going to sell you off this place is that your mother's a good woman. But I catch you fighting again, you'll spend the rest of your life down in Georgia where they use horsewhips on unruly niggers. Now get out of my sight!"

Weeping piteously and limping with the pain of his beating, Eli scrambled off between the cabins and disappeared from sight. Boyd shook his head, tucking the crop under his arm and taking out his handkerchief. He wiped the sweat from his palm, and then from the handle of his crop. He strode over to Cullen and handed him the whip. "Get it over quickly," he said, a pained look in his eyes.

Lottie, who had begun trembling in earnest sometime around the sixth blow, quailed. Cullen looked down at the slender rod in his hand, with its thin loop of leather. He sent it whistling through the air and brought it sharply against the top of his boot. Even through the leather the blow smarted sharply. Lottie made a tiny, terrified sound and jerked against his hold. Then Cullen held out his arm and passed the crop off to Pip, who took it obediently but with obvious bewilderment.

Boyd stared at him incredulously. "I beat mine," he said. "You got to beat yours."

Cullen shook his head. "A man oughtn't never hit a girl, remember? I'll see she gets what's coming to her, but I ain't going to do it with a whip." Lottie's left hand flew up and clutched at the front of his shirt, but he silenced her with a sidelong glance. "Why don't you just head on back to the house and cool off. I'll see to her."

Boyd hesitated for a moment, then nodded tersely. "I think maybe it's best you don't wait on," he said. "I'll send someone over with your wheel as soon as Mark has it finished. Pip? Hitch up Mr. Bohannon's team. He'll be departing shortly."

Pip hurried away as Cullen's lip curled wryly. "This mean you'll be wanting money for the work instead of company?" he asked.

"Of course not," said Boyd. He smiled. "We been friends all our lives. We're not going to fall out over a couple of scrapping pickaninnies, are we?"

The band of tension that had been gripping Cullen's chest since leaving the stables suddenly released. "Course not," he said. "I'll see you on the first. When your man comes by with the wheel I'll send him back with Mary's answer."

"That's fine," said Boyd. "You take care, you hear? Don't work yourself too hard."

"Don't you," said Cullen equably.

Boyd laughed and strolled away, back towards the house. Cullen and Lottie were left alone in the cluttered side yard with only one lingering little girl, four or five years old, still standing petrified by the corner of the henhouse. Finally he was able to release his hold on Lottie's arm, and she turned earnest eyes upon him.

"Massa, I had to hit 'im. I had to," she said urgently. "He said—"

"Never mind that now!" Cullen hissed. "You and me is getting off this place, and we're getting off it now. We'll discuss it on the way home." He started for the stables, halting when after four steps she did not follow. He beckoned with a pair of crooked fingers. "Come _on_!"

Lottie hurried after him, moving as though to wipe at her bloodied nose with the cuff of her sleeve. "Here, use this," Cullen said, producing his handkerchief. She hesitated, looking at the whiteness of the linen. "Go on. Better to stain that than your one good dress."

Pip was just getting Bonnie into the traces when they reached the stable. He had hitched the horses the wrong way 'round, and Pike was shuffling uncomfortably, but Cullen was not about to spend another ten minutes waiting while the youth rectified his error. Nor could he possibly hitch his own horses on a neighbor's plantation where there was a slave assigned to do it. He climbed onto the driver's seat and took the reins. Lottie stood beside the carriage, eyeing her place with some trepidation.

"Get up," Cullen said. "We're leaving."

She grabbed hold of the rail and tried to hoist herself, but her young face tightened with pain and her foot fell back onto the bare earth. Her right hand flew to her left ribs, and her eyes shone with pain.

Pip was watching, but Cullen didn't care. He got down from the box and rounded in front of the horses. As gently as he could he got his hands under Lottie's arms and lifted her up so that she could get her feet into the buggy. When she was seated he went back to the other side and got up beside her. "Giddyap," he said, flicking the reins. It took the Morgans a moment or two to find their stride with their partner on the wrong side, but they managed it and were stepping beautifully by the time they reached the front of the house. Cullen was glad of that, for Verbena was at the front door bidding farewell to the Trussell girls, whose carriage and driver were waiting. He tipped his hat to them, bowing a little. Greta waved, tittering nervously into her gloved hand, and Paulina curtseyed – but both were staring at him in an unbecoming manner. It wasn't such a shocking thing for a man to drive his own buggy, but he was sitting next to a bloodied black child, and that was certainly peculiar. More grist for the gossip mill.

Knowing the other carriage would be along directly, though travelling in the opposite direction, Cullen drove on until he passed the edge of Ainsley land and entered beneath the shade of the overhanging trees that were the edge of the butcher's land. He pulled off the road into a little clearing where stood an open-sided woodshed and a little locked toolhouse. He tied off the reins on the rail and twisted in his seat to look at Lottie.

"You got some excuse for yourself?" he demanded. "I brung you along to have a nice break in your week, and next thing I know you're fighting with a boy pretty near twice your size. What got into you?"

"I had to fight 'im, Massa!" the child protested. "He said the awfulest things!"

"So you hit him first?" asked Cullen.

"Yassir, but I had to…"

"You hit him first." He fixed her with a stern eye.

Lottie hung her head. The handkerchief was crumpled in her hand. "Yassir," she mumbled shamefacedly.

Cullen sighed and drew his hand across his eyes. "Lottie, what was you thinking?" he groaned. He cleared his throat and looked at her very gravely. "Do you understand what that was you were doing? You were breaching the peace on somebody else's plantation. Do you know what that means?"

"Fightin'," she said in a very small voice.

"Not just fighting," said Cullen. "Agitating. Stirring up trouble. Leading someone else's slave to break the rules. Lottie, what you done back there is against the law."

"All I did was hit that no-'count nigger boy," Lottie protested feebly.

"Look at me," Cullen said. When she did not obey he crooked his forefinger under her chin and tilted her head so she could not avoid his gaze. "Lottie, do you know what could've happened back there?"

"Mist' Ainsley coulda whupped me?" she said. Her mouth crumpled in remembered terror and then she squared her shoulders. "But you wouldn' let him, would you, Massa? You wouldn' let nobody whup one of your own people."

"It's true that I wouldn't let Mr. Ainsley whip you," said Cullen. "But he could have fetched the sheriff, Lottie, and had you arrested for breach of the peace. He could have had me arrested right along with you, for bringing a troublemaking slave onto his land. Do you know what would have happened then?"

She shook her head numbly. Her dark eyes were enormous now, and dismay was writ across her brow.

"We would have both been brought up before a judge, and made to swear on the Bible to tell the truth. And the truth is that you started that fight – I don't care who said what when," he warned as she opened her mouth to speak. "You hit 'im first, and that means in the eyes of the law you started it. You'd have to tell them that, and maybe that boy would testify to the same thing, and the judge would find you guilty of breach of the peace, and me right along with you. And then what would happen?"

'I'd go to prison?" Lottie whispered, horrified.

"Well, not likely prison," Cullen admitted; "you being so young. But the judge would probably order you to be whipped, and him I can't stop, and then I'd have to pay a fine. You know we had a bad year last year, and I ain't got money for a fine. I'd have to sell up the mules to raise the money, and then how would we put in the wheat? And if I couldn't pay they'd put me in jail, and we'd be short a man at home and the tobacco would fail. Do you know what would happen then?"

"We'd starve?" asked Lottie tremulously.

Cullen had to admit he was certainly making an impression, but the child's imagination was leaping rather too far. "We might not starve," he said; "but it'd be a mighty hungry winter. I'd have to sell up some of the land, and raise a loan on Pike and Bonnie. I might even have to take out a mortgage on my people to bring us through 'til next harvest. Do you understand, Lottie? If Mr. Ainsley wasn't such a good friend, what you did back there might've ruined us."

"I'm sorry, Massa," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I wouldn'… I didn'… all I did was hit 'im, an' he needed hittin' bad, Mist' Cullen, hones'."

In her earnest effort to defend herself she had slipped out of her childlike habit of addressing him by his surname, and Cullen felt oddly touched by the note of familiarity. He had said his piece, and now it was only fair to allow the girl to say hers. "All right, Lottie," he sighed. "You tell me why he needed hitting."

"I was down talkin' with Louanne 'n Sairy, an' I was tellin' how you brung me pepp'mints from Meridian. Louanne, she think I was lyin', an' she say "How come he do somethin' like that?". An' I say it's on 'count of me helpin' so good with Mist' Gabe while Missus Bohannon poorly, an' how you trus' me an' let me work 'round the house an' the garden. An' I says maybe I's goin' grow up to be a house servant, if I works hard. Then 'long come Eli, an' _he _say I can't be no house servant, on 'count of we ain't even a plantation no more." Lottie bristled with this injustice, looking up at Cullen as though she expected him to burst forth with an angry refutation of this slur.

"And so you hit him?" Cullen asked wearily. What a damned fool thing to get into a fight over! Children would do such things, of course, and at Lottie's age he had thrown more than one angry punch over far less, but the stakes were so grave that it seemed almost sickening that this should be the cause.

"Nawsir," Lottie said. "Ma raise me betterer than that. I put my foot down an' I tol' him we was too a plantation, an' we gots house servants same as they do. We does, Massa: Bethel's a house servant, ain't she?"

"Yes she is, Lottie; she always has been. She's taken care of that house since my mama came out from South Carolina." Cullen fingered the lowest button on his vest. "What happened then?"

"Then he say we ain't a plantation 'cause you only gots five niggers, an' I tells him it don't matter how many there be, we's still a plantation," said Lottie. "Then _he _says we ain't, cause we ain't got no lady in the house. An' I says we got Missus Bohannon, an' she a fine lady with her pretty clothes an' her hair so neat an' she so kind, an' Eli says she nothin' but some damyankee, an' you gots no right to be marryin' with Yankees!"

"I see. And that's when you hit him."

"Nawsir," said Lottie. "Missus Bohannon, she tol' me there weren't no shame in bein' called a Yankee: that she _is _a Yankee 'cause she come from New York, an' her family fought 'gainst the English for Independence an' they fought 'gainst the English again in some place called Cue… Quee… uh…"

"Quebec," said Cullen. "That was the War of 1812, and I believe her grandfather and great-uncles fought. Never mind that now, Lottie: what did Eli say that made you hit him?"

"Next he say we weren't nothin' but poor folks with a Yankee missus," said Lottie; "an' we's goin' go hungry an' you mos' likely sell us all away, an' I'd never see my Ma again. An' I says you wouldn' never sell us, an' we's your people."

"And you hit him then," said Cullen. "Oh, Lottie, you know I wouldn't sell you away. I'd sell my own hide before I'd do that. And… and if it ever did come to that I wouldn't let you and your ma get separated. I promise you that. You can't go starting fights over fools just trying to scare you."

"Nawsir, I know, sir," said Lottie. "An' I didn't hit him then, either. But then he open his mouth again, an' that time I _had _to hit him. I jus' had to, Massa."

The whole sordid story was becoming more than Cullen could bear, but he could hardly stop it now. "What did he say?" he asked.

"He said…" Her hand balled into a fist of rage around the bloodied handkerchief. "He said you was trash, Mist' Cullen," she said. Her small voice quavered and tears rose in her dark eyes. "He said you wasn't nothin' but poor white trash, workin' like a low-down dirty field hand an' toppin' your own tobacco, an' we was trash 'cause we was your folks, an' you was goin' to come to a bad end 'cause you wasn't nothin' but trash, no-'count trashy poor white. _That's _when I hit 'im. I had to."

She stamped her foot against the floor of the buggy, and pounded her fist in her lap. "He can' say that, not 'bout you! An' you so good to me, an' so lovin' to Missus Bohannon, an' such a good pappy to li'l Mist' Gabe! An' Bethel, she love you, an' Ma, she say you's the bes' master we-all could hope for, an' you breakin' you' back ev'y day jus' to put food on our table, an' workin' in the fields so I doesn' get sick out there, an'… an'… an'…"

She was sobbing indignantly now, fat tears running down her cheeks. "He can' say that, Mist' Cullen! I _had _to hit him!"

"All right, now," Cullen said softly. He put his hand between her heaving shoulder blades. "It's all right. No sense crying over it. People always going to say cruel things when they can. Hush, now, child; it's all right."

Slowly Lottie's weeping died down into quiet snuffles, and she fell very still beneath his hand. Then abruptly she twisted on the seat and flung her arms around his chest, hugging him tightly. Startled and not a little disconcerted, Cullen patted her back awkwardly.

"You ain't trash, Mist' Cullen. You _ain't_," she insisted. "An' I ain't goin' let no worthless nigger whose massa got to beat 'im say you is!"

Then she sat up, smudging her eyes with his ruined handkerchief. She hiccoughed and then winced, rubbing at her ribs again. "I woulda licked 'im, too," she said stoutly; "only he got on top of me, an' he was bigger. Bloodied up my nose, too."

"Let me feel if it's broken," Cullen said. He cupped the back of her head with one hand, and with the other gently probed the bridge of her nose. Lottie watched him, cross-eyed, but she gave no sign of pain as he worked his way down the ridge to the round tip. "That's all right, then. What about your side?"

"It hurts some," Lottie admitted. "But I got 'im in the stomach: stoled his wind for a minute there. Then he got up an' knocked me down. I kicked 'im, though," she added proudly. "Right where he'll feel it."

"I saw that," Cullen said, a little ruefully. He shook his head. "It was loyal of you to take up for me, Lottie, but I can't have you getting into fights with other people's slaves. No matter what they say: you can't fight them over it."

He straightened on the board and reached for the reins. "We got to get on home," he said. "There's other work I can be doing even if the wagon's still useless, and you need to have Bethel take a look at them ribs. Dry your eyes and blow your nose."

Lottie obeyed, shifting uncomfortably in the seat and staring down miserably at her dusty toes. There was a sag to her shoulders that Cullen recognized: the stoop of shame that came from half-believing, however hard you tried not to, that the ugly things that others said were true. That stung him. A child, white or black, needed to be able to be proud of her people.

"And Lottie?" Cullen said. "Next time one of them brats says we ain't a plantation, you tell 'em that I got a thousand acres, an' the United States Government says anything over six hundred's a plantation, no matter how many slaves or who's working the tobacco. You hear me?"

She straightened as much as her sore chest would allow, and she smiled wetly for him. "Yassir, Mist' Cullen," she said. Then her eyes goggled in consternation. "I mean Mist' Bohannon," she said hurriedly.

"It's all right, Lottie," he said. "You can call me Mister Cullen like the grown folks do. I reckon you've done some growing up today, don't you?"

As she nodded vehemently he set about getting the horses turned around.

_*discidium*_

Mary was hanging the last of Gabe's little shirts on the clothesline, reaching up and affixing the wooden pins to the rope. Bethel had just finished bailing out the soiled wash-water, and she tipped some of the rinse-water onto the fire. It hissed, letting out a great cloud of steam. From where he sat playing in the grass with a heap of smooth stones from the creek-bed, Gabe looked up and clapped his hands, crowing delightedly at the spectacle.

With the garment secure, Mary was finally able to lower her arms. Her pelvis ached and she pressed her hands to the small of her back in an attempt to soothe the discomfort. She should have been more circumspect, however, for Bethel turned before she could move out of the telling pose, and her sharp dark eyes narrowed.

"Seems to me you ought to go lie down an' have a nap," she said. "I kin bring you up your dinner on a tray, an' you get off them corsets an' rest."

"I'm fine, Bethel: just a little stiff from stretching," Mary said. She bent to pick up the empty basket that had held the wet clothes, but the older woman swooped in and snatched it.

"Hmph," she said, an entire lecture in one wordless syllable. "Mist' Gabe, honey, come 'n help ol' Bethel with her load."

Gabe planted his hands in the grass and got to his feet, running eagerly to take hold of one edge of the basket. Bethel was bearing the weight, but the child's chest puffed importantly as he walked beside her. Mary watched them move back towards the house, smiling in spite of her discomfort and the impossibly sultry heat that made her petticoat cling to her legs and raised a rivulet of perspiration to trickle down her spine. She had just started after them when she heard a clatter of carriage-wheels from around the front of the house and Bonnie's familiar whinny.

Hurriedly she turned for the gate, leaving the dooryard and breaking into a run as she came around the house. The prospect of being there to meet her husband as he came home, as she had done in the early years of their marriage, was a strangely delightful one. She reached the front just as he swept into the turn towards the barn, and seeing her he reined in the team. His face, tired and furrowed with deep and unhappy thoughts, brightened when he saw her, and that alone made the exertion worthwhile. He hopped down from the buggy, and Mary could almost feel him as he collided lovingly with her and twirled her around him. But with a small apologetic smile he went around to the other side of the vehicle and reached up to help Lottie down.

"Go on and have Bethel take a look," he said to the child. "Tell her I said she could save her questions for me, but she needs to see you're all right. Go on, now."

Lottie came towards Mary, curtsying a little more stiffly than usual as she passed, and then disappeared behind the house. Mary looked after her, realizing belatedly that the girl's upper lip had been smeared with blood. She turned to her husband. "Cullen, what on earth—"

"She got into a fight," he said briskly. "Seems news of my fall from fortune has spread among the local Negro population, and Lottie took exception. Are you all right? You're sweating."

She flushed a little and found her handkerchief to blot at her brow. "It's hot," she said simply. "You're back sooner than I expected." She looked at the buggy. There was no sign of the wheel. "Wasn't Boyd's man able to help?"

"Derned thing needs to be made fresh," said Cullen. "Boyd's going to send somebody 'round with it the minute it's done."

"That's kind of him," Mary said. "How much did he charge you?"

"Not a penny," said Cullen. "He wanted something in trade. He also wanted me to ask whether you'd like to come out to that anniversary party they're having on the first of August. We never did send a reply to the invite."

"Oh, dear, no, we didn't," Mary sighed. The prettily penned invitation from the Ainsleys had arrived one morning not quite two weeks ago. By noon of the same day she had taken to her bed in agony, bleeding copiously onto the rags she kept for her monthly courses. In the aftermath, and with all that had happened since, it had gone straight out of her mind. "I imagine you don't want to go," she said. "Everyone in the county will be there, Mr. Sutcliffe included. But Boyd is your closest friend, and didn't you stand up for him at his wedding? You really ought to go."

"Never mind me," said Cullen. He took her arm and led her out of the sun and onto the shady veranda. He held the back of her rocker so that she might sit, and then perched on the edge of his own. He kept his feet firmly planted and his elbows on the edge of the armrests, as if he feared that if he relaxed into the chair he might not find the willpower to get his work-wearied body up out of it again. "Tell me what _you_ want to do."

Mary smiled. He was always so considerate in such matters. It was a rare man, North or South, who gave his wife such careful consideration when it came to joint decisions. He seemed not only to realize that she had a mind of her own, but to understand that she might want to use it. The matter of county parties was always a difficult one. Mary sometimes felt so isolated on their quiet little farm – plantation – and she missed the chance to see people, to socialize, to dance with her husband who was such a lithe and elegant partner. But she had few amicable acquaintances and no real bosom friends among the planters' wives. They were polite – Southerners were always polite – and most were very kind, but among them she felt her otherness keenly. The gentlemen were far easier to get on with, for they were chivalrous enough that a lady need never want for attention, and for the most part they liked Cullen so well that they would have honored an Irish skivvy if she had been his wife. Still, such gatherings were at times uncomfortable.

But this party, being held at the Ainsleys, would at least leave the Bohannons the advantage of being under a roof where they were unconditionally received. Boyd Ainsley and Cullen were close as brothers: they had done their schooling together, they had wreaked their adolescent chaos together, and they had been young landowners together. Through it all they had remained dear friends. Verbena Ainsley, though not quite as warmly affectionate towards the Bohannons as her husband, had always been extraordinarly good to Mary; doing all she could to make her feel welcome in her new home. She had even made the offer that, when Gabe was a year or two older and ready to start his studies in earnest, he might begin them at West Willows under the Ainsley children's governess. It was the same arrangement that old Mr. Bohannon had had regarding Cullen's early education.

"I think I should like to go," Mary said. "It would be pleasant to have an occasion to dress up and forget work and worries, if only for one night. And Boyd and Verbena have been such good friends to both of us. I know it would mean a day's work lost, but surely the darkies could manage? I… it would be such a treat, Cullen, for both of us."

"You realize I'm likely to be the chief topic of discussion?" said Cullen. "That half the people there will be laughing behind their hands, and the other half shaking their heads and saying 'Oh, what a pity, the poor dears!', which is worse. That if Abel Sutcliffe and I don't wind up with a pledge to meet out on the ridge to settle a matter of honor it'll be a minor miracle."

"Aren't they even more likely to discuss you if you stay away?" asked Mary. "And won't being there remind them that you're still the master of one of the oldest plantations in the county, and you're still your mother's son, and you're still a gentleman? And won't it be fun to irritate Mr. Sutcliffe by showing him his spiteful tale-telling can't touch you?"

Cullen grinned, and years seemed to fall from his face. "Well that's fine, then," he said. "I'll send word we'll both be attending. God knows how I'll make up the lost time 'round here, but I'll manage it somehow."

He got to his feet with the faintest hint of pained tension in his movements, and bent to kiss her. His hand slipped between her cheek and the brim of her bonnet, and he caught a stray strand of hair between his first and second fingers. "You're a wonder," he whispered, stroking it. Then he straightened and stumped down the porch steps, and went to lead the horses with their tidy black load towards the stable.

Mary watched him serenely for a minute, until he reached the barn door and started to drag it open. Then suddenly she remembered Lottie, who had been in a fight and come home from West Willows Plantation with a bloodied nose, and she got up and hurried into the house to see how the child was faring under Bethel's ministrations.


	13. Aphids

**Chapter Thirteen: Aphids**

Long after Lottie finally fell asleep under the light cotton sheet, a cool cloth spread across her forehead, Meg sat up in the heat of the tidy little cabin, staring into the dying embers in the ash-pan of the cookstove. She felt utterly wrung out. It was not so much her day's work, which had been lighter than most with the tobacco between suckerings. She had finished watering the garden, which was in danger of wilting for thirst if this heat kept up, and then gone out to take over mowing clover to dry for winter feed while the men went down to the creek-bottom to chop wood. The wagon had been mended at last by about three o'clock and with the sturdier of the two mule teams hitched to it, it had made two trips up to the flat land near the drying barn with loads of slender logs. Nate and Mister Cullen had not had time to lay out the second load before dark, and it sat there still in the unhitched buckboard; waiting for tomorrow. There was always more work waiting for tomorrow, for all of them, but though Meg ended each day dog-tired and started each new one still sore from the last her present exhaustion ran far deeper.

She had got some of the story from Mister Cullen, and managed at last to draw the rest out of Lottie during that quiet hour when the men were still at their work and Meg was laying on supper for the slaves. She had felt sick to hear the master tell it, but Lottie's reluctant recounting of the precise slurs bandied about by the neighbor's boy had left her cold with horror. Such hateful things for a child to say; such awful things for her daughter to hear. Meg thought that in Lottie's place she would have been tempted to hit the little monster herself. She bristled at the criticism of their home and their sweet-tempered Northern mistress, and of course she could not bear to hear anyone speak ill of Mister Cullen for the very thing he did that was best and bravest. But it was the taunt about hard times and the selling up of the Bohannon darkies that most appalled her. For one Negro child to tell another that she might be sold away from her mother – it was the cruelest and most deliberately hateful thing that Meg could imagine.

There was not a black mother in the world who did not live with a secret terror of such a pass; not a black child who did not imagine it in her darkest dreams. The terrible moment when a boy or girl might be torn from the embrace of a desperate woman, both screaming, both weeping, both imploring their master for mercy – it was a thing worse than death. And worse still than such a parting were the long years that followed: years spent in fruitless yearning and ceaseless worry, never knowing how a beloved one fared each day, whether they slept safe and fed each night, whether they lived in constant fear of the lash or languished in chains on some far-off plantation, whether indeed they lived at all any longer. It was a nightmare often threatened by impatient white men looking for some bogeyman to brandish over a slave, but surely such men could not understand what the words truly meant. Meg did. She knew. From the moment she first felt her little girl flutter in her womb, she had been haunted in quiet and unexpected moments by the demon of separation.

Fortunate even in her first master, Meg had known that she did not truly need to fear being severed from her child by the auctioneer. Even when old Mr. Bohannon had mortgaged most of the field hands to carry the plantation through a bad year when Lottie was two, he had kept Meg and her daughter off the paper. Meg had often wondered how she had come to be one of the fortunate few spared from having her life tied to that second failed crop, but she wanted to believe it was because the old master had tried to keep her and her baby together. Certainly she knew that Mister Cullen would never sell her and Lottie separately, whatever else he had to do to keep his family fed. She did not really think he would sell them at all, except perhaps if she were fool enough to ask him to. He might be better off doing so, and putting the money thus raised into buying up another strong man, but she did not believe he ever would.

It was a rare thing, that trust that her master would truly take care for her wellbeing. Every time Meg went over to visit Peter at Hartwood she came home filled with gratitude to the God who had allowed her to be born twelve hundred yards east of the Sutcliffe land. Every time she saw skinny little Hattie, not yet fourteen, with her plump little yellow boy on her hip and the deadened, beaten look in her eyes, Meg was thankful that her own daughter lived under the hand of a man who would offer his own handkerchief to wipe the blood from her nose and yet expected nothing in return. Every night when she lay down to sleep she did so knowing that she was the property of someone who cared for her beyond her value in work or at market. Someone who might at times, as he had done with the question of putting Lottie in the tobacco, place the needs of herself and her child above even his own health.

Of course Meg still nourished a private dream, as deep and as secret as the fear of separation. In the stillness of the darkest part of the night, just before it was time to disentangle herself from her child's sleeping form and rise to the day's work; in the heat of a sleepy Sunday afternoon; in the hardest hour of tobacco-topping, it visited Meg like the yearning for Paradise. She wanted her daughter to be free. Life as Mister Cullen's slave was about as good as life could get for a Mississippi girl, but it was not freedom. Meg was content for herself, and grateful for Lottie's lot in life, but that did not stop her from dreaming. Free… to go where she wished to and do as she pleased, free to marry anyone she chose and to live with him, too; free to bear her own babies without the dread that they might be taken from her by some awful twist of fortune. This was Meg's secret wish for her child. As unattainable as a return to Eden, it still dwelt deep in her heart like a small, eternal flame.

Lottie stirred on the bunk, the straw tick rustling beneath her. Meg turned to peer into the darkness, unmoving in her chair until she was certain the girl slept on. She had taken quite a pounding at the hands of the bigger child: she had bruises up and down her left side, and of course the bloodied nose, and her hands were stiff from fighting back. But she had taken no serious harm and from what Mister Cullen had said she had fought like a little tigress. Meg was proud of her daughter for standing up for the honor of the family, but she was also haunted by what might have happened. Mister Cullen had explained to her their narrow escape from calamity by the grace of Mr. Ainsley, but he hadn't needed to. Meg had seen Negros whipped for breach of the peace before this, and she did not need to be told that the meagre remains of last year's tobacco money would not have stretched to a hundred-dollar fine, either. Poor Lottie, only doing what came naturally to children, had very nearly dragged them all into disaster.

Meg got to her feet, her arms aching as she hoisted herself. It had been a long day of toting water and swinging the mowing scythe, and in the morning they would all be going out into the corn for what was hopefully the last weeding it would need. As she unbuttoned her dress, Meg found herself praying silently for rain. If it did not rain soon they would have to water the corn as well, and the tobacco would suffer. They might be able to keep a couple dozen rows irrigated with watering cans and dippers, but there was no way to water fifty acres; not like tobacco needed watering. It had been managing all right on the heavy morning dew, but that would not last without a good, soaking rain. Meg didn't need Elijah's dour prophesies, so carefully kept private in the quarters, to tell her there would be trouble if the crop failed. She could see that worry in Mister Cullen's eyes every time he looked out towards the rows of brilliant green. She had seen it in his desperate determination to work on even when he was sickening. Whatever came to pass, the tobacco must not fail.

Down to her shift now, Meg crossed the room and climbed carefully over her daughter's sleeping body. She stretched out with her back against the smooth wall, and tugged a corner of the sheet over her bare legs. Sensing her presence, Lottie curled in towards her, snuggling up to her mother with a soft cooing sound. Meg draped her arm over her daughter, fingers playing in the fine wooly curls at the nape of Lottie's neck. Now that she was lying down her tired body began to overrule her busy mind. She sank swiftly into a deep and almost dreamless sleep.

_*discidium_*

On Saturday afternoon, having dismissed the others to enjoy their half-day of rest, Cullen climbed up onto the roof of the house to see about the loose shingles on the end dormer. The muscles of his upper arms trembled with fatigue as he climbed the ladder, worn out from three and a half days hoeing the corn. It was not hard work by the standards of many other tasks around the place, but it required constant repetitive motion and a light, precise touch that was itself a burden on the body. Still, they had managed to get through the whole crop, and with the stalks now blotting out most of the sunlight over their roots it likely would not need to be done again before the harvest. Down by the tobacco barn there were two loads of timber stacked and drying, ready to be cut down to stove-lengths as time allowed. The garden was amply tended and its picking under control. On the whole it had been a productive week.

Cullen reached the eaves and scrambled up onto the slope of the roof itself. He could have brought up a second ladder with him, to brace between the almost-level plane of the veranda roof and the steep ascent to the ridgepole, but that had struck him as unwieldy and unnecessary. He mounted swiftly and was soon straddling the bedroom dormer. Over his shoulder was slung a sack carrying his tools and the last of the cedar shingles laid by for such repairs. He settled it carefully in the junction between the two sections of roof, and dug out the little iron prybar. Then with his off-hand providing balance against the dormer peak he leaned down to examine the damaged section.

The heat wave had finally broken over Thursday night, and the torrid and oppressive temperatures had withdrawn back to the seasonal average. This was still, as Mary constantly reminded him, quite hot enough, but it was a relief to be able to breath air at least a little cooler than blood, and to have the chance to remove one's hat for a few minutes without fear of taking on a sunstroke. Still, there was no sign of rain.

From his perch, Cullen could just see the first luridly green blush of the high field at the crest of the rise, and he squinted as if by doing so he could see how the precious tobacco plants were faring. It was Elijah's habit to keep an eye on them during the weeks when they were not suckering, and intellectually Cullen trusted to the more experienced man's judgment. Emotionally, however, with the crop occupying an ever-increasing proportion of his fretting time, he found it difficult to let the matter rest. When he was finished up here, he decided, he would wander on down and take a look for himself.

It looked like an easy repair, he was happy to note. One of the shingles in the fifth row had split, and the wind catching its edges had worried loose several of the others above and below. Of these only four looked unsalvageable, but it was difficult to say for certain before he got them off. Starting at the highest affected row, he began digging out the nails with the prybar, careful not to let them drop. A nail was not a thing to be wasted, not anymore. He tucked them between his lips, tasting the hot metal like blood in his mouth. The damaged shingles he flung far off to his left, where they spun like a conjuror's plates before crashing down to earth somewhere on the front lawn. Those that were still whole he set with care on the roof, releasing them slowly to be sure they would not slide down. His labors quickly exposed the underlying layer of tarred felt. It seemed to be intact, and that was another bit of Providence.

When he had cleared away the damaged section he set about laying the shingles. He used the salvaged ones first, on the lowest stripped row: setting them carefully in place and driving nails through into the roof joist beneath. He was good with a hammer, and his blows seldom went awry. This was definitely an advantage when mending a roof, for a stray blow could crack a shingle.

He was just starting to lay the second row when there came a creak of hinges from below, and an eager little voice calling out; "Pappy? Dat you up dere?"

Cullen grinned around his mouthful of nails. "Yeah, son, it's me," he called back, his words somewhat impeded.

"Why you fixin' de roof?" Gabe asked.

"So the rain don't come in and ruin Mama's rugs," Cullen told him. Since this phase of endless questions had begun, he had learned it was simplest to give a straightforward and tangible answer as promptly as possible, and to reposition for the next phase of the interrogation. He never ceased to wonder at the queries his son dreamed up, and he often saved them up to recount to his wife in the privacy of their bed, where they could both laugh merrily without harming the young empiricist's feelings.

The window squeaked again, and Cullen imagined the child, kneeling up on the old steamer trunk, leaning out over the veranda roof and craning his neck to look skyward. "What rain?" he asked.

Cullen's stomach clenched as his child unwittingly prodded at his most pressing anxiety. He covered his discomfiture by nailing down another shingle, placing the nail with care and taking three swift blows.

"What dat bangin'?" Gabe demanded happily.

"I'm hammering down the shingles," said Cullen.

"Can I see?" asked the child.

"No!" Cullen exclaimed sharply. He did not know whether Mary or Lottie were in the bedroom with the boy, and he wouldn't put it past his adventurous son to climb out onto the roof to watch him. "You stay down there and count how many times I tap."

This seemed to satisfy the child, and for a while Cullen worked peaceably, a small voice crying out numbers each time the hammer rang. Gabe only knew his numbers as high as "lee-leven", but after that point he simply started announcing them at random, jumping from "five" to "two" to "seventy-ten". The consensus appeared to be that Pappy was tapping a great many times indeed.

When Cullen had worked through the old shingles, he took out the new ones. They were paler than the rest of the roof, being unweathered, and their surface was rougher. Consequently they sat more firmly against the horsehair matting, which was a boon because they also required more enthusiastic pounding since he was not working through existing nail-holes. During a pause to lay another one, Gabe's voice floated up again. Now it had a nervous note to it.

"Is de roof goin' come down, Pappy?" he asked.

"No, son, I promise it won't," said Cullen. "I know it's noisy. Why don't you go down and see what Bethel's up to?"

"Bet'l an' Mama in de 'mokehouse," Gabe said solemnly. "I s'posed to stay wid 'Ottie."

"Is Lottie down there with you?" asked Cullen. He wondered what business the women might have in the smokehouse on a Saturday. Ordinarily provisions were brought out on Monday for the week. "Lottie? You down there?"

"Yassir," came the girl's voice. "I's right here."

"Good." It was something of a relief to know that he didn't have the sole responsibility for keeping Gabe out of trouble: a three-year-old out of sight of any authority figure could raise a lot of chaos in a very short time. "Son, you just hold Lottie's hand if the banging scares you."

An indignant snort came from below. "I not scared!" Gabe protested vehemently.

"No, of course you ain't. Don't know what I was thinking," Cullen said firmly. "You're just looking out for me, ain't you?"

"Uh-huh," the child agreed. "I's lookin' out for you."

"Maybe you'd want to hold Lottie's hand anyway?" suggested Cullen. "Just in case the banging's scary for her?"

Lottie laughed. "Mist' Cullen, I know you wouldn't never let the roof come down," she said. "I ain't got nothin' to be scared of…" Then she realized what he was doing, and added; "But mebbe I could hol' your hand anyhow, Mist' Gabe? Jus' to feel safe?"

"You may," said Gabe magnanimously. It seemed to be the one refinement of speech that Mary had successfully imparted upon him: for the most part he tended to emulate his father instead. Cullen chuckled softly to himself and straightened the shingle.

"Ready down there?" he called.

"Ready!" Gabe sang out happily. This time when the hammer fell silent there was a sound of plump little hands clapping. "Do it again, Pappy!" the child exclaimed.

"Just gimme a minute to get her laid," said Cullen. He reached for another shingle, and stopped as he turned back to place it, for the ladder had shuddered against the side of the roof. Cullen watched as a grizzled mat of kinky hair appeared over the edge, followed by Elijah's deeply creviced old face. Cullen nodded at him as he hefted his body, still ropey with the muscles of an accomplished foreman, onto the veranda roof. He stood up, dusting his patched trousers with one hand. The other was curled into a fist around something.

"'Lijah!" Gabe exclaimed. "Look, 'Ottie, it 'Lijah up on de roof!"

"Aft'noon, Mist' Gabe," Elijah said. "How d'you do?"

"How d'you do," said Gabe politely. "What you doin' up here?"

"I's just goin' have a word with you' pappy," the old man said solemnly.

"He fixin' de roof," Gabe told him.

"So he is," said Elijah. "You think he got a minute to talk?"

"Pappy?" called Gabe. "You got a minute to talk?"

"Sure do, son," said Cullen, sliding forward a little on the dormer's ridgepole and beckoning for Elijah to draw nearer. He came up to the very base of the roof, looking up at his master and squinting into the sun. "What is it?" Cullen asked.

Elijah stretched up his hand and uncurled the gnarled fingers, revealing several small buds and a corner of a tobacco leaf on his palm. Cullen grimaced. "What the hell's that?" he muttered.

"Suckers from the bottom field," said Elijah. "She's ready to be done over."

"We knew that," Cullen said tiredly. "We're starting in on Monday afternoon: half-day, every day until picking time, remember?"

"An' this," said Elijah, picking up the scrap of leaf and handing it up.

Cullen bent, bracing carefully with his left hand, and plucked it from the other man's grasp. It looked like a perfectly ordinary tobacco leaf, as far as he could see. Examining the edges carefully he could see no sign of wilting yet; that was some small relief. Then he spied a discolored blotch, like a smudge of soot near the central vein of the leaf. He tried to rub it away with his thumb, but to no avail. "Whatsiss?" he grunted.

"We's got aphids," said Elijah grimly. "Down the bottom wes' corner. I foun' at least five-six plants infested. We leave 'er go, an' this time next week it'll be the whole field."

Cullen restrained the urge pound his fist against the ridgepole, but only just. He screwed his eyes closed and drew in an unsteady breath through flared nostrils. It was just too much to hope for a little luck in bringing in the crop: they had to go from crisis to crisis. "How bad is it?"

"Bad 'nough," said Elijah. "Take a powerful plague of aphids to destroy the whole crop, but they's eatin', an' where they's eatin' they leaves holes. Makes the tobacco curl. An' where they makes them spots it won't cure even."

"Meaning we'll get a crop, but it ain't going to get anywhere close to a decent price," Cullen said wearily. "What's the best way to get rid of aphids?"

"Good hard rain," Elijah said without hesitation. "Wash 'em all down into the mud an' drown 'em."

Cullen looked up at the gloriously blue sky, naked of even the faintest wisp of cloud. His heart was hammering in rage at his helplessness. "Barring that," he said. "What can _we_ do to get rid of aphids?"

"Wet down the nearby plants with garlic water," said Elijah. "Got to paint it on the stems an' the leaves, top an' bottom. Least two or three rows. Then we take up the sickly plants an' burn 'em. That or hope the rain come quick. You got much truck with God I don' know 'bout?"

Cullen laughed hollowly and shook his head. "Garlic water it is, then," he said. "How do we make that?"

"I stop by the smokehouse 'fore I come up here," said Elijah. "Bethel goin' get a batch started direc'ly. It be good 'n strong by Monday."

"It's gotta sit 'til Monday?" Cullen asked despairingly. Five or six plants he could stand to lose, but if the infestation spread far enough to take down even a couple rows' worth of plants they would be in trouble.

"Nawsir; overnight's 'most always good 'nough," said Elijah; "but tomorrow's the Lord's Day. Can' be out in the tobacco on the Lord's Day: it ain't decent."

That was true, and it was also not something that Cullen had any right to ask of his people; that they should sacrifice their day of rest between two weeks of summer's heavy toil. "You just paint it on?" he asked. "Both sides of the leaves, up and down the stem?"

"Yassir," said Elijah. "Picky work; slow work."

"But not exactly what you'd call a scholarly pursuit," said Cullen. "Any way I could mess it up?"

"Not 'less you got careless," said Elijah. "An' I never took you for careless."

"What, never?" said Cullen, almost smiling. He looked down at the fragment of leaf in his hand and tossed it away. He picked up the hammer again. "That all you got to say, Elijah?"

"Yassir, Mist' Cullen. That all." Elijah was squinting up at him thoughtfully. "What you goin' do?"

"Ain't a thing I can do right now, is there?" said Cullen. "Bethel's going to mix up that garlic water, and I'm going to finish this here." He nodded at the shingles. "Not bad, is it?"

"Nawsir," said Elijah. "You's handier with a hammer than any white gentlemen I ever see'd. That a proper good job, there."

"Glad to know you approve," said Cullen, certain he was being flattered but relieved by the approbation nonetheless. If that rain ever did come, they would need a good, tight roof. "You go on and enjoy what's left of your day, now. I'll see you at chore time."

With a parting "yassir", Elijah climbed carefully onto the ladder and disappeared below the veranda roof. Shortly afterwards he appeared again, shambling off towards the willows. Cullen rocked the hammer with his wrist, and the smooth handle rubbed the place where Mary had dug out the splinter on Tuesday night. It had not been able to heal up as it should, because the constant friction of the hoe had kept tearing it open. But that was only a harmless irritation: nothing to the calamity of aphids in the tobacco.

"Gabe?" he called, hoping for a distraction from his mounting anxiety. "You still there, son? Gabe?"

No answer came from below. Doubtless bored by the farming talk, the little boy had wandered off in search of some other diversion. With a low and bitter sigh, Cullen got back to work.

_*discidium*_

"You can't."

Mary stood in the front hallway, staring at her husband as he dragged on his work-boots. Sitting on the bench with his torso bent low over his knees, Cullen raised his head to look at her.

"God will understand," he said patiently. "A man's first duty is to look after his folks, and the only way I know how to do that is to keep them plants healthy. You said yourself you ain't well enough to lace tight for your church clothes, so what's this taking me away from? And if it is blasphemy after all, I guess I'll just have to answer for it come Judgment Day."

"You can't go. I won't allow it," Mary repeated. She had her hands planted firmly on her hips now, and in the blue glow of the early morning her eyes had a strange brilliant glint to them.

Cullen sighed. "Weren't there a story about the apostles picking wheat to eat on the Sabbath?" he asked. "Doing what they had to do to keep from going hungry? You explain to me how this is different."

"Oh, hang the apostles!" Mary cried. Cullen straightened, startled by her outburst. She abhorred strong language of any sort, and even such an invective was considered by her to be unladylike. His shock was complete when she raised her right hand and wagged her finger at him like an Irish fishwife. "You are not going out into the fields today! I don't know about breaking the Sabbath, and you're probably right that the Lord would understand, but I'm not having you give up your one day of rest just because of some bugs!"

"It ain't just 'some bugs', Mary: there's aphids in the tobacco." He bent to drag on his other boot. "Elijah says this is our best hope of stopping them, and I got to try. I put too much into this crop already not to try."

"Then why are you going out there alone?" she asked desperately. "It'll take you all day without help."

"Because I got no right to make the others give up their day of rest," said Cullen. "Nate and Meg and Elijah all worked harder than I did this week: I lost a morning in Meridian, and most of another fixing that damned wagon. Derned wagon. Elijah told me what I got to do: I'm going to get out there and do it."

"You could ask them, at least," protested Mary. "They might want to help. They've put just as much into this crop, haven't they?"

Cullen shook his head. "You don't understand," he said. "These ain't hired hands. I'm their master: asking is as good as telling. What they going to do, tell me 'no'? Strike like a bunch of longshoremen? Leave 'em enjoy their Sunday."

"What about _your_ Sunday?" She was beginning to sound quite frantic now.

He shrugged tiredly. "It's mine to give up. Mary, really. All I'll be doing is painting water on some plants, uprooting the infested ones, and having me a little bonfire. It ain't like it's hard work."

"You'll be out in the sun," she argued faintly. "And the dew. You said, Nate said, even Doctor Whitehead said it wasn't good to be out in the dew with the tobacco. It takes on the humors of the night air, and it'll make you ill again."

He gave her his best grin, fearing it did not reach his eyes. "It's only one day. Never hurt me before."

"I won't have it," Mary whispered. "I won't stand for it." Then the fire blazed in her eyes again. "_Why_ can't it wait until tomorrow?" she said insistently.

"By tomorrow the aphids will have spread," said Cullen. "We might lose twice as many plants, or more. I can't much afford to lose what I'll have to taking care of it today." He ran a hand through his hair and got to his feet. "The way things are now, Mary, we got fifty acres of prime tobacco. The best, understand? Quality we got now will fetch top price. We been working ourselves to the bone to keep it like that, but a blight of aphids will ruin it. We won't lose the crop, but we'll be left with bottom-ranked dockside cigarette stuff; four or even three cents a pound. Maybe less. I can't feed us on three cents a pound, much less clear our debts and pay our taxes. I got to stop those little bast—_bugs_, and I got to do it now before they spread too far."

He was right before her now, and he reached carefully to grip her elbows. She stiffened and he thought she was going to shy away, but she stood her ground and looked up at him as he took hold of her. "There ain't no other way," he said quietly.

"I don't like it," Mary breathed.

"I know," he said, and he kissed the bridge of her nose. It was all he could do not to move on to her mouth. With a great exertion of willpower he pried his fingers off her slender arms. "I'll try and come back to the house for dinner."

He hurried for the dining room door, trying not to see how she turned to watch him as if he were going to his death. He went through to the kitchen, where Bethel was just taking the breakfast biscuits out of the oven.

"Where's that garlic water?" he asked.

She looked up, surprised by the question, and her eyes narrowed as she saw his coarse old clothes. "You ain't goin' out there today," she said stoutly. "It the Lord's Day."

"Discuss it with Mary," said Cullen. "Weren't there a story about the apostles—"

"Don' you go tryin' to make out you knows your Bible better'n me!" Bethel scolded. "You never was a 'tentive Christian, even as a little boy. I ain't talkin' 'bout the Bible nohow. You worked six days, an' you needs you' rest. You goin' waste away to nothin', you keep on pushin' youself."

"That tobacco's going to waste away to nothing, I don't get out there and deal with them pests," Cullen argued. "Where's the garlic water?"

Bethel pointed to a dish in which a quantity of crushed garlic, thinly diced onions and what appeared to be a ground-up red pepper were soaking in liquid paraffin. "You add a few drops to a gallon jug an' shake it," she said. "Elijah knows; he can show you tomorrow."

"I'm going out there today. What do I use to paint it on?"

She pointed to a pail by the door, in which the whitewash brushes sat amid a milky slurry. "Monday," she said, thrusting out her jaw.

Cullen scratched at his neck with the edge of his thumbnail, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Bethel, I don't need to explain to you too, do I? Surely you see this has got to be done as quick as possible."

"Oh, I sees it," said Bethel, shaking her head. "I jus' don' like it." She put the biscuit pan on the corner of the table and shook her hand to cool overheated fingers. "You sit down an' eat something while I strain this here oil."

She moved to grab the coffee pot, but Cullen beat her to it. "Strain it, then. I can wait on myself."

He poured a cupful of the rich, dark fluid and dosed it liberally with sorghum. From the tray he snagged a biscuit, steaming hot and fragrant, and peeled off the top layer. It burned his tongue but it was fresh and delicious, stirring up his ravenous appetite. There was side meat sizzling on the stove, and five thin slices of ham, but they were not ready for eating. Bethel was pouring her aphid-repelling concoction into an old vinegar bottle draped with a scrap of cheesecloth to strain out the vegetable residue. She finished and gathered up the cheesecloth, squeezing out the last drops of oil. Then she wiped the bottle down and stuck a cork firmly in its neck.

"Jus' another minute or two an' the meat be ready," she said. "I was goin' to lay on some eggs too an' a bit of fried potato, seein' as it Sunday, an' the last of that broth for Missus Mary. What you think Mist' Gabe goin' be in a mood to eat today?"

Cullen's smile was muted by the realization that giving up his Sunday meant sacrificing his time with his son. "Who knows?" he said, trying to sound cheerful. "He changes his mind more often than he changes his socks." He bolted down the rest of the biscuit and picked up the bottle. From the pail he chose one of the whitewash brushes.

"You ain't goin' out without breakfast!" Bethel protested. "Workin' on an empty stomach'll kill you faster than ague!"

"I ain't got an empty stomach," Cullen argued, pointing at the vacant place on the biscuit tray. "And I ain't got no time to wait for meat. Like I told Mary, I'll try to get back for dinner."

He snatched up another biscuit with the last three fingers of the hand that held the bottle, took his dilapidated straw hat with the one that held the brush, and hurried out the open back door.

_*discidium*_

The tobacco field was silent on a Sunday morning. Even the birds seemed more subdued in their twittering, and there was no wind. Cullen worked with a dull methodical rhythm. It had taken him a couple of attempts to work out the best way to do the job, but in the end he had settled on a system. He had come down from the well with five pails of water balanced precariously in the bed of the wheelbarrow, and an empty gallon jug under his arm. He rapidly realized that he was not going to be able to dip the brush into the narrow earthenware opening of the jug. After some consideration he went back to the toolshed to fetch another pail. He mixed the garlic water in the jug as Bethel had instructed, and then decanted into the empty bucket. A jug and a half filled it, and he took the pail with him into rows. He found the last of the infested plants and set to work on the healthy one in the next row. He would bend as he did when looking for suckers, wiping down first the top and the upper leaves, the stem and the middle leaves, and finally the lowest and broadest leaves, top and bottom. Then for good measure he would splash a little of the mixture – still strong-smelling despite its dilution – around the very base of the stock. Then it was on to the next plant.

It was slow going, and the sun was crawling on to noon. He was sweating profusely and his back ground miserably every time he moved his arms. The sore on his palm was burning from contact with Bethel's concoction, and the skin of his hands felt tight and dry. He had found eight infested plants so far, on the west end of the first three rows, and he kept glancing at those nearby as though they might be suddenly devoured by the insects. The vinegar-bottle was still almost full, but it took a large quantity of water to coat one plant and he would soon have to go back to the well.

His boiling frustration was eating away at him. He had thought the week had been such a good one: a real chance to get just a little bit ahead of the work, even with the bother of the broken wheel and the strain of Lottie's fistfight. As it turned out, nature had just been taking advantage of their distraction to brew up another trial. He was no farmer, but he knew enough to understand that this was at best a desperate measure. If there was something that Man could brew up to keep a blight off a crop, it hadn't been discovered yet. This kitchen garden potion might make the near plants less appetizing to aphids fleeing those he intended to destroy, but there were acres of other plants just waiting for them. If only they had gone for the corn, where the leaves hardly mattered except to shade out the weeds! Even in the garden they would have been little more than a nuisance. But tobacco prices hinged on whole, unblemished and evenly cured leaves… and the survival of the plantation hinged on a good tobacco price.

He tried to wipe the perspiration from his eyes with the back of his hand, and immediately regretted his stupidity. His eyes stung, flooding with water and blurring his vision. Hastily he scrubbed at them with his sleeve, but that only made matters worse. His hand, of course, was drenched in water mixed with a concentrated essence of the most obnoxious vegetables in Bethel's larder. Helpless and almost blinded by thin tears, he straightened his back and let the brush fall into the bucket between his feet. He took off his hat, holding it close to his nose to shade his face, and tried to blink as quickly as he could. It was pointless. Garlic and peppers livened up an otherwise dull meal, and apparently spooked aphids, but they were no fun at all in the eyes.

He heard voices off in the direction of the house: a low murmur and a quiet reply, and Lottie's high, merry laugh. He turned towards the sound, eyes still streaming, and picked out three blurred dark shapes against the bleaching grasses. As they grew nearer his vision began to clear, and he smiled in greeting as Meg and Elijah came up, each bearing two heavy buckets. Lottie was meandering along behind them with a fifth one held by both her nimble dark hands.

"What're you doing out her?" asked Cullen. "Brought me more water, I see."

Meg set down her burden by the ones he had emptied, and took something from her apron pockets. As he blinked away the last of the reflexive tears, Cullen realized she had the two other whitewash brushes. "We come to help, Mist' Cullen," she said. "Lottie an' Elijah goin' help you paint them plants, an' I's goin' fill up these here."

She pointed at the empty pails and then began to load them into the wheelbarrow. Elijah set down his left-hand burden and started pouring out the contents of the right one into the gallon jug.

"I don't want you giving up your Sunday," Cullen protested, not quite able to keep himself from looking at the plants that remained to be treated even just in the first layer of the planned buffer.

"That what Missus Bohannon say," Meg agreed. "An' that's right kind of you. But we goin' spoil this crop if we don' stop these here critters, an' there ain't one of us can bear to spoil this crop."

"I sure don't want Lottie out here," said Cullen. The child was holding a brush like a bouquet of flowers, and watching with great interest as Elijah added a few drops of oil to his mixture. "She's too young for field work, and this stuff ain't exactly a pleasure to use."

"She too little to push this here 'barrow when it full up with buckets," said Meg. "She kin help out in a 'mergency."

Cullen considered this. The work would go faster with more people at it, and they had three brushes. But then it seemed he could feel his temples pounding, and the roiling, rising nausea, and the terrible dizziness. He shook his head. "I won't have that child in wet tobacco," he said. "You go on and fetch the water, Meg: Elijah and I will do this here. Lottie, you go back up to the house and tell Bethel she should fix up a little cold dinner for you to bring to us. Nothing fancy: just what we can get down quick. And tell her I said she shouldn't've told you-all what I was about."

Lottie curtsied and ran off, only just remembering to drop the brush before she went. Meg watched her go and then turned gentle eyes on her master. "How you know it Bethel that tol' us?" she asked.

"'Cause Mary knows how to respect my wishes," said Cullen. He bent down to retrieve his brush and started back to work. Elijah, carrying a bucket, came down to examine the outer row. He passed three more plants that Cullen had not yet inspected, and finally settled on an unblemished one to wet down. Meg lifted the last empty pail into the wheelbarrow. Cullen frowned as an incongruity struck him. "Where's Nate?" he asked.

"He not comin'," Elijah said simply, setting to work at once and avoiding his master's eyes.

Meg, who had just lifted the handles of the 'barrow, let it fall again with a clatter of wooden buckets. She dusted her hands disgustedly on her apron. "He say he won'," she declared angrily. "He say if you wants him to give up his day of res', an' work on a Sunday, you gots to go down the quarters an' make him!" Her disgusted snort clearly communicated what she thought of this.

For a moment Cullen's astonishment overruled everything else. Such an ultimatum from a slave was certainly not unheard-of, but he had never encountered it among his own people. It was insubordination, plain and simple, and the sort of a seditious statement that demanded immediate action. At least it would have been if he or Mary had ordered the darkies out into the field, or even expressed to them a wish that they please do it. But the news that he was out here had come from Bethel, and from the look of things Elijah and Meg had made up their minds to help. Nate was certainly not bound to do something just because his peers decided to, and Cullen had given no order to be broken.

It was a dangerous place that he was put in now, and no doubt Nate knew it. If he let the remarks slide, he appeared soft on a defiant field hand. If he went down there and dragged Nate out to help, he was a man who forced his slaves to work on a Sunday; and worse, a man who felt so insecure in his authority that he was threatened when a Negro spoke out against an order he had not given. Both Meg and Elijah were watching him now, waiting to see what he might do.

Slowly, almost indolently, Cullen shrugged. "I didn't ask any of you to be out here," he said. "If you two want to help save what you've worked for, I'm proud to have you. If Nate ain't interested, that's his decision. I won't take anybody's day of rest, not when they've earned it like all of you have. Since I been your master I ain't never dictated how you spend your Sundays. I ain't going to let no aphids make me start."

He dipped his brush again and swiped it along the underside of a leaf. Meg picked up the wheelbarrow and started away. Elijah kept right on working.

They labored for a little over an hour before Lottie came back with a covered basket. Meg had mixed up her own pail of the repellant after coming back from the well, and with her help they were now on the second row of plants out from the infested stand. They rested long enough to eat their dinner. Bethel had sent out a small feast: cornbread and butter, cold side meat, yesterday's fresh-picked peas, young radishes and three ripe peaches. After his hasty breakfast Cullen was just about mad with hunger, and he ate quickly and with little regard for good manners. The meal was washed down with fresh cold water, also brought to them by Lottie, and then they got back among the plants.

When they were down to their last pail, Meg loaded up the wheelbarrow and trundled up the slope again. Alone with Elijah, Cullen felt able to unburden himself of something that had been troubling him.

"I didn't intend for you to work on a Sunday," he said, bent low to brush the bottom leaves of his plant. "If Bethel put pressure on you…"

"She didn'," said Elijah, not pausing in his work. "She didn' have to. We knows how 'portant a good crop be. If I thought you'd do a fool thing like try this on you' own, I'da been out here first light to help." He shook his head sadly. "I don' know what Nate thinkin', Mist' Cullen. That I don'. He got to know if you go hungry the res' of us do too."

"Never mind Nate," said Cullen. "I told you: he got a right to his day of rest. But Elijah, I surely do appreciate the help."

Elijah grunted gruffly and dipped his brush again. Deciding it was best to let the matter rest there, Cullen did the same. They had been working about ten minutes in silence when the creak of the wheelbarrow was heard and Cullen raised his head to wave to Meg. He was startled out of his stoop when he saw her walking along unburdened beside a broad-shouldered figure steering the heavy load. Remembering himself, he raised an arm in greeting and then bent his creaking spine again and settled his features into a disinterested mask. Nate parked the 'barrow and Meg took a step towards the bucket and brush she had left behind. He put a hand on her arm and shook his head, then marched down the row and picked up the brush. Without a word to either Elijah or his master, Nate set right to work.

Cullen finished his plant and straightened up, lifting his bucket and shuffling to the next one. "Afternoon, Nate," he said courteously. "Good of you to give up your Sunday to help out."

Nate looked up at him, dark eyes unreadable and hand moving steadily among the bright leaves.


	14. In Silence

**Chapter Fourteen: In Silence**

Mary sat in the old chintz armchair in the corner of the nursery, a beam of moonlight playing across her skirts. On the other side of the room her boy slumbered peacefully, his slow serene breathing broken now and then by a low murmuring sigh as he dreamed. She wondered what visions visited Gabe in the night. She hoped they were pleasant ones. It would be good to know that at least one person on the plantation was able to enjoy a happy dream or two. Her eyes travelled to the door, slightly ajar, and she tried to listen for any sound from below.

It shamed her, but Mary did not want to be downstairs when Cullen came in from the tobacco. She had done her wifely duty every night this week, waiting in the dining room and trying to make pleasant conversation while he ate his held-over supper with grim, almost mechanical resolve. It had been a miserable and heart-wrenching ordeal that left her restless and her own dreams tainted with worry. It was hard enough to watch him coming in weary and begrimed with the day's toil, but the dull and defeated look that had been in his eyes since Sunday afternoon was almost unbearable. He had come in from clearing the infested plants stooped and reeking strongly of acrid green smoke, replying to her anxious question that it looked like they'd been able to stop the aphids, but they would have to keep a sharp lookout to be sure. Mary had expected some small note of triumph in this announcement, but there had been none at all; only a leaden exhaustion and an impenetrable stoniness. Her subsequent attempts to draw him out of himself during their scant moments together had failed. She did not know what he was thinking, or why he could not confide in her, and she was worn out from trying.

The distant rattle of the stove told her that Bethel was laying out Cullen's supper. He would be down there now, dragging off his dusty boots and scrubbing the tobacco sap from his hands. She wondered whether he would even note her absence from the table. Certainly he would accept the explanation that she was upstairs with their son; Bethel knew no more than that, or so Mary hoped. The old woman had more insight into the hearts of the family than Mary sometimes gave her credit for, but if she suspected her mistress's motives Mary did not think she would say anything to Cullen. She thought that Bethel knew, or guessed, about the baby – but she had certainly kept quiet about that. The two of them shared a desire to shelter the man they both loved dearly from any unnecessary pain.

There was another secret between them, too: less painful but more pressing. The stores laid by with the money from last year's tobacco were running low. Bethel had taken Mary out to the smokehouse on Saturday so that they could make an inventory. Though sorghum, hominy grits and dried peas were plentiful, they were down to a little more than half a barrel of cornmeal and about three-quarters that amount of flour. The last keg of salt was two-thirds empty, and although they were not yet short of side meat they could see the end of that as well. There were three smoked hams left, along with the one half-eaten in the larder, but they would not last when the side meat was gone. Bethel estimated they had less than twenty pounds of potatoes remaining in the cellar, and those were softening quickly. They had run out of turnips in June, though these had not been much missed by anyone but the cows. Now the seemingly endless bushels of yams that had been dug with such care the previous autumn were reduced to a single sack, and the last of the woody carrots and parsnips had been brought up to give to the stock. While summer lasted they would have milk – and so cream and butter – aplenty, and eggs, and fresh fruit and vegetables, but at Mary's best guess they would run short of nearly everything else long before there was hope of more.

The most pressing problem was the lack of salt. It was needed for preserving food, and now that the garden was producing it was time to think of pickling beans and beets and okra. Bethel had already started laying by watermelon rinds in brine – a curious Southern delicacy that Mary had never quite developed a taste for – and that had depleted their sparse supply of cane sugar. They could use sorghum for canning if they had to, but it left a distinctive tang in the preserves and rendered them, so Bethel said, unfit for offering to company. This was her roundabout way of saying that such things weren't suitable for white folks, but at least where the Bohannons were concerned such conventions had to stretch to expediency. So they could manage without sugar, but there was no substitute for salt, and without it they would have no hope of keeping the bounty from the garden.

Mary had never realized what a great quantity of food eight people could consume in a year until she had to store up most of it in the space of three or four months. In New York a metropolitan household seldom kept more than two weeks' supply of meat or potatoes or sugar on hand: there was always more food to be bought, and in her father's house always the money to buy it with. She relied heavily on Bethel's experience in managing the smokehouse and the cellar and the larder, and when Bethel turned to her for advice she knew that they were coming to a trying pass indeed.

The plan, inasmuch as the two women had been able to make one, was to step out their stores as best they could with fresh perishables. This meant less bread and fewer biscuits in the house and less corn pone in the quarters, and they could not increase the helpings of hominy in proportion lest it too should run short. Those who worked in the fields needed meat to keep up their strength, but at meals when Cullen was not expected Mary and Gabe could have eggs instead, as could Bethel and Lottie at dinnertime. Here at least Cullen's long hours of labor would serve everyone well. There was no way that either Mary or Bethel could see to make the sweet potatoes stretch until the new ones were ready, for if they were to cut back on grains the household needed _something_ to fill their bellies. But the absence would be felt less keenly later, when the heavy summer labor was done. Then they would just have to make do with succotash and black-eyed peas instead. By that time it would be hunting season, too, and Cullen might be able to bring home some venison to supplement their diet until butchering time.

It seemed a workable strategy, but yet again they came back to the problem of salt. There would have to be a trip into Meridian to buy at least two more kegs – four would be better, Bethel said, for salt would be cheaper now than at the end of September and they would need it for the butchering. Mary did not know where the money was to come from, unless Cullen had some laid by in the bank. She had taken occasion when fetching his pocketbook to examine the contents, and the sight had not been encouraging. Still, he could always charge salt at the grocer's and the expense was not the real reason neither woman wanted to broach the subject. The truth was that salt was one of the things, like flour and cornmeal and coffee, that were supposed to be bought up only once a year when Cullen was in New Orleans selling up the tobacco. All such goods were less costly in the port city, and cheap to transport back in the train car hired to carry the tobacco down. They were only a little better than halfway through this year, and the salt was almost gone – before even the heavy preservation could begin. Cullen had not purchased enough to last them, and he might take that as a personal failure. With his spirits as low as they had been of late, Mary and Bethel were both reluctant to raise the matter with him.

Gabe stirred in bed, flopping his head from one side to the other. His curls were plastered damp across his forehead, and his little pink mouth was turned up in a slumbering smile. Mary was tempted to gather him into her arms, quilt and all, but she refrained. He was sleeping so peacefully; it would be wrong to disturb him.

Heavy footfalls sounded on the stairs, and she startled a little. She had not realized she had been sitting so long. The moonlight had slipped from her lap now, and lay like a silver ribbon over the floor. In the corridor she could hear Cullen's breathing: deep and steady and comforting. Then the hinges creaked as the door swung gently inward, and his form was silhouetted against the muted glow of the candle he had left on the little table by the head of the staircase. His shoulders were stooped and his head hung low, and he lifted a weary arm to brush the hair from his eyes as he moved softly into the room. His feet, so leaden upon the stairs, now moved with almost ethereal silence as he crossed to the narrow little bed. He stood for a moment, his back to the corner in which Mary sat, looking down at his child. The moonlight cast the bridge of his nose in stark relief, and glimmered like quicksilver in his eye. Then slowly, as if every movement brought with it a deep and terrible pain, he knelt beside the bed. His left hand settled on the small of Gabe's back, and his right moved to caress the sleepy little head. Cullen's eyes closed and he pressed his lips together; there was a hiss of breath as he inhaled the clean sunshine scent of his son. His thumb brushed the tendrils of baby-soft hair from the unblemished forehead. Then he bowed his head between stiffened shoulders and kissed the child's upturned cheek.

Mary watched, her chest constricted in a way no corset ever could. Cullen's forehead was buried in the coverlet now, as if he lacked the strength or the will to lift it. His right foot sat in the rivulet of moonlight, and she could see the dark tarry stains on his damp sock. There was a hole in it, too, right where the heel met the arch. Somehow it was this last, smallest thing that raised the lump in her throat and made her eyes sting.

Cullen shifted, pulling his arms off the bed and sitting back on his heels with his hands limp between his knees. He took in an unsteady breath and planted his left foot on the floor. His legs tightened as if to stand, and he wavered. Then, reaching up to grip the bedpost, he hauled himself tiredly back onto his feet. His shoulders twisted a little as if he might turn for the door, but he seemed unable to tear his eyes away from the sleeping child. He reached out, and his fingertips just brushed Gabe's ear.

At last Mary rose, coming quietly up behind her husband and curling her arm about his waist. She placed her right hand lightly upon his elbow and felt him lean into her touch. His shirt was soaked through with perspiration and she could feel every muscle of his body knotted with toil. "What you doing, sitting up here in the dark?" he whispered, his gaze still fixed on their son.

"Watching our baby, the same as you," she murmured.

Cullen shook his head and she hugged him more tightly, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. "Seems like I don't hardly see him anymore," he said. "He's growing so fast and I hardly see him."

There was an uncertainty in his words that clawed at Mary's heart. "You're a good father," she said softly. "You're a good provider, and a good playmate, too. He's been just about bursting with pride, convinced he helped you to keep the roof from coming down."

He made a hoarse sound that was not quite a hushed laugh. "Couldn't have managed without his help," he said. He closed his eyes again and tilted his head to rest against hers. "Why can't they stay this age forever, huh?"

"Oh, you say that," said Mary; "but I know you can't wait to teach him how to ride, and shoot, and dance."

There was a flash of teeth in the moonlight as Cullen almost smiled. "I'd settle for teaching him how to put away his toys." Then he raised his arm and lifted it over his head, settling his hand upon her waist. "Best let him sleep," he said, and led her to the door.

In silence they made their retreat, pausing to collect the candle before walking, still entwined, to their own bedroom. Cullen put the candle on the dressing table and gently slipped away from Mary's arm. He peeled off his shirt and the filthy undershirt beneath it, then went to the washbasin to bathe his face and his underarms. Mary sat down on her dressing stool to undo the prettily painted ceramic buttons of her basque. She hung her dress carefully on one of the closet hooks and stepped out of her petticoats. Her corset was still laced loosely enough that she could unhook the busk without touching the strings, and she felt the strange hollowness of ribs suddenly unsupported. Laying the stays out neatly for tomorrow, she next untied her shoes and pulled off her stockings. Barefoot she padded to the bed and drew her nightgown out from beneath the pillow.

Cullen was dragging off his pants now. Although they were not as sodden as they would have been after a full day of suckering, the sticky tobacco juice had still soaked through to stain his drawers. Mary looked away and lifted her chemise over her head. Clad now only in her pantalets she unfolded her nightgown, spreading it on the counterpane. She had lifted the hem and was just about to slip into the light linen garment when she heard a soft sound from the direction of the washstand.

Her husband was watching her in the golden glow of the lonely tallow candle. He was naked now, his nightshirt gripped in one hand before him as he stood staring at her bare arm and the curve of her breast. Belatedly seeing that he had been caught, he offered a sheepish half-smile and said, in a voice half-tinged with wonder; "Dear Lord, you're beautiful."

Before she knew what she was doing Mary was across the room and in his arms, feeling his skin against hers, inhaling the deep vital scent of his sweat, tasting her youth on his lips. His arms bowed around her, strong hands pressing her bare back. She was waiting for one of them to find its way to the buttons of her pantalets, but somehow it did not. When they paused for breath in their kissing, Cullen pulled back a little and then bent down out of her embrace to retrieve his fallen nightshirt.

"We can't," he said hoarsely as he dragged the garment over his head. "It's too soon: you ain't well enough yet. Doc said we got to wait."

"Doc said—" Mary echoed hoarsely, still giddy with desire and startled at his abrupt withdrawal of his favors. He was around the other side of the bed already, buttoning up the collar of his nightshirt with dark-stained fingers. "But he promised!"

Cullen's brows knit together briefly, and in that instant Mary knew that she had betrayed herself: the doctor might have hinted to Cullen that it was too soon for marital intimacy, but he had not given the reason. Suddenly she felt sick. Now Cullen would ask what it was Doctor Whitehead had promised and she would have to tell him the truth; would have to see the despair in his eyes as he felt his heart break as hers had done. She would have to watch as he shut himself away behind a cold grey stare where she could not reach him or comfort him.

Then Cullen sighed and shook his head. "Yeah, he said you wouldn't want him discussing it, but he also figured you might try something like you just did and I'd have to be the one to keep it from getting too far. Don't be embarrassed, Mary: Doc and me's close." He reached for her nightgown and tossed it to her. "Come and lie down; maybe we could pet a bit if you like."

But Mary did not want to now. Her heart was cold within her and she felt the gulf between them again. Why couldn't they talk to one another anymore? They used to be able to. Once they had shared everything: secret joys and dreams and wishes, private fears and pains and worries. Now it seemed they were so afraid to hurt each other, each so anxious to spare the other one more burden, that they hardly seemed to be married at all. Miserably she pulled on her nightdress, unbuttoning her pantalets beneath it and stepping out of them. She snuffed the candle and got into bed beside Cullen, who was lying on his side to face her. As she drew up the covers he reached to stroke her cheek with the side of one work-roughened finger.

"What's wrong?" he asked gently. "You'll be well again soon, and we can have all the fun we want. There's no sense hurting yourself over a few minutes' pleasure."

"It isn't that," Mary said unsteadily. In the darkness she could not read his expression, but his hand was tender as he moved it down to cup her shoulder. "We don't… why don't we talk anymore?"

He sighed heavily and withdrew his arm, rolling onto his back and punching down the pillow under his neck. "Not enough hours in a day," he said wearily.

"It's not just that," said Mary. "It seems I never know what you're thinking these days. All week you've been brooding over something, and you won't tell me what it is."

"You know what it is," said Cullen dully. "It's the damned tobacco. I can't hardly think about anything else, I'm so busy fretting over it."

"I don't understand," she said softly. "You said it's coming up well, and you stopped the blight without losing many plants."

"Thirteen in all," he muttered. "Just a little corner of the bottom field. Ain't seen no sign the infestation's spreading: Elijah thinks we might be all right."

"But isn't that a _good_ thing?" Mary asked. She wanted to curl close to him, but she could not quite bring herself to do it. When a few minutes ago she had wanted nothing more than his touch, now she did not know if she could bear it. She didn't seem to understand him at all.

"I s'pose so," said Cullen tiredly. "Just it don't feel like it, somehow."

For a long span there was silence. They lay side by side on the feather tick, close but not touching. Mary was just beginning to think that he had slipped into a deep, exhausted slumber when her husband spoke again.

"Them plants we tore up," he said. There was a queer, haunted echo in his voice. "We took 'em out to a bare patch in the pasture and we gave 'em a good douse of kerosene, and I set a match to 'em. Stood there and watched them burn. I spread those seeds and I watched them sprout. I plowed that furrow and laid in the seedlings. I topped 'em and I suckered 'em and I saw 'em grow. Then I tore them up and set fire to them. All that work, gone up in smoke."

"But it was only thirteen plants," said Mary. "You saved the rest of the crop."

"It don't matter," said Cullen. "That's just what this business is: work and worry all year, and at the end of it you're back where you started. Nothing to show for it. No point to it. Useless."

Mary could not speak. She did not know what to say, nor did she trust herself to say it without a tremor in her voice. Cullen shifted, lifting himself with one leg, and then grunted softly as he rolled back towards her. His hand found the crest of her hip and stroked her flank.

"Don't mind me," he said. "I'm just tired. Tired and anxious for rain. It's got to rain sometime, but hell if I can just be patient." He brushed his lips against her forehead. "We got to get some sleep. Morning comes early."

"Yes," Mary whispered. There was nothing more she could say.

_*discidium*_

Working half-days in the tobacco was proving just as miserable as full days. Though they did not get so wet with the dew, they started work already tired out from the morning's labors. There was also no question of wasting daylight: Meg left the field early, but the men stayed on until it was too dark to see. Cullen found that after three days he was just as stiff and sore as he had ever been under the old regimen, and coupled with those aches was the knowledge that they would be a constant companion until he traded them for picking pains. The others did not complain, but he thought he saw the same futility in their eyes: they would have to keep on like this for months, and if the rain did not come all their efforts would be wasted. On Monday Meg had suggested they might try watering the tobacco, but Cullen had vetoed the suggestion and it had not been raised again. The truth was that none of them wanted to make that final admission of defeat: if they tried to irrigate fifty acres by hand it meant that not only had they given up all hope of rain, but that they had taken all leave of their senses. It was just too much work for four people to manage, even without everything else that needed doing.

The garden was flourishing, and from what Cullen could gather Mary and Bethel spent every minute they could spare from the routine household chores picking, scrubbing and preparing vegetables. Time and again when he passed within sight of the house he would see Mary sitting in her rocker on the veranda, stringing beans or shelling peas. On Friday he came in at dinnertime to find the dining room table covered in strawberries, and Mary and Gabe laying out a picnic on the parlor floor. Saturday morning, when they were out in the tobacco so that the slaves could still have their half-day of rest, she and Bethel put up a vast quantity of brilliant red preserves in earthenware jars sealed with waxed linen covers. They were using sorghum instead of sugar, but that seemed to confound Bethel far more than it did Mary. Gabe, who was allowed to scrape the residue from the cooled stew-pot, did not seem very particular. He was waiting with an exceedingly sticky kiss for his pappy that evening.

On Saturday night Bethel drew a hot bath for the master, and Cullen spent the better part of an hour trying to scour the dark stains out of his skin. He was met with limited success, and thoroughly exhausted by the effort. Still it was a pleasure to curl up clean beneath clean sheets, and he would have relished it thoroughly if he had not been too tired to stay awake long enough.

The last Sunday in July dawned of its own accord, without Mr. Bohannon to supervise. He woke up in the early golden sunlight to find Mary tugging at her corset-strings. He bestirred himself to lace her snugly, and then watched with detached fascination as she buckled on her hoopskirt and layered her petticoats over it. While she arranged the flounces and ruffles of her lavender Sunday gown, he put on his own good clothes and combed his hair neatly, plastering it in place with a dollop of quince seed oil. Mary tied his cravat, and he pinned her bar pin at her collar. They made a pretty pair as they descended to breakfast: only Cullen's calloused hands with the lingering tobacco stains disturbed the illusion of genteel prosperity.

Bethel had breakfast waiting, and Gabe was in his usual ebullient mood. He sustained the conversation almost without assistance, and seemed perfectly contented until Mary put on her silk faille bonnet with the broad embroidered chin-ribbons and he realized that Mama and Pappy were going to church. Then there were protestations which might have escalated swiftly into a rage had not both Bethel and Lottie been on hand to offer distractions. While Gabe was trying to decide between a biscuit spread with fresh strawberry jam and Lottie's promise to take him down to see the cows, Cullen and Mary slipped quietly out the front door.

The Morgans kept a sedate pace into Meridian, Cullen perched on the driver's board with Mary shaded beneath the buggy roof behind him. She looked very lovely and demure in her becoming matronly frock, with her hands in white silk gloves folded neatly in her lap. Despite the stiffness in his neck and shoulders Cullen found himself frequently looking back at her, and whenever he did she smiled for him. In that quiet hour it was easy to forget the toils and worries of the recent months, and his own persistent ill-humor. He had a loving wife and a handsome boy, the tobacco was growing well and would thrive if only it got a little rain, and his people were healthy. Surely that was enough to hope for today.

There were two churches in Meridian: the Baptist and the Methodist, both relatively recent institutions. In Cullen's boyhood there had been little by way of organized religion, apart from the occasional camp-meeting when a travelling preacher came through. Mary had been brought up Episcopalian, in the fine old New York State tradition, and she was a firm believer in attending church regularly. In the absence of an Episcopalian minister, the local Methodist parish served the family's spiritual needs. The preacher was a temperate man, not prone to the energetic and sometimes wrathful railing of his rival at the Baptist church. He was also inclined to keep his sermons philosophical rather than political, which to a Northern lady with abolitionist sympathies was an important concern. For his part, Cullen liked the feeling that he was being educated, not scolded, and he enjoyed the singing. Mr. Trussell had made a large endowment that had enabled the church to purchase a full set of Wesleyan hymnals, and the congregation made good use of these despite the want of an organ.

The church lawn was already crowded with carriages and buggies and back-country wagons, and from within came the voices of the early arrivals, already raised in song. Cullen found a spot at a hitching post and tied off the wagon. He strapped on the nosebags for Pike and Bonnie, and then pulled on his gloves to hide his coarsened hands. Then he helped Mary to alight, careful to free her hoop from the buggy-box before it could drag up her skirts. With her hand upon his arm they mounted the steps together and entered the bright, whitewashed sanctuary.

They took their accustomed pew, which they shared with Boyd and Verbena Ainsley, and Mary found the place in the hymnal. She had a sweet contralto voice that never missed a note, and as always Cullen felt a little abashed to raise his own uncultivated one beside her. Mary had had years of music lessons in New York, while most of what he knew of singing came from his father's drinking songs and Bethel's lullabies.

When the service began Cullen made the responses in all the right places, but despite his best efforts his mind wandered. He ran over the work that had to be done in the upcoming week. He tried to work out how he was going to make up for the full day of labor he would lose on Wednesday to the Ainsley party. He wondered whether he might persuade Mary to come with him when he rode out to exercise Bonnie this afternoon: Pike could do with a good gallop too, patient though he was. And try though he might to forget it, he worried about the tobacco. Yesterday he had found one or two leaves beginning to curl at the tips for want of water. They might struggle all summer and they would never manage to keep the fields irrigated. Mississippi summers were hot, but they were usually a good bit wetter than this. They weren't _so_ far inland, were they? There was a whole ocean of water not a hundred and fifty miles away, and yet not a drop of it on the tobacco where it was needed.

He felt Mary's hand on his arm and realized his gaze had been wandering along with his thoughts. He fixed his eyes attentively on the preacher, who was speaking on "suffer the little children to come unto me". It was precisely the sort of gentle lesson the man favored and Cullen preferred. If God was love, as Bethel was fond of saying, why did so many self-proclaimed Christians seem to speak out so hatefully? Take John Brown, for instance. He'd called himself a Christian, but what had he been but a rabble-rouser and a murderer?

His thoughts were roaming wild again. Cullen stood up hastily with the rest of the congregation, following Mary's patient finger to the correct line in the hymnal. With a small smile of thanks, Cullen raised his voice in the simple but heartfelt tune:

_Depths of mercy! Can there be  
>Mercy still reserved for me?<br>Can my God His wrath forbear,  
>Me, the chief of sinners, spare?<em>

The song went on, but Cullen fell silent. Around him the wealthier parishioners were still singing blithely, but towards the back of the church a lull had fallen. It was breathless and almost more reverent than the hush during the service had been. The poor farmers, and the backwoods-dwellers without good wells to supply their gardens, and Cullen Bohannon the struggling planter, all listened rapturously. For under the voices of the worshipers rolled another sound, a thousand fine fingers tapping on the slate shingles of the church roof, growing first in frequency and then in pitch until even the most oblivious had to have heard it.

The rain had come.


	15. Too Small

**Chapter Fifteen: Too Small**

Gabe sat under the dining room table, trying to push his green ball into an old tin cup. The ball was made of wood, smooth as glass and covered in a thin layer of chipping paint, and the cup was just a little too small to hold it. He kept trying regardless, because he liked the sudden, startling feeling when the ball jumped against the pressure of his hand, and the way it spun in the cup when he pulled his palm over it. It was a good game when he was supposed to be quiet. Bethel was in the kitchen, napping in her chair, and Lottie had told him that Bethel needed her rest. Lottie herself was lying on her stomach on the rug by the sideboard, looking at the pictures in Gabe's book. She couldn't read it to him, and she didn't know the real stories – not the ones that Mama and Pappy found in the book – but she liked to make up her own tales around the engraved illustrations. Gabe liked these stories, because they were always changing, but with the fierce loyalty of a small child he told himself that he liked his pappy's stories best.

He wished that his parents hadn't had to go to church. He didn't really understand what "church" was, except that it was in town and it meant that Mama put on her best dress with the swinging skirts and Pappy wore his good hat, and that they would be away all morning. Gabe didn't miss Mama so much, because she was 'most always around whenever he wanted her, but he didn't like it when his pappy went away. Pappy was never in the house anymore, except on Sundays: Mama said it was because there was so much work to do in summertime. But at least when his father was down in the tobacco, or looking after the horses, or hoeing the corn or chopping wood in the creek-bottom Gabe knew he was not far away. If they needed him, all they had to do was send Lottie out to find him and he would come as he had on the day Mama took sick. That made Gabe feel safe and happy, knowing that his father was close to home just in case.

_In case_ of what Gabe didn't really know, but at three and a half he had an active – if sometimes indistinct – imagination. He was convinced, for instance, that there was a sea-serpent in the well, and that was why Bethel had shouted so loudly when he had tried to look down inside of it. He also wondered what might be in the smokehouse, because he was never allowed in there either. But these were little fears, and they didn't trouble him nearly as much as the feeling he had that something bad was about to happen.

He had felt that way for some time now; long enough that to his child's mind it almost seemed an eternity. There was a foreboding in the house; an intangible feeling of impending doom. He saw it in Bethel's constant anxious scolding – not of him, so much, but of Lottie and Meg and Pappy and even Mama. He saw it when he came into a room unexpectedly and found his mother hugging herself and crying quietly into a handkerchief. He saw it in Elijah's thoughtful frown as he went about the dooryard. And he saw it most of all in his pappy. Gabe didn't understand everything that adults said or did, and he believed he would never understand just what they were thinking, but he knew that Pappy was worried about something. He had an anxious, calculating look in his eyes at most times now, and he only seemed to lose it once in a while, sometimes when he looked at Mama, but more often when he and Gabe were playing. Gabe, who understood that it was hard to think about unhappy things when you were having fun, felt this was hard proof that whatever the threat was it was very unhappy indeed.

The ball popped out of its perch atop the cup again, and rolled off towards Mama's chair. Gabe watched it go and decided not to crawl after it. He wanted to go and play outdoors, but it was raining and Bethel said that little boys who played in the rain most often caught colds in their chests. Bethel had a lot of mighty firm opinions about things like that, and with Mama and Pappy away at church she was the supreme authority on the plantation. Even when Mama and Pappy were home they deferred to Bethel's judgment more often than not.

Gabe turned the tin cup upside down and began to beat on it with his first two fingers. The sound was hollow and low, not at all like a drum as he had hoped. The saucepans in the kitchen made much better drums. He looked sidelong at Lottie, but she was engrossed in the book and not watching him as carefully as she might have done. Carefully Gabe got his knees under him and crept over to his own chair. He slithered under it instead of pushing it out from under the table.

The toe of his left brogan caught on the rug, and he tugged it quietly free. He did not like to wear his shoes: they were hot and they pinched him. But it was Sunday, and Bethel said that good little Christians didn't run around barefoot on Sunday. Gabe didn't think this was fair, because Lottie didn't have to wear shoes, but when he had offered this opinion Bethel had only snorted. "You ain't Lottie," she had said. "You's a white gentleman, an' you gots to behave like a gentleman." Then she had pointed out that his father was a gentleman and always wore his boots, and that had settled the matter for Gabe. He still didn't like it, but he would do it.

He was free from the table now and he stood up slowly, keeping a sharp lookout on Lottie as he did. She was humming to herself and swinging one bare foot in the air. Gabe liked Lottie. She was a good playmate, and she was never too busy to listen to him. The grown folks almost always had other things to do, though they tried to make time for him. Mama said it was because there was always something to do about the plantation, and Bethel would just shake her head and say; "Too much work, not 'nough hands." This didn't make much sense, because everybody had exactly two hands, and if they had three their shirts wouldn't fit, but Gabe did not quite dare question Bethel's wisdom.

He moved as quietly as his brogans allowed towards the kitchen door, and was about halfway there when another sound stopped him. It came neither from the kitchen nor the dining room, but through the hallway from the front of the house. As soon as the rain had started Bethel had bustled about opening every door and window to let in the cool air, and the front door was wide open. From the drive came the splash of hooves and the rattle of buggy-wheels, and Bonnie nickered as someone reined her in. Gabe's heart leaped and his studiously sneaky expression vanished into an enormous smile. He was tearing back across the dining room at full tilt before Lottie could even look up from the picture she was studying.

Gabe burst into the entryway and buffeted against the side of the staircase, stopping at its foot just before the border of the door. Bethel's admonition against going out in the rain visited him then and gave him pause. Eagerly, bouncing on the balls of his feet, he watched as his Pappy climbed down off the driver's board. He had pulled the buggy up almost to the veranda steps, and he hurriedly opened the low door of the passenger compartment and flung back the oilcloth lap robe spread over Mama's broad lavender skirts. Mama was smiling and her eyes were sparkling, and she laughed as Pappy offered her his hand. There was rainwater dripping down the back of Pappy's best hat, and water on the shoulders of his good frock coat. Mama stood up in the buggy, and Pappy looked down, kicking the toe of his glossy riding boot into a puddle forming just at the bottom of the steps.

"Allow me, Mrs. Bohannon," he said cheerfully. Then he reached up and put his hands on either side of Mama's waist, impossibly slender in contrast to her huge, swaying skirts. Mama planted her own palms on his shoulders and he hoisted her out of the buggy, turning as he did so and twirling her around so that he could set her down on the porch steps. He laughed as he did so: not the low, distracted chuckle of recent weeks, but a deep, joyful laugh that pealed on the air and ended in a merry whoop. Pappy's laugh tickled, and Gabe laughed too.

Mama was laughing as well as she scurried up under the shelter of the veranda roof and turned to look back at her husband. Her nimble hands were tugging at her bonnet ribbons, and she pulled the silk confection off of her head and brushed at it. "I do believe it's escaped the worst of it," she said cheerily. "Oh, Cullen, your coat!"

"Hang the coat!" Pappy said, leaping up to the top of the stairs and tugging the garment off. He shook it, and a shower of raindrops fell onto the planks of the porch floor. He was grinning enormously, and he looked young and playful. "It'll dry out. I got to get Pike and Bonnie rubbed down: trotting home wet they're liable to get colicky otherwise."

He tossed his coat over the back of Mama's rocking chair and turned to run back to the buggy, but she caught his elbow and drew him back towards her. They were as close as if they might embrace, but Mama only started to unbutton the front of Pappy's best waistcoat. "This _will_ be ruined if it gets wet," she said, gazing up at him. At least those were her words, but from her tone of voice Gabe didn't think it was what she meant at all.

"Always looking out for my best interests," Pappy murmured. He bent his head to brush his whiskers against her cheek, then pivoted to slip out of the vest. Mama folded it neatly over her arm and reached to straighten his hat. Almost reflexively he poked the brim with his finger, setting it back onto its habitual slope. He swept a playful bow. "I shouldn't be more than half an hour."

Gabe had watched all this transfixed, reluctant to interrupt lest he should break the spell. They both looked so _happy_. It had been such a long time since they had looked truly happy, and he didn't want to spoil it. But now his pappy was jogging down the veranda steps, about to disappear into the stables, and in another moment the opportunity for action would be lost. For a moment the little boy hesitated, glancing at his mother where she stood half-turned away from the house, her broad skirts held out in a flounced bell by her hoops. Then, half expecting Bethel to swoop up behind him and grab his arm to keep him from running out into the rain, he hurried through the door and onto the veranda.

"Pappy!" he called. Then, not knowing what else to say, he announced; "It raining!"

Pappy looked over his shoulder, twisting away from Pike. His grin was so wide that Gabe could have counted his teeth. "So it is, son!" he crowed joyously. "So it is!"

Then suddenly he was back, one foot up on the top step and the other in the puddle, arms outstretched. Gabe ran to him, and Pappy caught him under the arms, swinging him high above his head and out of the shelter of the porch roof. Gabe giggled as his stomach fluttered excitedly. He could feel the raindrops on his head and his arms, and he looked down to see them falling on Pappy's upturned face. The rain was warm and it was falling hard and steadily, untroubled by any wind. There were droplets in Pappy's beard, and caught at the corners of his nose. Gabe reached down as his father drew him close, and patted each of his cheekbones with one plump little hand. Pappy chuckled and whipped his face from side to side so that he tickled Gabe's hands. Then without warning he flung the child high into the air.

Shrieking in delight, Gabe thrust out his arms. For a moment he was flying, high above the ground so thirstily drinking in the rain; high above the flowers bright and blue in their beds; high above his pappy, face upturned to watch him; above even his mama, who was standing in the shelter of the veranda roof and watching with shining eyes. It was a giddying and frightening thing to be so high, airborne without anything to hold onto, but Gabe was not scared. He knew his pappy would catch him. Pappy would always be there to catch him.

He came down again, landing with a soft _whump_ against Pappy's thumbs. The strong arms held him aloft for an instant, and then drew him close, and Gabe hooked one leg around Pappy's side so he could settle against the man's hip. He was laughing so hard that he could not even speak to ask if they might do it again. Pappy jostled him gently and planted one fingertip on Gabe's nose.

"What do you say, son?" he asked. "You want to help me get these here horses settled?"

"Oh, yes, yes!" Gabe said eagerly, nodding his head with such vehemence that his father had to put his free hand against his chest to keep him balanced.

From her dry place on the porch, Mama said; "Oh, Cullen, do you really think…"

"Let 'im come along!" Pappy said merrily. "It ain't a cold rain, and we'll be out of it in no time. Gabe can help me brush Pike, can't you, son?"

"Yes!" Gabe said proudly. "I can, I can!"

"Well…" There was indecision in Mama's eyes, but she was smiling and Gabe knew she would say yes. Mama 'most always gave in to Pappy in the end, especially when he grinned like that. "I suppose it can't do any harm."

"That's settled then!" Pappy marched over to the buggy and lifted Gabe up onto the driver's board. He patted the rail. "You hold on good and tight, and keep right in the middle of the seat, you hear?" he said. Then as an afterthought he took off his hat, dusted it against his good striped trousers to shake off the worst of the water, and planted it on Gabe's head, tilting it far back on his neck so that he could still see. "There we are," he said with a satisfied nod. "We'll make a coachman of you yet."

Gabe gripped the bar with both hands, his feet dangling in their too-small shoes. Pappy went around to the front of the team, taking the reins with him. Gabe wished that _he_ could hold the reins, but he knew he wasn't strong enough to pull in the Morgans yet. Sometimes in the old days before summertime came Pappy used to take him driving, and let him sit on his lap and get a feel for the strength of the horses, but at such times Pappy still kept a good hold on the reins behind Gabe's small hands. Still, as his father led Pike and Bonnie down towards the barn Gabe imagined he was driving. He sat tall and proud, holding tight to the bar as he had been told, and pretended that he was charging off in the swift black buggy on some grand adventure – maybe in the jungle, where it rained all the time.

Pappy hauled the stable doors open and led the horses through. He took them out into the paddock and walked them 'round in a tight circle, then brought them back beneath the shelter of the barn. That was so the buggy would be facing in the right direction next time it was needed. He unbuckled the traces and then handed the lines to Gabe. Now he might play with them, shaking them and slapping them against the bar and pretending to drive, because the horses could no longer feel his tugging in their bits. Pappy unhitched first Pike and then Bonnie, and took off their bridles and rubbed their jaws and noses vigorously. The horses liked that: their ears twitched happily and they tried to nuzzle Pappy's neck. He led them into their stalls and went to fetch the curry-combs.

Now that the horses were away from the buggy, Gabe was allowed to climb down. He did so carefully, not wanting to lose his footing and fall like a baby. He went over to Bonnie's stall and climbed the slats of the door. Pappy was rubbing the mare down with smooth, careful strokes that loosened the mud drying on her flanks and scraped away sweat and rainwater. Bonnie shifted restlessly as he ducked under her head to switch sides, one hoof pawing the straw. This was why Gabe could not go near her when she was being groomed: Bonnie was a restless and high-spirited horse, and she might hurt him without meaning to. She wouldn't hurt Pappy, though, because he was a grown man and because he knew how to handle her. She trusted him and he was always careful to let her know by word or touch exactly where he was and what he was going to do.

When he finished with the knobby wooden curry comb, he took the two brushes with their stiff bristles and slipped the leather straps over the backs of his hands. This was the part that Gabe liked best. Pappy worked with both brushes at once, drawing them along Bonnie's back with quick, short motions so carefully orchestrated that it looked like his hands were dancing. Bonnie made a low noise deep in her throat. Pappy said it felt good to be rubbed down like that: it helped to calm a horse after a long drive and made Bonnie feel fresh and clean. She swatted her tail, and a few hairs tickled Gabe's hands where he gripped the top rail of the door. He laughed a little, very quietly, and his father looked up at him. For a moment Gabe was worried: he was supposed to be quiet around the horses. But his pappy grinned and waggled his fingers around the broad brush, and he knew it was all right.

Next his father took a finer brush, this one soft as Mama's hairbrush, and drew it gently over Bonnie's nose and ears, the sides of her face and the top of her neck. He had to keep one hand on her snout while he did this, or she might toss her head and whack him. Bonnie didn't much like having her face brushed, but she needed it after pulling the buggy all the way to town and back. Last of all, Pappy picked up one leg after another and cleaned her hooves, scraping out mud and little stones and other things that collected as she walked. He dug carefully around the iron horseshoes, and checked each nail to make certain they were firm. Then he stroked the length of her spine.

"Good girl," he said proudly. He looked at Gabe and nodded his chin towards the sack hanging by the feed bin. "Why don't you fetch her a carrot, son?" he asked.

Gabe climbed down and hurried to find a good one. There wasn't much left to pick from: these were the very last of the previous summer's carrots, and they were dry and cracked and old. But he found the nicest he could and handed it through the door-slats to Pappy. He put it on his palm, fingers very flat and thumb tucked close, and held it for Bonnie to eat. Her lips curled back and Gabe caught a glimpse of her big teeth clamp down on the root. Pappy stroked her nose and whispered something in her ear. Then he came out of the stall.

It was Pike's turn next, and Pappy made quick work of the curry-combing. Then he opened the stall door and let Gabe come in. Pike was gentler than Bonnie, and didn't even try to buck silly little boys who pulled his mane by mistake. Not that Gabe would ever do that again: he was much too clever and much to grown-up to do something so foolish. Pappy lifted Gabe up and settled him on Pike's broad back, and gave him one of the brushes. It was too big for Gabe to hold against his palm, so he used both hands to grip the strap. He pulled it smoothly and carefully along Pike's spine, just as Pappy had taught him, then lifted it up and reached forward to lower it again. He had to brush in the direction that Pike's hair was growing, or it would irritate Pike's skin and give him the shivers. Pappy only had one comb to work with now, but he moved just as quickly and skillfully as he had before.

"Use a little more pressure, son," he instructed. "You want to get right down into the roots. Don't worry: you won't hurt him."

Gabe pressed a little harder, and he could feel Pike's breathing through the brush. He thought he would be able to hear his heart, too, if he laid down on his stomach and put his ear to the horse's back, but he didn't do that. He was too old to do something like that: he was supposed to sit nice and straight like a man in the saddle, even if Pike wasn't wearing a saddle and they were only in his stall in the stable. Gabe concentrated on his brushing, working with intense concentration.

Pike was such a good, steady horse that Gabe could even sit on him while Pappy brushed his face. Pike did not stamp or try to toss his head; he only made a little low nickering sound when Pappy had the brush right under his chin. It sounded like a happy sound to Gabe. He guessed the horses missed Pappy too, when he had to spend all his time out in the corn and the tobacco and couldn't ride them as often. Mama said that when she and Pappy were just married, even before Gabe had been born, they had gone riding or driving nearly every afternoon, and sometimes at sunset, too. Gabe thought that when he was a man he would ride his horse all day, wherever he went, and he would have him a pair of tall, beautiful Morgans just like Pike and Bonnie.

"All right, my little man," Pappy said. "Time to get down. I've got to pick his hooves, and you can't be up top for that."

"Yassir," said Gabe solemnly, nodding to show that he understood this most important rule. He waited to be lifted down, but instead of picking him up like he was still a little baby Pappy stood at Pike's side and held out his hands only as far as the horse's flank.

"Bring your off leg up and swing your foot over to this side," he instructed. Gabe looked down at his widely-spread legs, wondering which side was the "off" one. Mama had been trying to teach him "left" and "right", without much success, but she had never said anything about "off'. Maybe it was like the extra hands that Bethel always said they needed?

"Your right leg," said Pappy, reaching across to tap it. "This one here. Lift it up and swing it, but put your shoe down nice and gentle so you don't kick Pike."

Gabe did as he was told, lowering his foot very slowly and cautiously. He thought he saw a grin in Pappy's eyes, but his expression was very serious and man-to-man. "Good," he said. "Now twist 'round so you're facing me and slide off. I won't let you fall."

He didn't really need to make that promise, but Gabe was glad he had. Now that he was so precariously perched Pike's back seemed enormously high, and the packed earth of the barn floor tremendously hard. Pappy's hands weren't even near his knees, but he knew how quick and sure those hands could be. Mustering his courage he let his right leg slip down and his left tuck up a little, and he slid. Pike's side was slick and smooth; smoother than the couch in the parlor. Gabe's bottom skimmed over it very swiftly and he was certain that he was going to go crashing onto the floor, but the very next moment he felt Pappy's hands under his arms, catching his weight without even the slightest sign of faltering. Gently Pappy lowered him to the ground.

"You can stay in here if you want to watch," said Pappy; "but go and stand in the corner by the door, just in case. Hear that, Pike? Gabe's in here with us, so don't you get ornery."

Pike snorted as if to say that it was ridiculous to suppose he would ever hurt Gabe, and Pappy chuckled. He had the brush on his hand again and he gave Pike a few quick swipes where the child had been sitting, then bent to clean his hooves.

"Why you got to do dat?" Gabe asked. He knew the answer, of course, but he liked to hear his pappy talk.

"Well," said the man after a moment's thought; "it's like when you get a pebble in your shoe. It hurts to walk on it, and if you leave it in there it'll rub and rub until you get a blister. Then you won't be able to walk at all without hurting, right?"

"Right," Gabe agreed vehemently.

"Same think with old Pike here. He needs his hooves to stay healthy so he can get on with his business." He was around the other side of the horse now, and Gabe could only see his feet and bent knees and the hand that lifted Pike's foreleg. His other hand, holding the pick, appeared, and he tapped at the horseshoe. "That's why his shoes are made of iron instead of leather, too: his legs work hard."

This raised an interesting question. "Why I gots to wear shoes, den?" asked Gabe. "_My _legs don't work hard."

"You don't got to wear shoes all the time," said Pappy. "But when it's cold, or you're going visiting, or on Sundays it's important. I wear shoes most of the time, don't I?"

"Yup," said Gabe; "but you works hard."

"Who told you that?" asked Pappy, coming around to Pike's right hindleg. His brow furrowed a little.

"Bet'l," said Gabe. "Mama says it all de time, too: dat why you ain't 'round much when I wants to play."

The hoof pick slipped and Pike made a restive noise. Pappy's lips tightened and he finished his work carefully before speaking. "I'm sorry about that, son," he said quietly. "I'd spend all day playing with you if I could, but I got to keep this place running. There's a lot to take care of in summertime; Nate and Meg and Elijah can't do it all."

"I he'p," Gabe said. "I he'ped make jam. I picked dem tops off de strawberries."

"Good man," said Pappy, and he smiled.

Gabe's chest glowed warmly at this praise. "Can I get Pike a carrot?" he asked.

"You sure can," said Pappy. "You can even feed it to him. I think maybe Pike'll be the horse you learn to ride with, just as soon as your legs get long enough."

"When dat be?" Gabe asked eagerly, looking down to see whether they had grown at all since his last inspection from atop Pike's back.

"Maybe not for a year or two," said Pappy. "You're just about big enough to ride a pony, but we ain't got one. And you don't want to learn on a mule."

"Nawsir," said Gabe. "I wants t'learn on Pike! I's growin', I promise! My feet getting bigger. Dat why my shoes pinch!"

He had expected his father to be excited by the news that he was growing, but instead the smile vanished from his face and the worried look – so blissfully absent since he had come back from church – was back again. He crossed the small space in a long stride and dropped to one knee, gripping Gabe's shoulders and staring intently into his eyes.

"What you mean, your shoes pinch?" he asked hoarsely. "You mean they're pinching you right now?"

"Yes, bu'—"

Gabe had been about to say that they pinched all the time so he hardly noticed after the first few minutes, but Pappy picked him up and sat him on his raised knee. With his left arm curled behind Gabe's back and stretching to reach, he untied the shoestrings and pulled the brogans off. Then he stripped off Gabe's socks and bent at waist and neck, feeling his toes and looking at the sides of his feet.

"Wiggle them toes for me, son," he said, watching carefully as Gabe fanned out his toes and made them writhe. Pappy's thumb rested on a red spot near the base of Gabe's great toe. "This where the shoes pinch?" he asked.

Gabe nodded unhappily. "An' at de back," he said. He wished he hadn't said anything. His words had stolen the smile right out of Pappy's eyes, and there was nothing there but worry again.

Pappy sighed heavily, shaking his head. "Well, that settles it," he said. He gave Gabe a gentle little swat on the bottom and the boy hopped off his thigh. Pappy picked up the small shoes and waved them in the air. "You ain't ever goin' wear these again, you hear me? Sunday or no Sunday, rain or no rain."

"Bet'l say…" Gabe began.

"I don't care what Bethel says," Pappy declared. "You ain't wearing these again. You tell her _I_ say." His lips smiled, but his eyes did not, and he chucked Gabe under the chin. "Don't worry 'bout it, son. I hear tell Jesus never wore a pair of brogans in his life, so he won't mind you running 'round barefooted one Sunday."

Gabe grinned. He had been wanting all day to go barefoot, and now he had Pappy's permission. "May I give Pike his carrot now?" he asked.

Pappy nodded and got to his feet, tucking the little socks into his pants pocket and opening the stall gate for his son. Gabe picked a nice big carrot, not too woody-looking, and came hurrying back, slipping past his father's legs and moving to Pike's head.

"Hold your hand flat and get your fingers… well, I'll be." Pappy stopped when he saw that Gabe, without being told, was doing exactly as he had done himself. "Go on, then. Keep it just like that, even if it tickles."

Gabe held up his hand, and Pike bowed his head. His lips drew back and his teeth closed on the carrot. Gabe could feel the horse's hot breath on his palm, and as Pike's lower lip brushed the pads of his fingers it _did_ tickle a little, but he kept still. Then, in a sudden fit of boldness, he reached with his other hand and stroked the horse's nose. It was warm and soft and as silky as Mama's velvet hair-ribbon. Pike nudged his hand gently, still munching noisily on the carrot, and Gabe could not help dancing a little with excitement.

"He kiss me!" he cried. "He kiss me! Pappy, Pike kiss me!"

"So he did," said Pappy, and the smile was back in his eyes again. He looked happy and proud, and Gabe's heart felt fit to burst with contentment.

_*discidium*_

"Mary," said Cullen as he strode into the parlor and flung himself wrathfully into his accustomed chair; "what do you know about Gabe's shoes hurting his feet?"

"Hurting his feet?" Mary looked up from the silks she had been trying to sort by lamplight. "Nothing."

"He ain't said nothing to you?" Cullen's eyes were stormy beneath narrowed lids.

"No!" Mary exclaimed. "I'd never have let him wear them if he had. What did he say?"

"They pinch," said Cullen. "His toes and his heel. They're too d—" He caught himself, remembering the day and his earnest efforts not to curse in the house. "They're too small."

"I knew he was starting to outgrow them, but I never dreamed they were actually causing any discomfort," said Mary. She shook her head. "I suppose that's why he came in barefoot at dinnertime?"

"That's right," said Cullen. "Minute he told me I had 'em off. He probably wouldn't even have said, but he was boasting how his feet were growing and he'd be able to learn to ride soon." He drew a hand across his face. "Why wouldn't he just up and tell us?"

"He probably didn't realize it was unnatural," said Mary. "It's only his second pair of shoes, after all, and the last ones were so soft that he was walking on the sides of the vamp before it was time to replace them. He's only a little boy, Cullen."

"Hang it, I know he's only a little boy! That's why we should've been paying closer attention. Is this what things have come to, when our son's walking around in shoes that hurt him and we don't even notice?" He shifted agitatedly, apparently uncertain what to do with his body.

"These things happen with children," said Mary reasonably. "We couldn't possibly have known until he told us: they aren't even tight enough that he's been limping. You took them off as soon as he told you, and everything is all right. Gracious, why torture yourself over it?"

Cullen folded suddenly over his lap, planting his elbows on his knees and burying his hands in his hair. The quince seed oil residue glimmered against his fingers. "Because I don't see how we can afford to replace them," he said. "A good pair of boy's shoes; that's another two dollars. Maybe two and a half, and he's got to have 'em. Townsend will give me credit, but what happens if I can't pay it off come November? And I got to empty out our account at the bank, or else start up a tab at the grocer's too: Bethel says we got to have salt or she can't pickle the vegetables."

"She told you?" Mary said quietly, surprised.

"Yes, she told me," Cullen sighed. He sat back again, tipping his head towards the ceiling and closing his eyes as if the dancing reflection of the kerosene flame pained him. "Guess she thought I was in a good mood on account of the rain."

Through the open windows the soft patter of raindrops on the grass, and the louder clacking on the veranda roof came comfortingly. Mary glanced towards them. "It is a blessing, isn't it?"

"One good rain in three weeks? More like the least Providence could spare us," said Cullen. Then he relented. "Yes, it's a blessing. But it's a small one. Three months 'til priming time: a lot could happen in three months, and it seems like all I do is dream up the worst possibilities. What I wouldn't do to wake up tomorrow morning and find October had come and the tobacco was safe! I ain't got a farmer's temperament, Mary. I worry too much."

"Yes, you do," she said lovingly; "but you needn't. We'll managed somehow; we always have before."

He looked down his nose at her and he made a soft sound of assent. "You're a wise woman," he said. "I'm lucky I got you."

Mary said nothing to this, but turned her gaze back on the fine, brightly-colored hanks of floss. She had an overabundance of yellow, it seemed, and she was running low on red. When she finished her sampler full of roses she would have to think of some new design to use the more plentiful threads. "About the shoes," she said. "He doesn't need them straight away. He's been running barefoot as a little Indian during the week, and it's been all Bethel can do to keep them on his feet on Sundays."

"I shouldn't wonder, since they've been paining him," Cullen muttered darkly.

"What I mean to say is that he can manage perfectly well until the weather turns," said Mary. "Then we can buy them larger than he needs, and they'll last longer. A sound pair of shoes is a good investment, but we needn't rush into it."

"You sure?" asked Cullen. He had raised his head as she spoke, but there was a suspicious look in his eyes as though he thought this solution to his immediate concern seemed rather too simple to be true.

"Yes," said Mary. "On Long Island where the weather changes so quickly it would be out of the question, and of course if we lived in the city he would need them whenever he went out, but on a f… on a plantation in this Southern heat he has about as much use for shoes in July as the barn cats have."

He looked at her for a moment, wonderingly. Mary had chosen her words with care: simultaneously explaining her reasoning and offering validation of his choice to bring her down to his home instead of uprooting himself and trying to make a life in the North. She knew he sometimes wondered whether he had done the right thing in spiriting her away to Mississippi, but if he had doubts she never did. As strange and sometimes uncomfortable as her new life was, she would never have traded it for cool drawing rooms and stiff political receptions on Manhattan Island. She smiled for him, a small serene smile, and the corners of his mouth twitched ever so slightly.

"Even if we could wait a few weeks," he said. "I'd feel better about spending the money if the crop was further along."

"I know," said Mary gently.

They sat in silence for a while, watching one another. At last Cullen got to his feet with a poorly suppressed grunt of weariness. "I'm off to bed," he said, shuffling for the door. "You coming?"

"In a little while," said Mary. "I wanted to get a start on a letter to Jeremiah."

He turned a long eye on her, leaning on the doorpost, but he did not seem to read too deeply into her words. He shrugged his shoulders and hid a yawn with the back of his hand. "I might not be able to wait up for you," he said. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Mary said, and mimed a kiss for him. Moments later she heard his stocking feet on the stairs, carrying him up towards their bedroom. She tucked away her silks and opened her sewing box. Her brother's letter was under her pincushion, and she unfolded it carefully, studying his neat, bookish hand as she considered again the terms of his proposition.


	16. Making Ready

**Chapter Sixteen: Making Ready**

The rain fell steadily through Monday, growing colder all the while, and did not let up completely until late on Tuesday afternoon. At first the fields seemed to gorge themselves on the water, thirsty roots drinking deeply and puddles gathering only where the earth was packed hard: in the dooryard, in front of the barn, on the paths leading from the house and the cabins. Then the low places began to fill, and little rivulets ran down the rows of the garden to pool by the pasture fence. The shimmer of the rain in the grey daylight imbued colors with a peculiar livid quality; particularly the brilliant green of the corn stalks, now suddenly resplendent with fresh vigor, and the darker hues of the willow leaves. The air smelled clean and cool and strangely new, and the scents of dill and chives and bay-leaf were strong in the garden. The rain washed the dust from the whitewashed rails of the fences, and the last shriveled blossoms from the magnolia that overlooked the drive. It swelled the shrunken creek and wetted the potato-hills and drove the sows and their half-grown litters to shelter in the lean-to hut that adjoined their pen. The chickens, on the other hand, were delighted: they went splashing about their little yard, snapping up the grubs and earthworms flooded up to the surface, and flapping their coppery wings in raptures of delight.

Most of the outdoor work could wait until the rain passed, but not the tobacco. As Elijah had rightly said they had to be out there every day if they meant to put in half-days of work, and so Cullen and the field hands donned their oilskins and covered their heads with crude palmetto-frond hats and went out to start on the top field again. The lofty goal of working dry was forgotten, but at least they had a break from the heat. The mud was terrible, though: they sank in it to well above the ankle, and Meg had to wear Elijah's old boots with the toes stuffed with straw to keep from filling her shoes with the oozing muck. It clung to their calves and spread up their legs, it coated their hands and traveled thus to shoulders, necks, brows and elbows. It clumped on the lower leaves of the plants, and choked the stalks so they had to brush away thick, sticky clods just to check for the insidious little suckers that kept them outdoors in such inclement conditions. Try as he might Cullen could not keep the stuff off of his face, and the stink of it gnawed at him: the faint, sour smell of the loam that seemed to haunt his very dreams. He used more water now than he had during the heat wave, trying to rinse the mud from his hands before he touched the dipper to drink. And when the rain itself finally stopped the mud only seemed to grow thicker and more obdurate – more malicious.

He called work to a halt an hour before sunset on Tuesday, because they were wasting more energy fighting the mud than they spent in the constant, exhausting stooping. Marking their places with handkerchiefs now no more than muddy rags, the three men floundered through six inches of churning mire to the end of their rows, and had to seize the tops of their boots in order to pull their feet free. They left great caked footprints in the wet indiangrass as they trudged to collect their buckets. For once it was not Cullen's back that was his chief tormentor: his thighs burned with fatigue from the effort of dragging against the very earth itself. He was wet through to the skin, and his overalls were heavy with a coating of mud. He hung them on their accustomed peg in the toolshed without much hope that they would dry by the next day, but he did not put on his wool pants. He did not even touch them, for his hands were coated in dark gummy filth: a gluey mixture of mud and tobacco juice. He parted ways with Nate and Elijah in the dooryard and waited until they were out of sight among the willows before he approached the back door.

He did not get up onto the stoop, where he would leave a trail of grime that someone would have to scrub up, but halted by the first step. "Bethel?" he called, keeping his voice as low as he thought he could while still making himself heard in the kitchen. When no answer came right away, he tried again.

The door opened and Bethel stepped out onto the mat, a puzzled frown changing to wide-eyed disapproval as she saw him. Cullen imagined he must look a bedraggled wreck, half-clad and dripping and fairly plastered with mud. He had given up on his hat early on, and his hair clung in straggles to his neck; it too was cemented in place with globs of muck. The sun had not set yet, but there had been a chill in the air all day and his weary back seemed coated in a thin sheen of cold. He gestured vaguely, almost apologetically.

"You got a rag and a pail of warm water?" he asked. "I'll try to rinse off out here so I don't go tracking all over your clean floor."

Bethel opened her mouth sharply, and then snapped it closed again. She wiped her hands slowly on her apron, and said at last; "Ain't goin' do no good rinsing," she said. "Them clothes is choked with mud."

"Bring me something to cover up with, then, and I'll take 'em off," said Cullen. "No sense bringing this lot into the house at all."

The old woman's jaw jutted defiantly. "You can' run 'round the yard with nothin' on," she said stubbornly. "It ain't fittin'."

"Bethel, I ain't in the mood to argue," Cullen said. "I'll go rinse at the well if I have to, but I'd sooner have warm water. Mud gets into everything: you know that. I go in there like this, it'll be all through the house in no time. And my neck's getting sore staring up at you like this."

For a moment he was certain she was going to scold him, but her face merely furrowed into a frown and she disappeared into the kitchen. He stood where he was, absentmindedly trying to wring out his shirttails while his boots settled even into the hard earth of the dooryard. Finally the kitchen door opened again and Bethel came out. She set a bucket of water on the stoop, and a pile of rags and an old quilt on the bench by the door. From a peg on the wall she took down a rusty old tin tub and put it down by the edge of the step. "Put them wet things in there," she said; "an' wrap up. I got water boilin' for you' bath: no sense dirtying up fresh underthings for a few minutes' wear. An' hurry up 'fore you catch your death of damp. Las' thing we need is you comin' down with pneumony."

Then she hurled herself back into the house, slamming the door behind her. Cullen almost smiled as he stripped off his shirts and fought with his boots. His socks were sodden, and he hoped the wet had come in over the tops of the boots instead of through some unseen hole in the stitching. He wasn't much of a cobbler, and he didn't relish the idea of wearing leaky boots until winter. He planted one bare foot on the second step and leaned to drag the bucket nearer. He tried to scrub his hands, with limited success, and then splashed water on his face and the crown of his head, and then over his shoulders and arms. He had hoped for water that had been standing in the warmth of the kitchen all day, but it felt as though Bethel had added some hot water to the pail: it was warmer than he had expected and where it fell it took some of the chill from his skin.

Cullen poured a little over each foot and then finally dared to step up onto the stoop. He took a quick glance around, lest Lottie or some unexpected trespasser should be wandering near, and then peeled off his muddy drawers. He rinsed the worst of the muck from his lower limbs and then flung the clouded contents of the bucket far out into the yard. He wiped his hands hurriedly on one of the rags, and then wrapped the quilt around his lean body, gripping it closed at neck and hip. Then awkwardly, working with the last three fingers of his left hand, he turned the door handle and slipped into the kitchen.

Bethel was emptying the big copper kettle into the washtub, which she had pulled up close to the stove. The larger of the two oven doors stood wide, its innards glowing an enticing orange. Steam was rising out of the tub, and a fresh head formed as Bethel poured. She turned to look at Cullen, skulking like a drowned cat by the door, and shook her head.

"What you do, roll 'round in it?" she asked. "I ain't see'd you so filthy since—"

"Plowing time?" Cullen asked dryly. He would never understand why Bethel felt the need to make a fuss every time he got himself into a bit of a mess, but he was more interested in the tub than the mystery. "Hot water?" he said, picking his way across the kitchen floor. He was leaving damp footprints, but at least he had left most of the mud outside. "How'd you know that's just what I wanted?"

"It what you need, or you never goin' get lookin' clean an' respectable," said Bethel. "You scrub up good, an' you call me if that water need changing." She filled the kettle again and set it on the stove. "Add this here if she cool down, an' make sure you scrub hard. When you's clean, give a goin'-over with the store soap, or you goin' smell like hog fat an' lye. An' don' forget them ears: bless me if you ain' got mud up in there too."

She moved around him with the age-defying grace she always exhibited in her kitchen, and closed the dining room door tightly. Left alone Cullen hurriedly let the quilt fall and climbed into the tub. He huddled as low in the water as he could, bring up handfuls to pour over his knees and his shoulders. It was deliciously, almost painfully hot, and the muscles of his hips seemed to relax almost at once. He turned a little so that the radiating warmth of the open oven fell full across his back, and scooped up a handful of coarse homemade soap to start his scrubbing.

He had rinsed off the worst of the mud, but the water grew quickly murky. It took several attempts to scrape all of the gunk off of his hands and forearms, and by the time he was finished with his knees and elbows he was running out of energy. Bethel had set the wash-pitcher with the other bathing accoutrements, and he poured a little of its water over his hair. He had washed it on Saturday and ordinarily could have gone until the end of the week without troubling with it again, but there was mud in his hair and he could feel it drying in cracking layers on his scalp. He dug deeply with his fingers and then took two fingerfuls of soap to work through the straggled tresses. When he had raised a good lather he bowed his head low over his lap and poured more water over his skull, eyes screwed tightly shut against the harsh, stinging soap. When he had finished he washed his beard as well, and then rinsed his face thoroughly. There was even mud in his eyebrows, but he worked that out with his fingertips and left the soap alone. Then he picked up a flannel rag from the floor and used it to clean the shells of his ears, as Bethel had instructed.

The water was starting to cool, and the kettle on the stovetop was bubbling merrily. Cullen had just started to seriously consider hauling his tired bones up to fetch it when there was a soft knock at the door and, without waiting for his reply, Mary slipped into the room. She was wearing an old but freshly laundered dress, and her hair hung down her back in a loose plait. He noticed perplexedly that it was damp, and that her skin had a rosy, freshly-scrubbed glow to it. In her left hand she held her carved ivory comb and her small silver embroidery scissors.

"Are you almost clean?" she asked, slipping between the tub and the table. He craned his neck to look at her, startled by the intrusion and still trying to work out why she should need to bathe on a Tuesday afternoon. "I thought I might give you a little trim."

She bent, reaching over his shoulder to feel the water with her fingertips. Then she stood up and reached for the heavy kettle.

Cullen scrambled to his feet, water streaming from his back and legs, and seized the vessel before she could lift it. "You ain't supposed to be straining yourself," he said. Even his own arms, stronger than hers and used to hard work, felt the weight of the laden pot. He hauled it off the stove and bent to pour it into the water lapping at his calves. Then he replaced it on the stove and froze, acutely aware of his nakedness and abashed that she should see him like this. What was perfectly natural in the privacy of their bedroom seemed somehow indecent in the kitchen. Chagrined, he crouched down and slipped under the scanty cover of the water.

"You needn't behave as though I've turned to glass," Mary said. She fetched the stool that stood by the dish dresser and settled it on the floor behind him. Then she fingered through the towels that Bethel had laid out for him and chose the most threadbare of the three. She sat upon the stool and set it on her lap, then put the comb and scissors on top of it. Cullen felt her hand against the nape of his neck, guiding his head down. He rounded his back so that she could pour a measure of water over his head. "I'm quite myself again, and I haven't had any pain for days now."

"How many days?" Cullen asked, huffing a little as water trickled into his mouth. Mary was twisting his hair to wring out most of it.

"Two," she admitted. "But I'm feeling strong and healthy." She settled the towel over his shoulders. "Sit up straight, now, and try to relax."

"You could wait 'til I'm decent," said Cullen, only halfheartedly. The truth was that he wanted to soak a little longer, even if his legs were cramped in the tin tub, and if he knew Mary was waiting on him he wouldn't feel right doing that. Her fingers played through his overgrown hair, picking out the worst of the tangles before she set to work with a comb. "I don't see why it's got to be done tonight, nohow."

"Because you're starting to look like one of those up-country wild men who come into Meridian on donkey-back trying to trade skunk skins for buckshot," said Mary. "I don't expect you to shave like a stockbroker or cut your hair close like an Englishman, but I do draw the line when I begin to suspect small animals of nesting on your head."

She gave his head one last going-over with the comb, and then drew out a small section and started to clip it with the embroidery scissors. "How are the plants?" she asked quietly, with the air of one reluctant to broach a painful subject but too plagued with wondering to refrain.

"Thriving," said Cullen. "Seems like they've grown a good inch a leaf since the last time through: the rain's been good for 'em. And if we missed any aphids they've been drowned right out now. Elijah says if we can get a good stretch of sunshine and another few rains we'll have a good crop."

"I'm glad," said Mary earnestly. "Are you feeling any better about it now?"

"I feel like somebody cut the noose right before the hangman dropped the trap," said Cullen. "Trouble is, there's always another rope kicking around somewhere."

Mary laughed, but it was not a very earnest laugh. "When did you become such a pessimist?" she asked.

Cullen shrugged, and she straightened the towel before it could slip from his shoulders. "Farming don't exactly encourage a man to expect the best," he said.

"Have you ever considered trying another crop?" said Mary.

"How many does one man need?" asked Cullen. "There's tobacco and corn, the yams, the hay, wheat in the winter, and the garden. Not to mention them peaches. And the potatoes."

"I meant a different cash crop. Cotton, for instance." She was near the crown of his head now, working with practiced and gentle fingers. It was a surprisingly sensual thing, to have Mary cut his hair. It always made him feel like twisting around and taking her in his arms and playing his fingers against her own scalp, twisting silken auburn locks around his thumbs and kissing them. He never felt much more than bored with sitting when it was Bethel with the scissors.

"What do I know about cotton?" said Cullen. "Never mind growing it; how'd I even sell it? What price do I ask? How do I know if the buyer's trying to cheat me? It costs money to gin it, too: tobacco I can cure right here. If Nate and Elijah knew it maybe we could, but they've always been tobacco men. Pappy bought up Elijah in South Carolina, specifically because he was an experienced tobacco hand. I got tobacco slaves, and a tobacco barn, and fields that ain't held a cotton seed in twenty years."

"It just seems that cotton wouldn't be such hard work," said Mary.

"Maybe, maybe not," he told her. "It ain't so profitable per acre, so we'd have to plant more. That's more plowing, more seeding, more hoeing. And when cotton's ready, it's ready. You got to pick it quick, before it dries up and blows away, and if you get a bad rain at harvest time you'll lose it. At least with tobacco it can stand a wetting right up until you get it picked. No, cotton's a crop for a big plantation. Too late to try it now."

Her hand rested on his shoulder, scissors held aloft by thumb and forefinger while the other three dug into the knotted muscles at the base of his neck. "But day after day, bowing and stooping to look for suckers…"

"Man gotta stoop in cotton, too," Cullen said. He was beginning to feel rather drowsy, and the hot air wafting from the open oven was lulling him off into a dreamy state. "Whatever he plants, a farmer's gotta stoop."

"Planter," Mary whispered, almost to herself. Then she drew back her hands and stood, taking the stool with her. She set it at the side of the tub and sat again, facing him this time and carefully tucking her skirts so they would not brush the side of the stove. "Lean a little closer so that I can reach," she said.

He complied, closing his eyes while she snipped at his side whiskers and the hair that framed his face. When she started to work the comb through his beard, he was able to look at her again, but not to speak. He watched her instead; her quick, bright eyes and her delicately arched brows, the quiet invitation of her rosy mouth, and the soft velvet flush of her cheeks. She had her gaze fixed upon her work, and did not see him watching until she gave his moustache a last little snip and looked at him. She smiled, a tiny and intimate smile, and then palmed the scissors with the comb and used her newly-emptied hand to straighten his damp curls.

"There," she said. "I'll be the envy of the county with you to squire me about."

She sat back, smoothed her skirts, and then stood gracefully. She moved behind him again, this time to fold up the towel to catch the fallen hairs. "Have you had a going-over with the store soap yet?" she asked. "You can't have your dance with Verbena Ainsley if you smell of lye."

"Dance?" Cullen echoed. Then it came back to him with the crushing force of half-forgotten responsibilities. "Aw, hell, that's tomorrow. _That's_ why Bethel's making such a fuss over a mid-week bath."

"Yes, of course," said Mary, a note of surprise in her voice. "What did you…"

"I forgot," he groaned, drawing his hand over his face. The callouses were softened by the hot water, but a loose tab of skin still scratched across the bridge of his nose. He opened his eyes and studied his palm, clean now but streaked with dark stains. He exhaled wearily through his nostrils. The last thing he wanted to do was put on his good evening clothes and act like an idle dandy for the benefit of neighbors who knew the truth anyhow.

Mary's hand descended on his back, warm and soft against the bare skin. "We don't need to go," she said. "If you're too worn out; if you'd rather not – we can send Nate in the morning to make our apologies."

Cullen shook his head. "I got to go," he said. "You want to stay home that's all right, but I got to go. I gave my word."

"Boyd would understand," said Mary. Her voice was gentle and reasonable, but the temptation in those words was terrible. "He's your friend, and he knows how hard you work. He'd never hold you to—"

"Dammit, Mary, how do you think I'm paying for that wheel?" Cullen burst out, irritated with her for trying to give him a way out and furious with himself for wanting to take it. "I agreed to come to his fool party and liven it up a bit for him!"

Her hand drew back and her shadow retreated a little. He could not bring himself to look at her, and the ache in his back was not entirely to blame for that. "You agreed to go to his party to pay for the wagon wheel," she repeated slowly, like a schoolchild trying to make sense of a difficult lesson.

"Yes," said Cullen, sitting forward and groping for the sponge. He reached for the half-spent bar of factory soap, pale orange and scented with lemon and rosewater, and lathered his hand so that he could rub it under his arms. "I asked him what he might take in trade, and it's all I could offer that he had any use for."

"All you could offer," Mary echoed. "That we should go to his anniversary supper."

"Me," said Cullen. "Not we. I told him I couldn't speak for you, but I'd ask what you wanted to do."

"And if I had said I didn't want to go? Then you would have gone alone?" He could not read her tone, and he did not want to. He soaked the sponge again.

"I s'pose so," he muttered.

"In payment for a wagon wheel…" For a long breath there was silence, but for the crackle of the stove and the soft sounds of the water. "Cullen, isn't that a little… isn't it just a bit like… well…"

She could not finish what she was trying to say, and he was glad. She was still behind him, and he was glad of that, too. He knew his eyes were very hard as he spread the pleasant-smelling soap where the foul-smelling stuff had been, and rinsed away the thin veneer of gentility with a swipe of the sponge. "I gave my word, and I got to go," he said. "If it shames you to come along with a man who'd strike that kind of a bargain you're free to stay here. I won't have you suffering to pay my debts."

"Of course I'll go with you," said Mary. "I want to attend; I've been looking forward to it all month. I just… I wish you were going because _you_ wanted too as well. You deserve an evening of pleasure, not another night of work."

Finally he twisted in the tub, one knee thumping against the rolled tin edge. He looked up at her and mustered a smile. "It'll be a pleasure to see you in your finery, and a pleasure to dance with you," he said, and to his relief he found that the words were heartfelt. "The rest don't matter."

Her worried eyes softened, and she smiled. "You have a very charming tongue, Mr. Bohannon," she said in her primmest imitation of a Southern matron. They both laughed, just a little, and Mary curtsied. "I'll leave you to complete your toilet," she said. "Do hurry, though: Bethel's anxious to get you fed."

_*discidium*_

It had taken the combined efforts of Mary, Bethel and Elijah to keep Cullen from going out to take care of the stock, thus squandering the benefits of his bath, but they managed it both on Tuesday night and the following morning. Mary had even contrived to coax him to lie down for an hour before their early dinner, gathering his energy for a social engagement likely to stretch on well into the night. Now, clean and brushed and perfectly respectable-looking, he was waiting in the parlor while Mary dressed. She had helped him into his evening suit – three years behind the fashion but so carefully cared-for that it might have been brought fresh from the tailor that morning – and admonished him gently not to go crawling around on the floor after Gabe. Cullen had given his solemn word, and after grinning sheepishly at a sharp look from Bethel had made his retreat.

The bedroom was now transformed from its usual state of good order into a bower of chaos and femininity. Petticoats, sun-bleached and freshly starched, sat in a burgeoning heap on the counterpane. Mary's patent spring-steel hoops were hanging from the back of the door. She had laid out her silk stockings and her best lace corset-cover on the dressing table, and her velvet dancing slippers stood daintily on the braided rag rug on her side of the bed. Crimson hair ribbons and the beautiful scrimshaw comb that had been a favourite ornament of her girlhood lay waiting by her brush. Despite the warmth of the day there was a fire in the hearth, and Bethel took the heated flatiron off of it to press the dainty tatted lace of Mary's best chemise.

Occupying pride of place across the foot of the bed was Mary's ballgown, liberated from its box the previous afternoon and now spread out in all its glory. It was made of airy French silk: crisp as tissue-paper and yet substantive as tarlatan. It had been woven of fine threads in two colors: a bright peacock blue in the warp and a glossy midnight black in the weft. The result was a gown that seemed to glitter like a sapphire, shifting tones as it moved. The delicate basque was trimmed with a stomacher of ruched blonde Valenciennes lace, and delicate swaths of a matching silk voile, beautifully embroidered, formed dangling "angel wings" over the dainty puffs of the sleeves. This addition, made after the gown's first wearing at her wedding banquet, rendered it suitably modest for a married lady while still allowing the charm and cool comfort of bare forearms. The new flounced bertha that Mary had made last Christmas out of a china silk shawl updated the gown and made its age far less obvious than the cut of Cullen's coat. The skirt, twelve yards of silk that rustled almost mystically as she moved, was gathered up into scallops with strips of the same pale lace. It was an exquisite gown, and it was bejeweled with the memory of one of the happiest nights of Mary's life – second only to the night her son was born.

Bethel had finished with the chemise, and Mary slipped out of the plain one she had been wearing. She had already put on her best pantalets, with the neat pintucked cuffs edged in dainty white lace. They would not be seen, of course, but she would know that she was wearing them and they would lend her confidence. Then it was time to put on her corset.

Mary had only the one corset now, for her second-best had snapped six whalebones during the transplanting of the tobacco seedlings. It still lay in the bottom of a drawer, crimped awkwardly at the waist and robbed of its well-worn dignity, against the day when there might be a little spare money to have it repaired, but Mary was making do quite nicely with only the one. It was rather shabby-looking now, discolored a little where dress-shields had slipped, with the green flossing snagged in several places and the center eyelets stretched, but it was still a serviceable garment, and no one would know that she was wearing an old corset.

Mary hooked the tabs of the busk with care, and settled the lower edge along the crest of her hips. She adjusted her bosom carefully and nodded to Bethel. With the artful swiftness of a trained lady's attendant – something that had astonished Mary the first time this elderly cook and maid-of-all-work had helped her to dress – Bethel tightened the corset-lace, smoothing Mary's torso and nipping in her waist. Bethel drew on the strings until the garment was snug, and Mary measured her waist with her hands.

"It isn't tight enough," she said. "The gown will gape."

"Jus' let it settle a bit, an' I'll lace you tighter," said Bethel. "Give that body a chance to get used to it: you ain't been laced tight since you took sick, an' I ain't goin' let you faint away firs' thing you gets to that party. Sit down an' I's goin' fix your hair."

Mary obeyed meekly. Bethel had a way of making her will felt whatever the circumstance. Among Southern slaveholders and Northern missionaries alike there seemed to be a prevalent opinion that Negroes could not take care of themselves; that they needed the white man to shelter and guide and protect them. Opinions differed on how this ought to be done, and whether servitude was a necessary part of such ministrations, but there was no dispute on the darkies' need to be looked after. Yet after four years in Mississippi Mary was inclined to think that it was Bethel who looked after the Bohannons, and not the other way around at all.

Bethel had brought up last summer's copy of _Godey's Lady's Book _from the parlor and she had it propped against the dressing table mirror, open to a page of elegant hairstyles. She worked swiftly and deftly, piling Mary's hair in sculpted coils and pinning it in place. As she watched her reflection, a beautiful chignon took shape under the same dark hands that picked the beans and stirred the fire and scrubbed the floors. She realized with some surprise that Bethel had no more been brought up to live this life of hard work and constant struggle than her master had been. The old lady picked up the scrimshaw comb and settled it at the back of Mary's head, burying the smooth tines so that the finialed edge was only just visible over the mass of hair, like a glorious seashell arising by magic from an auburn ocean.

"That sat'sfactory, Missus Mary?" asked Bethel. Her expression in the mirror was mild, almost timid: like a young girl looking for approval from some well-beloved monarch. In that expression, Mary thought she could see who Bethel had once been, long ago.

"It's splendid," she breathed, stroking one dangling curl with a wondering fingertip. "My hairdresser in New York could never have done better."

Bethel smiled knowingly, and the glimmer of youth was gone. She was once again the capable and practical mainstay of the household. "I 'spects we kin tighten them laces now," she said.

Once Mary's corset was tightened to an acceptable girth, it was time to layer on the underpinnings that supported the broad, fashionable skirt. First she put on a slender muslin petticoat with a deep ruffle that just brushed the top of her ankle bone. This was for comfort in case of a wayward breeze, and security in case of some unthinkable mishap that might hoist her hoop beyond the scant decorous inches common during an energetic reel. Then Bethel held her hoopskirt so that Mary could step into it. It was a complicated contraption: tapes and steels that spread out from her body to achieve the fashionable bell-shaped silhouette prized throughout the world but nowhere (so far as Mary could see) so much as in the elegant homes of the Southern aristocracy. She was secretly relieved that the fashion endured, and that her father's gift of an extravagant trousseau had included the best hoop that money could buy, because it would have been scandalous to appear at such a gathering without one. It was simply not possible to achieve the proper shape with petticoats alone, and she would have collapsed under the weight of undergarments required even to make a dispirited attempt.

A plain linen petticoat went over the hoop, and over that went Mary's best: fine muslin with deep flounces to smooth the lines of the cage and a rich border of subtly darned lace at the hem. This was necessary because a glimpse of the top petticoat was virtually unavoidable even if one did not dance, and Mary certainly had no intention of sitting out the evening. She was young, and she was married, and she had a nimble and attentive husband: she might dance to her heart's content.

The corset cover was next: a pretty little confection of lace and tucks and fine green ribbons that matched the flossing on her stays. Then Mary sat down so that Bethel could put on her charming slippers with the high spool heels. Finally it was time for the gown.

Bethel lifted the basque and supported the weight of the skirts, while Mary lifted the hem carefully over her beautifully-dressed hair. Briefly she stood ensconced in a narrow silken tent, and then Bethel was settling the frock into place and Mary's arms found the sleeves. The gown fell around her waist, and Bethel straightened the skirts expertly, then took the thin satin ribbon and the smooth steel bodkin and laced up the back. The bodice stretched smoothly over Mary's corset, its perfectly-fitted seams settling over her breasts. With the exception of the inch that she had let out of each of the side-back seams to accommodate the changes to her waist after giving birth to Gabe, the gown fit precisely as it had on the day she had brought it home from the fashionable Manhattan dressmaker who had also made her wedding dress. Bethel smoothed the folds of the bertha and fluffed out the rosettes of lace set with ribbon-roses in a blue that almost matched the silk. Mary went to the dressing table and opened her little rosewood jewel-box.

She had an onyx cameo that had belonged to her grandmother, but it was too sedate for an anniversary celebration. Her bar pin was the wrong shape entirely. A month ago she might have made a little nosegay of peach blossoms and magnolia for her bosom, but they were all gone now. So she picked up a little velvet bag from the corner of the bag and drew out her garnet brooch. It was set in gold, the small blood-red jewels coiled into the shape of a rose in full flower. It had been a gift from her mother on the occasion of her debut, and she had treasured it through the years. She pinned it carefully at the center of her bertha, slipping it from side to side until it was perfectly placed. She had a pair of fringed gold earbobs made to match at Cullen's request: a first-anniversary gift. Two silver bangles slipped onto her left arm: one just above the elbow and one just below. She hesitated for a moment before reaching into the very bottom of the box. Gently, with the reverence of one who handles a treasure she does not own but has only borrowed from a daughter not yet born, she drew out a dainty necklace.

Its foundation was a slender serpentine chain of gold, draped with swags of still finer chain. Between each one hung a teardrop-shaped cartouch in which sat a smoky emerald surrounded by brilliant little diamonds. The central pendant was larger, with a second setting hanging below it: each set with stones to match the others, but larger. Even away from the window the jewels glittered with the splendor of an earlier age. Mary looked at it, struck as always by its beauty but also a little wary of it. A question in her eyes, she looked at Bethel.

The dark old eyes seemed very bright. "Missus Mary, is you goin' wear that?" she asked.

"Is it too extravagant for a quiet little party?" Mary asked, a little embarrassed.

"No'm," said Bethel, shaking her head. "No'm; it jus' right. Only… if you goin' wear it, might I… might I put in on fo' you? The clasp, it sticky, an' I don' want you to poke under you' nail an' bleed."

"Yes, of course," Mary said, smiling warmly as she handed over the necklace. Bethel unfastened the clasp with remarkable smoothness, if it was indeed as sticky as she said, and came behind her young mistress to settle it around Mary's neck. The jewels spread and the chain slithered smoothly into place, and Mary felt Bethel's warm fingers at the nape of her neck. Then the dark hands smoothed the necklace and spread to make a pretext of straightening the bertha, but Bethel's gaze was fixed on Mary's reflection, and at the dark jewels against her fair skin. She seemed lost in memory.

"It jus' right," she said at last. "Missus Mary, you's the prettiest Yankee I ever see'd."

A reticule, dancing gloves, and her sandalwood fan completed the ensemble, and Mary was ready to depart. Bethel held the bedroom door for her, and she swept through it. Her first few steps were a little unsteady, as she accustomed herself to shoes she had not worn since the new year, but by the time she reached the top of the stairs she was moving with the accomplished grace that her girlhood dance instructor had spent such a long time teaching her. The stairs were rather too narrow for the hoop, but she drew it in demurely with one hand and reached the bottom with her dignity intact. With the uncanny instinct he seemed to possess for a lady's private desires, Cullen never waited for her in the hall to witness her imperfect descent. Mary was able to smooth her skirts and compose herself before stepping up to the parlor door and into view of her husband.

He had been sitting in his chair as promised, talking to Gabe as he played on the floor but not climbing down to join him, and he got to his feet as she came into view. His gallant smile showed none of the weary resignation of the night before, and he bowed his neat, Southern bow. "Why, Mrs. Bohannon," he said, love and delight in his voice; "you're a vision of loveliness."

Mary came into the room and he stepped around the pedestal table to offer her his hand. He drew her into a twirl that sent her hoop billowing, and caught her about the waist as if in a two-step. He kissed her behind her left earlobe, and one gloved finger reached to touch the largest emerald at her throat.

"Mama's necklace," he murmured. "I don't remember her wearin' it, but I reckon she didn't look half as lovely as you."

Mary flushed deeply, unsure of how to respond to this most poignant of compliments. But Cullen grinned and twirled her again, looking her over from head to toe with an appraising eye.

"Now then, son, don't your mama look pretty?" he asked gleefully.

Gabe, picking himself up off the floor with a wooden horse in each hand, nodded enthusiastically. "You look pretty, Mama," he parroted. Then his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Where you goin' dress't like dat?"

"We're going to see Mr. and Mrs. Ainsley," said Mary. "It's their anniversary party." Gabe's face began to crumple with the realization that he was to be left behind.

"But before we go," said Cullen; "I think maybe you oughta get the first dance with Mama, don't you? Come on over: I'll show you how to waltz."

Gabe was far too small to waltz, of course, and with Mary's voluminous skirts between them they could hardly reach one another's hands, but Cullen made a solemn ceremony of setting Gabe's fingers upon those of his mother, and instructing the boy that no matter what occurred a gentleman _never_ stepped on a lady's skirts. Then while he hummed a few bars of a lively minstrel tune – far too fast for even the most energetic of waltzes – that had been doing the rounds of the county for months, Mary and Gabe began swaying to and fro in the small open area before the hearth. Bowed to be low enough to reach her child, with her skirts thrust out behind her and her earbobs swinging madly Mary supposed she made a rather foolish picture, but she did not care. All that mattered was that she was having fun; that her child was beaming up at her with newfound grown-up importance to his bouncing gait; and that Cullen felt cheerful enough to sing. It was almost a shame when he came to the end of the verse and let off with a rumbling false baritone; "…south… in… _Dix_…ie!". But Gabe released her hand with a joyful laugh and wished them fun at their party. And Cullen offered her his arm and led her out onto the veranda and down to where Nate had the buggy waiting. Mary settled on the cushioned leather seat, and Cullen climbed up in front, and they were off to the first real social gathering they had been to in months. She felt young again.


	17. Southern Courtesy

**Chapter Seventeen: Southern Courtesy**

Bonnie was tugging impatiently on the traces, but Cullen held her fast and kept her at a sedate walk. The road was muddy and pocked with puddles that had still not dried up entirely despite the sunny morning, and although Mary's skirts were sheltered by the lap-robe it did not do to take a chance of splattering her fine clothes just to save a few minutes in the drive. He had to be careful of his own garments, too, for he did not have the protection of the buggy-box or the stout canvas blanket. There had never really been any question of having Nate drive them, though in prior years this had been their habit. Cullen's departure was enough of a burden on the plantation without taking another pair of working hands away for the day. He regretted it, for Nate likely would have enjoyed hanging about West Willows and visiting with the Ainsley slaves, but it couldn't be helped. He just hoped that the black man wasn't too bitter, and would do as Elijah told him and get on with his work in the master's absence. The tacit rebellion of ten days past still weighed on Cullen's mind, not much mitigated by the fact that Nate had given in at last, either to his own conscience or to Meg's admonitions. The very last thing he needed was a one-man slave uprising on his hands.

"How you fixed back there?" he asked, deliberately cheerful as he glanced over his shoulder. Mary made a beautiful sight, sitting with her hands folded neatly over the spreading lap-robe and the bodice of her best gown rising smooth and slender above it. So as not to disturb her elaborately dressed hair she had left her bonnet behind, but the buggy roof shaded her face quite well. From its shadow she smiled.

"Perfectly content," she said. "Everything is so green and beautiful after the rain."

Cullen nodded, turning his eyes back on the road and smiling a little to himself. She kept reminding him, ever so gently, that the turn in the weather over which he had been agonizing for weeks had finally come. He knew what she was trying to do, but he wasn't sure there was much chance of it working.

They came to the break in the trees where the cotton fields were within sight of the road. They were empty today: the festivities meant extra work for the house servants, but a holiday for the field hands. They would be enjoying their own big supper tonight, in honor of their master's wedding anniversary, but it was the day free of labor that was the real treat. That was something Cullen had never really understood in his youth, but now he would have given an awful lot to have just one day to do as he pleased, without the burden of promises and responsibilities and worries that constantly dragged upon him.

They were coming up on the lane, and he slowed the horses still further to make a gentle turn. Behind him Mary swayed a little, gracefully, and the buggy jounced lightly as it settled onto the smooth, raked surface of the plantation drive. Cullen adjusted his hat and sat up a little straighter on the board. He fixed a pleasant, aloof expression on his face and let the Morgans have a little more rein as he clicked his tongue.

"Pick 'em up!" he urged. Bonnie immediately stopped her straining and fell into a smooth, prideful prancing with Pike. She loved to spend her energy in a good canter, but she was every bit as fond of showing off, and as they broke from the cover of the willows and she realized she was performing for a crowd she tossed her dark mane and nickered eagerly.

The lawn before the West Willows house was crowded with carriages and buggies and fine riding horses, while Negro drivers held reins and settled nosebags and waited for directions from their hosts. Pip, the Ainsley carriage boy, was striding around with an air of tremendous importance; his coat was neatly buttoned today, and he had a well-brushed bowler on his head. He was giving instructions with the same confidence as the two older grooms, and what was more remarkable was that the visiting slaves were all deferring to him without question. Cullen, who was reasonably certain he had interrupted the boy's illicit nap when he had come in with the wagon wheel the previous fortnight, was not quite so impressed. Still he was not a spiteful person and had no wish to cut down Pip when he was enjoying a taste of adult responsibility, and he did not shout for him as he drew up the buggy to a neat halt. Instead he looped off the reins and sat patiently, waiting to be noticed.

He did not have to wait long, of course, for a carriage without a black driver was out of place in this throng, and a guest without his own slaves on hand had precedence when it came to attention from the host's servants. Pip appeared swiftly at Pike's side, bowing to Cullen and tipping his hat to Mary. Cullen handed him the lines and hopped down from the box, straightening his waistcoat as he landed. From his watch pocket he pulled out a dime, brought along for precisely this purpose, and flipped it to the boy.

"Find 'em a good spot," he said with a conspiratorial wink, and then turned to open the buggy door. Mary was looking at him with a worried inquisitive gleam in her eyes. He thought perhaps she was wondering about the money, which of course they could not really spare. But tipping the carriage boy was one of those few customs Cullen felt strongly about keeping, particularly when he didn't have his own man on hand to look out for his horses and had to rely on Pip to take good care of them. He smiled for Mary as he carefully folded back the lap-robe so as not to allow its dust to fall on her skirts. He offered his gloved hand to her, and she rose with a grace that no costal aristocrat could match. With her other hand she gathered her skirts and planted one slippered foot on the buggy's cast-iron step, and hopped neatly down to the ground. He was ready to catch her hoop if it snagged, but it did not, and in a moment she was beside him, her fingers resting daintily on his arm and her fan open to raise a gentle breeze for her face.

Or rather, apparently, to conceal a whisper, for she used it to shield her mouth and murmured; "So many people! I thought it would be a small gathering."

"For Boyd Ainsley's tenth wedding anniversary?" Cullen said incredulously, managing to keep from chuckling in surprise at her naivety. "Not a chance. Every society family in the county will be here, and likely some from as far away as Jackson and Selma." He reached across to pat her hand. "Don't worry 'bout it: you'll still be the prettiest lady on the place."

Mary closed her fan and smiled radiantly. "I'm not worried," she said. "Only a trifle surprised."

"Four years," he whispered as they drew near the veranda steps; "and we can still surprise you."

Boyd and Verbena were standing together to receive their guests. Boyd was wearing a dinner suit of a sedate grey that managed not to wash out his pale complexion. It was cut wider in the waistcoat and the jacket than Cullen's, showing off the fine ruffles of his shirtfront. Verbena's gown of rose-coloured silk was pretty enough, but Cullen didn't think it a match for Mary's blue. Then again he didn't know much about ladies' clothes, and was quite likely prejudiced anyhow.

"Afternoon, Miss Mary. Cullen," said Boyd, bowing to his friend and offering his hand to the lady. Mary took it, curtsying as he bowed, while Cullen did the same with the hostess.

"Afternoon, Miss Verbena," he said. "You look a picture."

She smiled politely and said; "Why thank you, Mr. Bohannon. I trust your drive was a pleasant one?"

"Very pleasant," said Mary neatly. Several pairs of eyes turned at the New York twang on her voice, and only those who knew the Bohannons looked away. "But of course it is such a very short drive."

"That's so," said Verbena. "We really ought to see more of each other, being such close neighbors. I'm so pleased you were able to join us this evening."

They were the ritual pleasantries of polite society, but at least with Verbena they seemed to run a little deeper than that. Cullen suspected she hadn't much approved of him even in the old days. When she and Boyd were first married he had still been an idle bachelor, running a bit wild and dragging his friend along on the occasional (usually drunken) expedition. What she thought of him now he couldn't guess, but whatever it was she didn't seem to hold it against Mary. She had always been kind and welcoming, and even if it was just the same trained placidity that made her such a model of Southern wifedom he was grateful. Mary was complimenting the azaleas now, and Verbena was offering the modest opinion that their present beauty was largely owed to the recent rainfall.

Boyd had been snagged by one of the Graham boys, and the younger man was talking loudly and enthusiastically about some matter of business while his host listened politely. The Graham in question didn't share most of his friends' interest in dancing attendance on the county's flock of unmarried belles, who were milling about the lawn and the porch and the entryway with their beaux on their arms. Cullen, for his part, had very little interest in cattle speculation, and let his eyes wander elsewhere.

At an evening gathering few guests had brought along children any younger than thirteen or fourteen – when girls, at least, were considered old enough for a night of dancing – but as it was only about a quarter to four in the afternoon the Ainsley children were abroad. Six-year-old Charlie was standing with his hands behind his back, solemnly talking to elderly Mr. Huxton, and through the broad, open doors Cullen could see Leon and Daisy up on the first landing, peering through the banister posts to see the guests arriving while a pristinely-starched Negro nursemaid stood watch over them. The baby would be in the nursery with her mammy, scarcely aware of the bustle below.

Charity, nearly nine, stood near her father in a flounced party dress, her pale hair done up in ringlets and held in place by pink velvet ribbons. She was trying to maintain a young lady's dignity while obviously bursting with excitement. Cullen took off his hat and approached her, bowing courteously.

"Afternoon, Miss Charity," he said.

She bobbed a tidy curtsy. "Afternoon," she said with practiced politeness. Then she looked up at his face and her eyes widened. "It's you!" she yipped, forgetting her manners in her astonishment.

"Yes, it's me," said Cullen, considerably amused. He had been a regular visitor in her home all her life, up until the demands of the last ten months had left him little time for calling. Had she been born a boy, he would have stood up at her christening as he had done for her brother. Yet she was looking at him as she had done on the day he came about the wheel: as if he were some strange exotic animal that at once frightened and fascinated her. "There something you been wanting to ask me, Miss?"

"Miss Greta Trussell says you been picking your own tobacco!" Charity exclaimed. Then she flushed, conscious that she had not quite managed to meet the standards of ladylike discretion.

"No," said Cullen, shaking his head and grinning.

"No?" said Charity.

"No; it's too early in the year. Tobacco don't get picked until October," said Cullen. "But I have been out there working it. This time of year we got to pull the suckers: little leaves growing off the big ones and sapping their strength. You ever had a good look at a tobacco plant?"

"No," she said, looking uncertain.

Cullen sidestepped to allow a pair of middle-aged matrons clear passage into the house, bowing and offering a polite greeting as they passed him. Neither acknowledged it, but as soon as they were through the door their heads fell together in a conspiratorial and notably scandalized way. The first of many, he guessed, but there was no point in trying to hide the truth – not from them, and certainly not from the child.

"Well, you have your pappy bring you over to call some day and I'll show you one," he said, turning back to her.

Charity smoothed the flounces of her frock and tilted her head thoughtfully. "I don't know…" she said. "You goin' pick cotton, too?"

"Naw, I don't grow no cotton," said Cullen. Charity seemed almost as shocked by this as by the fact he worked his own land. To a child whose entire world was built on cotton it was surely inconceivable that anyone could exist apart from it.

"Ain't you a gentleman no more, Mr. Bohannon?" she asked thoughtfully, head now canted so far to one side that her left bunch of curls was pooling on her broad lace collar.

Cullen gave every appearance of considering the question carefully. "Well now, Miss Charity," he said; "I still mind the Commandments, and use a napkin at the supper table. I got the same manners I always had; I can read and write and cipher with the best of 'em; I know how to dance and ride and shoot and hold my spirits; I's a good husband to my wife and I keep my darkies housed and fed. I own a thousand acres just past them woods, and I ain't afraid to do work that needs doing to keep it. You tell me whether that makes me a gentleman or not."

She frowned, deeply pensive and not a little puzzled. "But a gentleman don't work in the fields," she protested uncertainly. "Only poor white trash and niggers do that."

"Charity!" Verbena gasped, swooping in amid a flurry of hoops to seize her daughter's shoulder. "You mustn't say such things, and to your father's good friend, too! Apologize to Mr. Bohannon at once."

"No need of that, ma'am," said Cullen, glancing at the woman and then turning gentle eyes on the girl, who looked at once mortified and bewildered. He had been talking to her like she had some sense, and here was her mother suddenly scolding her like a baby. "Miss Charity, what I'm trying to get at is that it don't much matter what work a gentleman does, so long as he's a good honest man and takes care of his people. You think about it; you'll see what I mean."

Verbena was looking at him as if he had suddenly put a hollowed-out watermelon rind on his head, but Charity nodded. "Yassir," she said. "I'll think 'bout it."

"Now run along and stay out of trouble," her mother admonished in a low but very stern voice. "And say 'darkie' or 'Negro', dear: only unrefined people say 'nigger'."

A look of protest came to Charity's eyes, and Cullen thought he knew what she was going to say, but he'd already let the girl make enough trouble for herself. "Why don't you go and see how your grandpappy's doing, Miss Charity? He might need a pretty young lady to keep him company."

She shot him a tiny grateful glance and took the escape, retreating into the house and away from her mother's disapproving eyes. Verbena watched her go and sighed. "You must forgive her, Mr. Bohannon," she said. "I try and I try to teach that child good manners, but they just don't seem to take. We shall have to get her a stricter governess this winter, I fear. Boyd indulges her so."

"She's still young," said Cullen affably. "And I bet she ain't the only girl 'round here would like to ask me a question or two about my labor situation; she's just the only one brave enough to do it."

"I'm afraid you might find that's not true," Verbena said. "I have been trying to get people to talk about something else – anything else – but aside from politics I fear you're the only matter of interest." She smoothed her skirt with hands that clearly wanted to fidget instead. "If I might suggest it, Mr. Bohannon, perhaps you could be… well, a little less frank about your misfortunes?"

This was something he had not expected, and Cullen found himself smiling wryly. Verbena was ashamed to have him under her roof, particularly in the presence of all the county. She didn't want to receive him: she was only doing it out of deference to her husband. She didn't want him here, and he didn't much want to be here, either: they were both just tolerating this arrangement because Boyd, for all his quiet ways, had a knack for getting what he wanted. Cullen arched his eyebrows and said in his most deferential manner; "Now, ma'am, I ain't one to shy from the truth. I'd sooner folks hear it from me than third-hand on the gossip telegraph. I don't see that I got anything to be ashamed of: it ain't a crime to own less than ninety slaves, after all. You'll excuse me, Miss Verbena: I think I might just go and rescue my wife."

He bowed and stepped around her, slipping between elbows and hoopskirts to the far side of the broad veranda. Verbena's rapid retreat to scold her daughter had left Mary at the mercy of Greta Trussell and Mrs. Graham, who were engaged in an in-depth genealogical study in which a non-native could not hope to participate. Mary was nodding politely and making the appropriate interested responses, but there was a desperate light in her eyes that flared into relief when Cullen slipped up beside her.

"There you are, my dear," he said, taking her hand and placing it on his arm as though she was not yearning to do just that. "I'm sorry to spirit you away from your friends, but I did want to introduce you to Boyd's cousin Ernest and his wife."

"Oh," said Mary. "Well yes, if you insist. Do excuse me, Mrs. Graham. Excuse me, Greta. I hope we shall find time to continue this discussion later."

The women made the requisite replies, but Cullen was already steering Mary through the crowd and towards the front doors. "Thank you," she whispered as they stepped from the painted porch floor onto the polished parquet. "Where is Boyd's cousin Ernest?"

"I ain't got the slightest idea," said Cullen, handing off his hat to the housemaid waiting for that purpose just over the threshold. "He's bound to be around here somewhere: he only lives over by Why Not, and he was the other wrangler at the wedding."

"Wrangler?" said Mary.

"You know," said Cullen. "The men who wrangle the bridegroom into his best suit and see he gets to the wedding mostly sober, then stand up next to him so he don't bolt. In Boyd's case, me and Cousin Ernest. Though I might not have been much help with the 'mostly sober' business."

"Oh, dear," said Mary, but she was smiling. "I'll be delighted to meet him, I'm sure."

"I don't much care if you do," said Cullen. "It just looked like you needed someone to get you away from them peahens. I know women like to talk 'bout that sort of stuff, but it can't be much fun if you don't know who they're talking about." He did not venture the opinion that the women had chosen that topic specifically so that his wife might be excluded, in the thin hope that it had not occurred to Mary.

"Who _were_ they talking about?" she sked in a voice so incidentally conversational that Cullen laughed.

"There he is!" a loud voice called from the direction of the dining room door. Cullen turned to see Garland Wheeler beckoning to him. He was standing with the youngest of the Ives boys and a tall man whom Cullen did not know. "Bohannon! Come over here and settle this for us."

He glanced at Mary, but she was smiling her consent, and they drew near to the small group. The three men exchanged swift, awkward sidelong looks: they had not expected Mary to follow. "What can I do for you?" asked Cullen.

"Afternoon, Miz Bohannon," Wheeler said. "Beg pardon; I don't like to bore you."

"It's quite all right," said Mary sweetly, tightening her hold on her husband's arm almost imperceptibly. Cullen settled his free hand over hers, regretting the layers of silk and kid leather that separated their skin. "Unless of course you gentlemen were hoping to discuss me?"

"No, ma'am," said Wheeler, shifting uncomfortably. "We sure didn't intend to do that."

"What exactly was it you were wanting?" asked Cullen, somewhat irritated by this sudden reluctance and especially by the way that the men were refusing to meet Mary's eyes.

Ives exhaled through his nose. "I know my ma wanted to see you, Mrs. Bohannon," he said. "She's in the front parlor with the other ladies if you'd care to…"

Cullen's sharp remark was cut off by Mary's smile. "How lovely," she said graciously. "Will you excuse me, dearest? I haven't had a chance to visit with Mrs. Ives in such a long while."

She was simply making a graceful exit: Mrs. Ives was twice her age and an abominable bore. But Cullen could scarcely say this in public, much less in front of the woman's son, and so he smiled and nodded. "I'll come find you in a bit," he promised.

"Enjoy yourself," Mary instructed. She curtseyed graciously. "Do please excuse me, gentlemen." Then she sailed off, a sapphire butterfly in her shimmering silks, and vanished into the sedate shadows of the front parlor.

"What do you want?" Cullen said again, not quite able to disguise his displeasure.

Wheeler looked at the third man, who had his hands in his pockets now. Ives was looking anywhere but at his friend. Realizing that no one else was going to take the initiative, Garland said; "It's just politics. We had us a bit of a disagreement on the merits of Bell for president."

Cullen frowned, and Ives squirmed. "And my wife couldn't hear you say that? I don't take kindly to folks making Mary feel unwelcome, Garland: you ought to know that."

"Don't be like that," said Wheeler, scratching the back of his neck. "Women ain't interested in the next president: it don't hardly affect them at all."

"You could still be polite," said Cullen. "She would be, interested or not. What's this about Bell? I never took you for voting Whig."

"I ain't," said Wheeler. "It's John who's got the fool notion he might be the one to steady the ship of state."

Ives flushed a little. "He ain't a Whig no more. And I don't pretend he got all the answers, but if he can keep the Yankees off our backs without breaking up the country…" He gestured vaguely. Clearly the spark had gone out of the conversation.

"To be honest, boys, I ain't given it much thought one way or the other," said Cullen. "I'm flattered you'd want my opinion, but the most I can say is that the Vice President's got a hard race to run. Why else you think Buchanan ain't trying for a second term? It'd be nothing but an invitation to a humiliating defeat." He looked at the three men thoughtfully. "Now you goin' tell me why my wife couldn't hear that?"

Now Ives was almost crimson. "Well… she's a Republican, ain't she? From New York?"

This assumption was almost unworthy of comment, but Cullen limited himself to a low, contemptuous chuckle. "Mary might be from New York, but she ain't a Republican," he said. "She's a lady, remember? They ain't interested in politics: it don't hardly affect them at all."

The third man laughed, and Wheeler grinned sheepishly to hear his own words thrown back at him. Ives seemed to breathe a little easier as Garland clapped Cullen on the arm.

"Fair enough," he said. "But she really ought to be spending time with the other ladies, not trailing around bored just so she can adorn your arm like that." He turned to the stranger and added; "Bohannon married up the most beautiful Yankee he could find and brung her back here to make the rest of us jealous."

"I don't believe we've been introduced," said Cullen, nodding to the man. "Cullen Bohannon. I own the plantation just west of here."

"Jim Secrest; pleasure to meet you," said the stranger. "Down visiting from Kemper County. Got me a little law practice out of Scooba."

"Lawyer," said Cullen thoughtfully. "How do you know Boyd Ainsley?"

"Oh, he ain't a client, if that's what you're asking," said Secrest. "Truth is I don't know him at all, apart from the very cordial words we exchanged out front."

"Jim's my guest," said Ives. "Spent a year at the college together, 'til I got expelled over that business with the pistols."

"Well I guess that makes you the successful one, then, seeing as you finished," Cullen said. He offered his hand to Secrest, who shook it amiably.

"Cullen's the one everybody's been whispering about," said Garland with a remarkable lack of tact. "He had a bit of a sparring match with the wrong neighbor, and now word's gone 'round that he's working his own tobacco."

"I thought you said you owned a plantation," said Secrest, looking in puzzlement at Cullen's well-kept suit of clothes and silver watch chain.

"I do," said Cullen. "A thousand acres of prime planting land. But I only got five Negroes to work the place, and sometimes a man's got to get his hands dirty."

"Five Negroes on a thousand acres?" Secrest mused. "You'll forgive me, not being what you'd call landed gentry myself, but that don't seem adequate."

"It ain't," said Cullen cheerfully. "We manage all right, though."

"There used to be fifty," Wheeler explained unnecessarily. "But there was some unfortunate business about ten years ago. Bad debts, wasn't it, Cullen?"

"That was my father's time," said Cullen. "I'm just the one who didn't have the foresight to sell up what was left of the family investments before the panic in '57."

Secrest grimaced in sympathy. "Bad business," he said. "My senior partner lost just about all he had; wound up selling out to me at a rock-bottom price and taking his wife out West."

"Not Kansas, I hope," said Ives, only half joking.

"Naw: California. Fastest growing state in the Union, so they say." Secrest studied Cullen's face thoughtfully. "So is that why you don't aim to give Breckenridge your vote?" he asked. "On account of the panic?"

Cullen smiled, a little slyly. "Now, I never said I wasn't giving him my vote," he corrected. "I said he got a hard race to run. I told you: I ain't given the election much thought, and I ain't made up my mind yet."

"Cullen don't make up his mind 'til he gives a matter serious thought," said Wheeler soberly; "unless you get 'im mad enough."

Ives laughed, but Secrest only smiled politely. He had a sidelong, tolerant look on his face that seemed to be concealing some irritation with his school friend's choice of companion. Cullen decided that he liked him.

"So you married a Northern lady, and you're not ashamed to admit to doing an honest day's work, Mr. Bohannon," Secrest said. "Seems you're something of an anomaly."

"I don't know 'bout that," said Cullen. "Just doing what got to be done."

At this Wheeler chortled uproariously: so loudly, in fact, that the darkie approaching with a tray of iced drinks balked a little. "What got to be done," he parroted. "You saw his wife, Secrest: wouldn't you say a Yankee like that _got_ _to_ _be_ married up straight off, before somebody else took the opportunity?"

That was the second time Wheeler had intimated that he was coveting Mary, and Cullen would have liked to have set him straight on no uncertain terms, but he was here under the auspices of his closest friend and he didn't want to shame Boyd more than necessary. He grinned and said with measured politeness; "Well, we can't all find a lady like Gloria so quick, can we?"

Garland colored. He and Gloria had been rushed into wedlock in under a month: a near-scandal in a county where engagements routinely lasted six months or more. That the anticipated seven-month baby had not appeared after all had done little to mute county speculation about the cause of such haste. From keeping his ear to the ground instead of the gossips Cullen knew the marriage had been hurried on because of business concerns between Gloria's father and Wheeler's, but that was hardly less embarrassing. Generally the planters liked to pretend that money didn't concern them at all – when in fact, whether they admitted it or not, their lives were just as driven by their wealth as those of the New England industrialists they scorned. The one mercy in lacking money even for necessities was that Cullen couldn't really be ruled by it.

"Tell me more about the lawyering business," he said, shifting the conversation onto terrain familiar to the stranger as he wished the local ladies were well-bred enough to do for Mary. "I always had an admiration for my classmates who could study up on that sort of thing: took a patience I ain't got, I'm afraid."

"Did you go to the College, then?" asked Secrest.

"No, we ain't Baptist. Pappy got it in his head to send me out to Alabama instead," said Cullen. "He did want to ship me off to Charleston, where my mother's folks was from, but I won that fight. What sort of law do you see in Scooba? Can't be much business work."

"Not much," said Secrest. "I do chiefly land sales and probate. And I…" He cleared his throat. "I do a bit of defense work when the occasions arise. Criminal defense, you understand."

"Took up for that trapper in Kemper County that was harboring runaways," Ives said with a shamefaced shrug. "I told you, Jim: don't matter what they pay you, some cases a gentleman just didn't ought to take."

"Man's got a right to a lawyer if he's called up in court," said Cullen. "Means somebody's got to do it."

"Not like he got off anyhow," said Ives, grinning and clapping his friend on the shoulder. He looked around at the ebb and flow of people in the entryway. "I got a powerful thirst that lemonade don't answer. Think Ainsley would mind if we raided his liquor cupboard?"

"They've got the good stuff laid out in the library," said Wheeler, nodding in the appropriate direction. "So as not to distress the ladies, you understand."

"You coming, Jim?" asked the younger man. "You ain't gone Temperance, have you?"

"No, but I got to pace myself," said Secrest. "You go on; I'll be fine right here."

Cullen very much wanted a good strong drink, but he had had enough of the company now headed towards it. "Sounds good," he said. "You can finish telling me all about that practice of yours."

_*discidium*_

Mary was sitting on a chaise longue in the sumptuous front parlor, listening courteously but without much interest to the matronly gossip around her. It was expected for Southern ladies, upon donning the stately mantle of marriage, to retire into flocks and regale one another with endless anecdotes about birthing, child-rearing, pedigree and death. With these, of course, came the requisite discussions on fashion, but the Southern approach to this subject was different from that of Mary's old circle in New York. Where Northern ladies seemed eager to discuss adventurous new innovations and their merits, the Southern wives were more interested in rigid enforcement of the codes of dress accompanying maidenhood, motherhood, and mourning – and the various violations they witnessed in their daily lives. Looking about her Mary could at least be assured that her own gown was quite in keeping with local notions of propriety: darker in color, modest in cut, with her bare arms softened by the artful drapings. It was a comfort to know that she would not be the favorite topic at the next county do, at least not because of her clothing.

She had the feeling that they all very much wanted to discuss the matter of the Bohannon fortunes, but they could hardly indulge that wish while she was in the room. Mary had a sharp pair of eyes, and she had not missed the glances she and Cullen had received on the veranda, nor the stir about her husband as he had held a very frank discussion with little Charity Ainsley. The present conversation had wandered away from managing one's sons at that awkward age between boyhood and courtship into one that touched quite near the issue of the scion of a fine old local family actually doing his own farm labor and yet was far more uncomfortable to Mary than that ever could have been: the managing of one's slaves.

"There's no use for it," said silver-haired Mrs. Ives, shaking her head regretfully. "No use for it at all. I tried it, my dear: for _years _I tried it. But you just can't use reason on a field hand, Sarah. They haven't the capacity for reason."

Sarah White, who was only just nineteen and newly married, flapped her fan distractedly. "But I thought if I was gracious and simply explained why it wasn't acceptable—"

"That's no good," said Mrs. Trussell. "You're only wasting your time. They haven't got much more sense than horses. It ain't as if you were dealing with a _house_ darkie, dear. They're a far more intelligent sort; far more… convivial. Why just the other day I said to our Joan – it was Joan, wasn't it, Greta dear?"

Greta Trussell, though unmarried, had recently been relegated to the matrons' circle, confirming her status as an old maid. Mary thought it was a shame. In New England Greta would not have been considered beyond a marriageable age, particularly for an older bachelor or a widower, but in Lauderdale County it seemed she was written off at twenty-six. She shook her head. "Polly, Mama. It was Polly."

"Oh, yes, Polly. I said to our Polly, 'If you treat others with courtesy, you will be courteously used yourself', and do you know, I think she understood just what I meant! Anyhow she said she did and she turned a pretty curtsey. In another year or two we'll have her trained to serve tea in the morning room." Mrs. Trussell smiled in a most satisfied manner. "And to think her father wasn't anything but a mule-driver. You just never can tell which ones might show promise. But field hands, really. Sarah, you must not even try to gentle them. Leave that to your overseer: that's what he's paid for after all."

"I don't like him," said Sarah, violating one of the sacred precepts of Southern courtesy and speaking her mind. Mary did a wary sweep of the room, looking to see who had missed this slip and who was now disapproving of the poor child. "I wish that George would dismiss him and find another who wasn't so brutal."

"From the sound of things you need a brutal one, child," said Mrs. Ives. "Some Negroes just have to have a firm hand."

Mary looked down at her gloves, brilliantly white against her skirt, and wished she had not come in here at all. She had wanted to spare Cullen the embarrassment of having his wife hanging on his arm when his peers had all tucked theirs neatly out of sight, but she might have gone out into the rose garden, or back onto the porch where Boyd and Verbena were still receiving late-arriving guests. It even would have been preferable to wander among the young people, where she certainly did not belong, than to sit here and listen to this. Her conscience, soothed in her own home where Cullen worked side-by-side with Nate and Elijah and Lottie played so peacefully with Gabe and dear old Bethel took care of them all, was gouging her now as she listened to her neighbors. She was sheltered by her reduced circumstances from the uglier truths of slavery, but at times like this she could not ignore them.

"I understand that," said Sarah. "But Mr. Porter does seem to take it too far. One of the boys was caught filling his pockets with string beans while he was meant to be picking them, and he whipped him for it. _Whipped _him with a carriage-whip. Just for taking a few beans."

"Oh, you can't let those things slide by, dear," said Mrs. Fielder, who at forty had the ramrod spine and stern demeanor of a cavalry sergeant. "Stealing food is a serious business; you let them think you're soft on it now, in five years you'll be bankrupt. Trust me, child: I was young when I took charge of Mr. Fielder's plantation, and it took more than one beating before some of those black bucks would obey me."

"But we never had to whip our darkies at home," Sarah protested unhappily.

"That's because your mother, God bless her, knows her way around a Negro," Mrs. Fielder declared. "She may be the gentlest lady in the county, but I never saw such a one for getting what she wanted out of a slave. Just a smile and a quiet word, and they jump to her bidding. That's a particular talent, Sarah, and if you haven't got it you'll just have to manage like the rest of us."

"It is hard to find a good overseer, though," said Helen Scarborough. She was about Mary's age, and spoke up in a voice a little louder than necessary and too deliberately regretful. She was trying to take up for Sarah without actually assuming any personal risk. "You know we lost ours to the railroad last month: Davey's been trying to replace him, but it seems everyone he tries is either inept or dishonest."

"What about you, Mary dear? What do you do about your overseer?" asked Mrs. Trussell. "I don't imagine Mr. Bohannon would have just anyone riding his acres."

Mary looked up, startled at being so directly addressed after sitting all-but-ignored for the last twenty minutes. The older woman was smiling sweetly and gave every appearance of waiting for an earnest answer. Mary turned up the corners of her mouth, her heart in her throat, and said; "Why, Mrs. Trussell, we haven't any overseer. We haven't had one all the time I've been married. As you say, my husband is far too particular to have either a thief or a brute riding his acres or troubling his people."

"Oh, yes, of course," said Mrs. Trussell, all syrupy politeness and cool Southern charm. "He prefers a more… hands-on approach, doesn't he?"

Several of the younger women tittered, and Mary felt her spine straightening so stiffly that the top of her corset dug in under her shoulder blades. "I can't say how things are done on your plantations, of course," she said, looking around her; "but on ours no one would think of beating one of the darkies. I think you're quite right, Sarah, to try to talk to your field hand if he's misbehaving, and I'm certain your mother would advise you to do just the same. Cullen says that if you haven't got a slave's respect you'll never get it with a whip."

She got to her feet, rising sedately so that her skirts scarcely rustled. "I'm going to go and pay my respects to the elder Mr. Ainsley, I think. Sarah, would you care to join me?"

The girl's eyes widened at this, and she looked around at the other women. Some were averting their eyes from the spectacle of the Yankee interloper deflecting the poorly veiled insults of one of the county's most formidable dames, but more were watching Mary very coldly indeed. For a moment Sarah seemed torn, but she also knew that the moment Mrs. Bohannon was no longer the center of attention the crows would start pecking at her again.

"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Bohannon, I think I would," she said with careful formality. "I've been wanting to offer the old gentleman my greetings, and have not yet had the opportunity."

She rose, a little gawky still with the clumsiness of adolescence that even the most devoted of mothers could not wholly expunge before its time, and Mary put a companionable arm about her slender waist, guiding her to the parlor door. She kept her head high and her expression placid, and kept walking smoothly across the grand vestibule as behind her scandalized murmuring erupted among the outraged ladies.

"You're very kind," Sarah breathed when they were well past the foot of the grand staircase. "I know I never should have said that about Mr. Porter, not in company. Mother would be so ashamed!"

"From what I know of your mother, she'd be more ashamed of the story about the boy in the garden," said Mary quietly. "How old was he?"

"Fourteen, I think," said Sarah. "Or thirteen? I don't know: there are so many of them I can never keep everyone straight."

"Why do you think he did it?" asked Mary. "Pocketed them, I mean."

Sarah sighed. "It's because I don't know how to manage my darkies," she recited as if by rote. "George's aunt always says the same thing."

Mary had forgotten about elderly Miss White – the county's other prominent old maid. She would have lost her position as mistress of Nightingale Plantation with her nephew's marriage, and doubtless resented the young usurper. "I don't believe that," said Mary kindly; "but I do know how challenging it is even just to manage a small household. Have you thought perhaps the boy took those beans because he was hungry?"

Sarah looked at her, somewhat startled. They were under the shelter of the stairs now, and Mary guided the girl down onto an upholstered bench set just where there was enough clearance to accommodate a sitter. She spread her own skirts gracefully, but Sarah dropped down like a stone and her hoops billowed. She looked as though the possibility had never occurred to her before.

"Auntie White says that slaves ought to be kept a little hungry," she said leadenly. "She says it keeps them limber."

"I see," said Mary, her voice very soft. "Is that how your mother does things?"

"No," Sarah confessed, hanging her head. "Mother says you wouldn't let a good horse go hungry, or a hunting hound or a stud bull, and a grown slave is worth a great deal more money." She looked up at Mary helplessly. "But Auntie says it's how things have always been done at Nightingale, and I'm don't mean to get above my place…"

"You're the mistress of the house, aren't you?" asked Mary. "It _is_ your place to decide how things are done, and especially to make sure all your people are fed. That's how I spend most of my day: planning and preparing and measuring – and yes, helping in the garden, as I'm sure everyone's been speculating – to be sure no one goes hungry. I can't imagine it's much different for your mother, except that she's got a hundred people to feed instead of eight. Do you know what I would do in your place, Sarah?"

The girl shook her head, but her expression was one of avid, almost desperate attentiveness.

"First thing tomorrow morning I would talk to your cook. You've got a good, capable cook, haven't you?" Sarah nodded, and Mary went on. "Ask her how much food she thinks you ought to give out so that everyone has a decent ration and no one gets hungry enough to steal. Tell her you want to see that your people are well fed. Then you give them what they need. They'll be healthier, and happier, and they may even work better. Why, it wouldn't surprise me if that field hand was out of temper because he hasn't been getting enough to eat."

"But Auntie…" Sarah protested indistinctly.

"Never mind her," advised Mary. "Everyone knows your mother runs the most orderly plantation in the county: you do as she would do, and not what Miss White says."

"What about the expense?" asked Sarah. "George won't like that."

"I'll tell you what," said Mary. "I'll have Cullen put a word in George's ear tonight after supper. Just about all the young men respect his opinion."

Sarah's white shoulders slumped a little in relief. "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Bohannon. I do so want to be a great lady, but sometimes it seems I don't quite know how."

"I wouldn't worry about that either, dear," Mary said. "About trying to be a great lady, I mean. Just start by being a good one, and taking care of your people. You may find they start wanting to take care of you."

Sarah giggled a little, flushing crimson. "That's Yankee talk, Mrs. Bohannon," she said, but not spitefully.

"Yes it is," Mary declared. "But I think it makes more sense to you than what those old women were saying back there, doesn't it?"

Sarah nodded timidly, and Mary patted her hand, small and neat in a new silk glove. "And I do think you might call me Mary," she said in a conspiratorial tone. "Since we've braved Mrs. Trussell's displeasure together."

"I will," Sarah promised earnestly. "I will, _Mary_."

"That's settled, then," said Mary. She stood up again, stepping out from under the stairs. Cullen, she noticed, was leaning against the post of the dining room door, deep in conversation with a tall man she did not recognize. He seemed content enough, and she hoped it was not merely an affectation of courtesy. "I truly do want to go and say good afternoon to Mr. Ainsley, though. I fear he must get lonely at gatherings like this. Are you coming?"

Sarah nodded and stood up, her red gown shimmering in the afternoon sun that poured through the splendid windows. Arm in arm like old friends, the two ladies went through to the back parlour.


	18. The Gentlemen's Repose

**Chapter Eighteen: The Gentlemen's Repose**

The custom after supper was for the ladies to withdraw, while the men remained around the table to enjoy their spirits and talk. At the Ainsley house, however, the enormous dining room with its two great cut-glass chandeliers also served as a ballroom. Therefore guests of both sexes arose immediately after the meal and separated in the grand entryway: the ladies to retreat to one or another of the parlors, and the men to take their leisure and their liquor in the library.

This allowed the Bohannons, who had been seated at opposite sides of the table six places offset from one another, a brief moment of reunion among the throng of swaying skirts and ambling, satiated men. Mary was waiting at the dining room door for Cullen when he finally reached it after standing attendance behind elderly Mrs. Platt as she levered herself out of her chair by means of the table edge and her ivory-headed cane. A silk glove was on his arm almost before he realized his wife was beside him.

"Did you enjoy your meal, my dear?" he asked in the voice of ritual courtesy.

"It was sumptuous," said Mary, but her eyes were wandering to his wrists, which had been lately concealed once more by the dark kid gloves. "What did you do to your hands?" she whispered.

Cullen's fingers curled reflexively in towards his palm, suddenly ablaze once more with the burning itch he had been managing so well to ignore. "Not bad, is it?" he said. "Got just about all the stains out."

"But they're red," Mary murmured, a gentle mask of a smile on her lips. "I could see from down the table how sore they are."

"They ain't sore," he fibbed. Table etiquette required that a gentleman remove his gloves to eat, though ladies were under no such compulsion and almost always remained gloved. In the interest of appearing to have clean hands – for actually _having_ clean hands that were stained in dark streaks from tobacco tar was not considered adequate – he had soaked them in a little turpentine while Mary was upstairs dressing. It had worked better than he had hoped, save that his skin was now covered in livid red blotches that stung and, above all, itched maddeningly. Socially, it was preferable to the perpetually grubby look of the tobacco stains. As a matter of personal comfort, it was not.

They were coming to the point of separation, and he smiled at his wife. "Just another hour or so and we can get you dancing," he said.

Mary flushed prettily. She was a wonderful dancer and he knew how she missed it. "You won't forget, will you?" she asked very softly. "About Mr. White?"

"Course not," said Cullen, bowing in to brush his lips decorously against her cheek. She withdrew her arm from his and was whisked away in the tide of hoopskirts flowing towards the parlor.

Cullen would have watched her go; the bob of the cascading auburn curls and the ethereal sway of the skirts. But someone nudged him along and he found himself drawn off by the other current, this one all lean limbs and fine evening coats, into Boyd's sanctum.

Beyond the pass of the doorway the men fanned out through the room. Small groups gathered by the tall shelves, bringing out gilt cigar cases or admiring the exotic curios beside them. The older gentlemen took the chairs by the fireplace, which was laid with the smallest of blazes despite the heat of the evening because there was nothing less hospitable than an empty hearth. Benches had been brought in from the garden and set along the spine of the room, and some men settled on these or else stood with one leg up on the seat, leaning languidly. The sideboard was covered in crystal decanters: port and gin, brandy and Caribbean rum and numerous varieties of whiskey. There was ice water and tonic for mixing, and a large pitcher of fresh lemonade out of courtesy to guests who might embrace the Temperance movement. There were few of these in Southern society, where the ability to hold one's liquor was prized only a little less than the ability to hold one's seat in the saddle. More common were men like old Mr. Washburn, whose heart troubles had led Doctor Whitehead to place a ban upon strong spirits. Cullen's own father had been under a similar embargo in the last year or two of his life, and he had never failed to bemoan the loss of this most gentlemanly of pleasures.

The liquor board was crowded and Cullen did not much feel like jostling with half the county, so he moved to the smaller table by the long sofa which was laid with a silver coffee service. He poured himself a delicate china cupful and stirred in a liberal spoonful of sugar – best white granulated sugar, and not the sorghum he had been making do with at home. A dose of coffee would do him no harm at all. He thought he had taken about three glasses of Boyd's excellent French wine; it was difficult to tell because the slaves waiting at table did not allow anyone's glass to fall more than half empty. Whatever the case he was already beginning to feel the warm glow of alcohol in his blood. He took a swallow of the coffee and relished the pure, strong taste without a hint of the tang of cheap sweetening.

It was a night of luxuries, and no mistake. The table had been laid with only the customary fare for such a gathering, but after months of the simple diet of bread, biscuits, hominy, salt pork and sweet potatoes, with preserved fruit and pickled vegetables only now being replaced with the bounty of the garden, Cullen had been a little overwhelmed. There had been both young roast pig and lamb to choose from, along with an assortment of game fowl and roasted chicken as well; chickens executed in their prime, and not when they were old and stringy and no longer able to lay. There had been terrapin soup, oysters in rich sauces, and two kinds of fish. Accompanying these had been a vast assortment of vegetable dishes: Irish potatoes prepared in four different ways; carrots in a heavy cream sauce; fresh greens in pot liquor; every variety of produce the West Willows gardens could offer, bright in their silver salvers and seasoned with herbs both home-grown and exotic. A dish of peppers, not much larger than gold pieces and stuffed with some sort of confection made with early tomatoes, had been particularly enticing. Then of course there were the breads: biscuits and fine, crusty rolls, corn muffins and hotcakes. And butter in great quantities, not only plain but whipped with garlic, or honey, or herbs. There was cheese, hard and soft, and further choice in each of these. And great trays of fruit: strawberries laid out in bouquets, and blackberries and blueberries stewed in sherry, and watermelon cleaned of its seeds and pared down to be eaten with a small dessert fork. There had even been a plate of delicate orange slices, almost unobtainable so late in the year and doubtless brought in at great expense from abroad.

After all this had been cleared away, the sweet course had been served: cakes and pastries and tarts, peach and berry cobblers and marzipan shaped and painted cleverly, blancmange and syllabub. It was impossible to taste it all, of course, but the sheer extravagance of choice was a treat in itself. The simple luxury of being able to pass up a dish he did not care for without sacrificing a necessary nourishing element of the meal left Cullen quietly dazed. And, for the first time in recent memory, he had been able to eat his fill without fretting that today's indulgence might contribute to tomorrow's famine.

He had been too intent upon his own plate and upon entertaining his seating companions – Mrs. Platt on the left and the effervescent young Miss Felicity Ives on the right – to note what Mary had been eating, but he earnestly hoped that she too had savored the splendid meal. Certainly she had been lucky (or Verbena had been kind) in her company at table. She had been flanked by Doc Whitehead, who was attentive and courteous and liked her a great deal, and Cullen's new acquaintance from Kemper County. The longer he had talked with Jim Secrest, the better Cullen had liked him: he was a sensible man and free from many of the pretentions of the idle planters' sons. They had talked quite extensively about ethics and the law, and Secrest had some interesting thoughts on the raging debate over states' rights and the duty to the Union. Then they had fallen to talking about horses. As it turned out Secrest himself was an accomplished rider, even by Mississippi standards, and knew a thing or two about good horseflesh. He had also caught sight of the Bohannons' arrival, and had a number of eager questions about Pike and Bonnie. Cullen, for whom his team was a source of great pride, had been only too happy to answer.

He was cornered now by Garland Wheeler and several other young married men near the fireplace, nodding and commenting upon what appeared to be yet another energetic political debate. Cullen tried briefly to catch the lawyer's eye, but Secrest was clearly engaged. Finishing with his coffee, he deposited the empty cup on a tray near the door. Those house servants who were not occupied in cleaning up after the meal or in removing the chairs and pushing aside the great table to prepare the dining room for dancing were serving tea and coffee and dainty helpings of sherry to the ladies in the parlors. Only Matthew in the splendor of his best suit of clothes intruded upon the ease of the gentlemen, and he did so with such practiced grace that he was all but invisible.

The throng about the spirits had cleared a little, and Cullen moved in to pour himself a drink. Scorning the elaborate decanters he reached for a plain glass vessel in which he knew Boyd kept the very best Scotch whiskey. He was just replacing the simple stopper when he heard a low chuckle in his ear.

"Nobody's secrets are safe from you," said Boyd, elbowing his friend amiably in the ribs.

Cullen grinned and raised his glass in salute. "I pride myself on being an observant man," he said. The laws of hospitality prohibited a man from keeping back his best liquor, but there was no rule that said he could not make it look as drab and unappealing as possible. Cullen took a mouthful and felt the fluid fire spread through his chest. "Don't worry: I won't tell anyone."

Boyd grinned and helped himself to a measure from the same vessel. "How are you enjoying yourself?" he asked. "I tried to have Verbena pair you with a belle who wasn't too empty-headed."

"Miss Felicity is charming," said Cullen neatly. He lowered his voice and added; "Though I think you chose my other companion for your own amusement instead of mine."

"Oh, I think you get just as much amusement out of it as I do," said Boyd. "I don't know how you manage to disagree with everything she says while still sounding so damned polite, but it's clearly a pleasure. You had much trouble over your business yet?"

"Not much," said Cullen. "A few long looks, if you take my meaning, but most of the young men seem to think it's worth a laugh or two. It's the women who really take exception. Can't say why: it don't harm them none."

"Maybe they're worried that you'll set a dangerous precedent," Boyd suggested as they stepped away from the sideboard and moved over to where the high windows stood open to catch the evening breeze. "Cullen Bohannon works his own tobacco: pretty soon their husbands will be out their dirtying their hands in the cotton and the corn. Does Mary like it when you're out there?"

"She don't like it, but she knows there ain't no other way," said Cullen. "We got to get in them fifty acres, and three darkies can't do that. What did Verbena say when she heard we was planning to attend?"

"Not much, as I recall," said Boyd. "She's been busy with replies to them invitations all month. And all week she's been going through the house like a whirlwind getting ready. I swear she lives for planning this sort of do. Why?"

"Don't matter," said Cullen, taking another swallow of his drink. He felt eyes on the back of his neck and turned to catch Mr. Graham staring at him. He grinned and lifted his glass, and the older man hurriedly turned his attention back on his pipe. He was in a group of several men of the same generation: among them Abel Sutcliffe, resplendent in a suit so new that the seams were still visibly rounded. He too caught Cullen's eye, and received the same ironic salute.

"You ain't going to start anything with him?" Boyd asked uneasily.

"Hell, no," Cullen laughed. "I respect the hospitality of your house. Turning out in my best clothes with the prettiest wife in the county might go some way to disabusin' folks of the notion I'm white trash, but a fistfight on your staircase would set me right back." He swirled the amber liquid in the heavy glass. "I do hope Mary's having a pleasant time," he said.

"Verbena'll see to that," pledged Boyd. "I hear tell she's been friendly to Sarah White, too."

"I ain't seen her parents," Cullen said. The Lloyds lived at the far end of the county, but could usually be counted upon to turn out to such occasions regardless.

"Didn't you hear?" his host asked. "Andrew Lloyd took a fall from his hunter last week: broke three ribs and wrenched an ankle. He'll be all right, but he's laid up. And of course Mrs. Lloyd wouldn't think of leaving him. She's a good lady."

Cullen nodded. "I was hoping she'd be around: she always takes care to see that Mary's included. It ain't always easy for her at these things, I think. Her friends in New York weren't much like our ladies. Sometimes I think I ought to send her back home for a visit."

"Why don't you?" asked Boyd. Then he recognized the obvious and flinched. "Maybe for Christmas," he amended quietly.

"Maybe," said Cullen. "Truth is I don't much like the idea of her travelling alone, and I certainly can't spare the time to go with her. It'll be burdensome enough when I'm down in New Orleans selling up the tobacco."

"Speaking of tobacco," said Boyd, brightening; "you ain't brought none of them little cigars of yours, have you? I'd admire a taste."

Cullen grinned and reached into the inner pocket of his coat. He had indeed brought half a dozen of his homemade cigars, carefully pressed out of his own tobacco, and he drew out his worn leather case. He had possessed a silver one up until last year's Louisiana trip when, after failing to get anything like a good price for his scanty crop, he had sold it at a French Quarter jeweler's to help defray the costs of his stay. He opened the case and offered it to Boyd, who chose one of the slender rods and drew it under his nose.

"Beautiful," he said, retreating to one of the cruets of coals spread about the room for this purpose. He lit a slender taper and puffed to draw the flame into the cigar, then offered the light to Cullen so that he could ignite his own. He did so, snuffed the flame and returned the taper to the table before resuming his place by the window.

Boyd drew in a deep breath and let it out in a thin cloud of fragrant smoke. He closed his eyes in appreciation and grinned. "I swear Mississippi tobacco tastes best," he said.

"You oughta tell that to my buyers," said Cullen. "Every year they try to haggle me down because I ain't growing in the Carolinas. Gets tiresome."

The truth was that the tobacco was hardly the best, coming as it did from the ill-starred crop that was largely responsible for his present situation. Boyd was just being diplomatic – or else he didn't have much of a palate for tobacco. Cullen had to admit the latter might well be possible. Despite his thirst for world culture Boyd was in many ways an innocent.

"They're trying to catch your eye over there," he said, nodding surreptitiously towards the knot of middle-aged men around Sutcliffe. "It don't do to spend too long with one guest, especially not a guest asked out of pity."

Boyd's face crumpled in dismay. "That can't be how you see it," he said, looking hurt. "You and me been friends since we was in our mamas' arms. There ain't a single person in the world I'd rather have here tonight. Well, apart from Verbena, of course."

"It ain't how I see it," said Cullen. "It's how they see it. Covering my shame with the mantle of your spotless reputation. Go on: look after your other guests. I got to have a word with George White."

Boyd gave him a long, pained look, but moved off towards the older men. Cullen took another drag on his cigar and drained his glass, then ambled indolently over to the sideboard to pour himself another. As he reached for the unadorned decanter he wondered whether this would look like a gesture of humility: the impoverished neighbor taking the cheapest-looking stuff. He hoped it did, he thought smugly. Damned fools, all of them.

With another sip of Boyd's best whiskey to warm him, he approached the sprawling group of young husbands and restive bachelors now boasting loudly of Mississippi's spirit of self-reliance. It was this group in which Cullen was most genuinely welcomed: there weren't many among them he hadn't helped out of a scrape or two over the years, and those who had not yet been beneficiaries of his ingenuity respected him as a straightforward and upright man. As he drew near cheerful greetings were offered and two or three slapped him amiably on the shoulder blades. He grinned at their salutations, though the aching muscles of a back worn out from stooping protested the good-natured assaults. He made a couple of obligatory replies to enthusiastic statements offered up to him for approval as he moved over towards George, but did not really let himself get drawn into the conversation.

"Can you spare a few minutes?" he asked the younger man. George White was twenty-four, and really too young to be running a plantation the size of Nightingale, but an unfortunate spate of typhoid had brought him early into his inheritance. His maiden aunt had been the supreme authority on the place until his recent marriage, and now it seemed the new Mrs. White wanted to make some changes – so said Mary. Ordinarily Cullen wouldn't think of telling a neighbor how to go about his business, but his wife had a way of coaxing him to do things.

"Happy to," said George. He admired Cullen greatly, and had done since Cullen had helped him out in the matter of some undisclosed gambling debts incurred in the months after his father's death. Paying them had not been the problem: rather, George had been afraid to raise the matter with his aunt, and Cullen had stepped in to mediate. It was time to use a little of that influence, so it seemed, at Mary's request.

"Over here," said Cullen, leading the way back to the window. "Cigar?" he offered, drawing out his case again.

"Thank you." George took one and looked at it. "This your own stuff?" he asked.

"Picked and cured it myself," said Cullen, a little sardonically. George's color rose a little and the older man grinned. "Never mind, George: everyone knows. Go on and enjoy it."

George moved off to light the cigar and returned forthwith. "What can I do for you, Mr. Bohannon?" he asked.

"For starters you can quit with the 'Mr. Bohannon'," said Cullen. "Puts us on uneven footing, don't you think? Most of your friends call me Cullen, don't they?"

"Most of my friends ain't got the manners of a field hand," George grinned. "But I'll use your Christian name if it suits you. I'd do just about anything you wanted: you know that."

"I'm glad to hear it, because I wanted to have a word with you about a matter that's a mite delicate," Cullen said. "Touches on the subject of field hands, as it happens. I hear there been trouble with some of yours."

"Not trouble, exactly," said George, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Just a couple getting uppity when my wife rides by. Saying things and… you know. Balking. I got Porter keeping an ear out."

"Porter. He'd be your overseer?" asked Cullen. The youth nodded. "Hmm. See, now, son, I always felt a man ought to look after his own business. When there's trouble in the fields, it's your trouble. You see what I mean?"

"I couldn't whip them myself, if that's what you're suggesting," said George hastily, his voice very low. "I know I ought to; it's a master's right. But I just can't do it. I can't hardly rap a pickaninny's knuckles, much less take a lash to a man."

This was a confession that could not be made to very many people at all, and Cullen took it as evidence of the measure of trust George was willing to put to him. He nodded thoughtfully. "I don't hold with whipping myself," he said. "A Negro that respects his master works harder than a Negro who don't, that's all there is to it. And a tore-up body don't work much at all. Neither does a hungry one, George, and that's what I wanted to say."

George was clearly puzzled. He drew on the thin cigar and then studied the glow of its tip. He shook his head and then a look of comprehension dawned on his face. "It's really got that bad, then?" he asked quietly, turning his shoulder to block their conversation from the rest of the room. "Just send your man over: you're welcome to a share of anything we got."

"What?" Cullen said sharply, quite taken aback.

"I mean it," George pledged. "Flour, salt pork, wine, anything you need. Between friends, Mr. Boh—_Cullen_. I'd be proud to help." He faltered a little at the hard, astonished look in the other man's eyes. "O-or we could settle on a price," he stammered. "I'd extend credit 'til your crop was in, of course, if you ain't comfortable taking a gift…"

"What's given you the idea I'm short of provisions?" Cullen asked, managing to keep his indignation bottled behind a slow, reasonable voice.

"Everybody says… that is, Mr. Sutcliffe been letting out as how your family's living on split peas and hominy and tonight's the first decent meal you seen in months…" George spluttered, now crimson to the roots of his indifferently brown hair.

Cullen lifted his hand hurriedly to shade his rolling eyes from general view. The urge to laugh at George's well-meaning discomfiture warred with a black rage that was now brewing in his viscera. He didn't much care if Sutcliffe spread the truth about him working in the fields. He could just about tolerate stretching the story to put about that Cullen had spit on instead of at him, because that wasn't without its funny side. But this was too much. This was nothing more than a malicious lie, and a lie that struck right to the core of a man's pride at that. Hard work was one thing: unavoidable and without shame, and even something to take pride in. But the intimation that he could not feed his family; that Mary was going hungry; that he could not provide meat for his boy – that was something he could not bear. He could not articulate just why this rumor should leave him so blind with pulsing fury; he only knew that it did.

In that instant while his irises lolled up around the underside of his sockets he felt like charging across the room and seizing Sutcliffe by the throat and shaking him until he cried for mercy. He felt like flinging the vile man down on the lush Turkish rug and beating on him with both fists. He felt like taking one of the dueling pistols down from the mantelpiece and shooting him square in the heart. But of course he could do none of these things. He was a landowner and he was a gentleman and he had been raised better than that. He might perhaps, when his temper had cooled enough that he was no longer in danger of throttling the bastard, make some cold and cutting remark about men who spread lies, but that was all. Carefully he tamped down his anger, though it seemed to be choking him, and he shook his head slowly.

"That's a filthy lie, son," he said, a little breathlessly. "We got plenty of food and I don't need your charity. Or your generosity," he added as George raised his eyes in anxious protest. "It's a kind offer and you got a good heart, but we ain't in need. Still I want you to keep in mind that spirit of giving, because my Mary been talking to Sarah, and it seems you got a problem on your plantation."

"I didn't mean… I wasn't… I didn't really believe him…" George babbled. He was trying to gesticulate, sending ash flying from the cigar in one hand and creating a very real danger of spilling his drink with the other.

"Never mind that now," Cullen said tersely. He was still trying to keep a rein on his temper, and the best way to do that was to change the subject entirely. "About your slaves. Maybe you don't know – maybe that overseer ain't told you – but you got boys stealing food while they're working the garden. Seems you know your field hands ain't content. Mary was talking to Sarah about it, and it seems your people don't get enough to eat. Miss White done told your Sarah it's good to keep a nigger hungry 'cause then he stays limber."

"Yes, that's always what Auntie says," George agreed. "We never had trouble all the years she had a hand in things. The slaves were never impudent before this year."

"Maybe that's because they didn't see much hope of getting relief," said Cullen. "But now they got a Lloyd lady in the big house, maybe they think they got a chance at a better life. You know Sarah's mama's got the best-run plantation in Lauderdale County; maybe the best-run plantation this side of the Delta. You got a wife been raised by the best manager in the state, son. A smart man would listen to what she got to say."

"Course I listen to Sarah," said George. "But Auntie been in charge of such matters since I was in short pants. I don't want her to feel pushed out."

"Can't be helped," said Cullen frankly. "There's a new mistress on the place now: she _is_ pushed out. And maybe this is a chance to do things better than they been done before. How's your discipline, apart from boys sneaking food and field hands getting uppity?"

George shrugged uncomfortably. "Could be better. We got trouble with darkies putting themselves on the sick list too often, and the far fields ain't been tended like they ought to be. Porter says he needs a freer hand, but that means more whippings and it seems to me that just makes things worse."

"That's true enough," said Cullen. "All you'll get is more folks on the sick list. Mary seems to think your problems will just go away if you feed your people better, but she ain't right about that, neither. Feed 'em up while they's ornery and you look weak."

"Then what do I do?" asked George.

"I tell you what I'd do," Cullen said thoughtfully. "You ain't been married seven months yet. You get your foremen together and you tell 'em their new mistress is looking to make some changes. Tell 'em she's got it in her head that Nightingale ought to be run more like her parents' place. Give 'em a minute to think on that."

George nodded, eyes intent on Cullen's face.

"Then you tell 'em Mrs. White thinks the first place to start is increasing their food allowance, and you aim to try it – just to please your new bride, you understand. But you expect to see a profit from it. Tell 'em everybody gets bigger rations the next two weeks, but if work don't pick up and discipline don't improve the experiment's over. Then you do it." Cullen drew a long swallow of whiskey and watched to see how this suggestion would be taken.

The younger man frowned thoughtfully. "Shouldn't I tell them if they work harder for two weeks then I'll give more food?" he asked.

Cullen shook his head. "That makes it sound like you's trying to cheat them. Give them the food straight off, but see they understand there's an expectation goes with it. And if they don't meet that expectation you got to take it away again, or they'll know you're soft and you'll never get control. And you make sure they know you're only giving them this chance on account of Miss Sarah interceding for them. Then they won't think they got the upper hand on you, and they'll take more kindly the new mistress knowing she'll take up for them. See?"

"Yes," George said. "I see… but it's bound to be expensive."

"That's why I said keep in mind that spirit of giving," said Cullen. "It'll be an outlay to start, but if they work harder and stay healthier you'll be ahead in the long run. And even if it don't work, at least you'll stop them from taunting your wife while she's out for her afternoon ride. You put it like I told you and they'll admire her regardless."

"I'll try it," George said. "Auntie ain't going to be pleased, but I'll try it."

"Good. Let me know how it turns out. And son?" Cullen said, looking up from his glass again. He fixed very stern eyes on the youth. "You hear anybody saying that I can't feed my family, and you set them straight, understand me?"

"Yassir. I will." George bobbed his head fervently. His brow knit into a parabola of worry. "Cullen, I didn't mean to shame you…"

"I ain't the one got cause to be ashamed," said Cullen, and he glared sidelong at Abel Sutcliffe. "I ain't the one spreading lies."

George shifted awkwardly, puffing at the cigar. Cullen jerked his head dismissively. "Go on: get back to your friends," he said. "Just think about what I said."

The younger man moved off, and Cullen looked out at the darkness of the rose garden beyond the windows. The fragrance of the flowers was strong on the torpid air, and the breeze for which the windows stood open had died away. Far in the distance he could hear muffled laughter and the faint twang of a banjo: Boyd's slaves making merry in the quarters after a welcome day of rest. He wondered how his own people were faring. Nate and Elijah and Meg, sore and tired after their morning's work and the half-day in the tobacco without him, would be finishing up their supper before going out to see to the stock: the men to tend the mules, and Meg to slop the hogs and milk the cows. Lottie, free at last after a busy day of helping Bethel with Gabe, would be wandering around to enjoy her brief leisure before bed. Bethel… he wasn't sure what Bethel would be doing now, at the hour in which she usually stood in the doorway of the dining room to make sure he ate his held-over supper. He felt guilty, standing here in fine clothes with a glass of excellent whiskey. That was ridiculous, he told himself. He was the master: he had a right to be idle while others worked, if only on occasion. It had never troubled him in the old days.

He emptied his glass and went over to the sideboard to pour another. Before he quite realized what he was doing he had downed it in a single draught. He poured another. Abel Sutcliffe was watching him, but Cullen did not dare to acknowledge the man's presence this time. His incandescent anger was rising again. Damn it, he might be nothing but a failing farmer, but he could feed his family!

He had just returned to his sanctuary by the window when the library door opened and a draft rustled the curtains. Cullen glanced over his shoulder to see one of the darkie footmen slip into the room and murmur something to Matthew. The valet nodded somberly, and crossed the room to wait at his master's elbow. Boyd paused in conversation to listen to him, and then grinned enormously.

"Gentlemen, the dance floor is ready!" he announced. "Shall we go and collect our charming ladies?"

This was met with general assent and a great commotion as men rose, leaving behind glasses and half-smoked cigars, tapping out pipes to tuck into coat pockets and brushing ash off of shirtfronts. Cullen hung back, nursing his whiskey and waiting for the crowd to thin a little. He lost himself for a minute or two in unsettled and incoherent thoughts, and when he drained the last of his glass he found himself in an all-but-empty room. Elderly Mr. Ainsley was sleeping in an armchair in one corner, a thin stream of spittle trickling from the paralyzed side of his mouth. And Abel Sutcliffe was standing by the back of the sofa, watching him with a cold patrician smirk on his lips.

Cullen's eyes narrowed, and he set the glass on the windowsill. Determined not to give in to the temptation to violent action, he started for the door. A cold, grinning voice stopped him.

"I haven't had the chance to pay my respects yet, Mr. Bohannon," Sutcliffe said, strolling over to stand between Cullen and his escape. "It's so nice to see you making the effort to participate in county life. I know how busy you must be."

"Not as busy as you been," said Cullen through gritted molars. "You got a wicked tongue, Abel: one of these days it's goin' get you into trouble."

"You mean it isn't true?" the older man said with a wide-eyed look of counterfeit innocence. "Well, I'm relieved to hear it. We can't have you wasting away under our very eyes, can we? And that son of yours… why, he's just the age to come down with rickets."

Cullen's body bolted with the urge to lunge at him, but his self-control prevented more than a slight shift of his right foot. "You keep my boy out of this," he snarled. "And you best think twice the next time you want to slander me."

"That's an empty threat, Bohannon, and we both know it," said Sutcliffe silkily. "There's not a thing you can do to hurt me. You may be popular with the young bucks, but your aptitude for politics leaves a great deal to be desired and you certainly can't _buy_ influence." He reached out one silk-gloved hand and patted Cullen's arm condescendingly. "Now why don't you go find that pretty Northern wife of yours and show her a good time before she needs to get back to scrubbing floors?"

He walked away, still sneering, and left Cullen smoldering in his wake. His hands balled into fists, slick with perspiration that clung to the leather of his gloves and stung his raw palms, he stood there quaking with rage he could not express, and cursing the chains of propriety that kept him from dealing the sanctimonious planter the blow he deserved.


	19. Dancing To and Fro

**Chapter Nineteen: Dancing To and Fro**

When the ladies rose up to rejoin their gentlemen, Mary hurriedly abandoned the overstuffed hassock on which she had been sitting and swept from the back parlor almost before Verbena could clear the way. The last hour had been almost unbearably long, and she was anxious to find her husband and get on to the real pleasure of the evening. She realized, blushing a little, that she had not so anticipated a night of dancing since she had been a girl of sixteen.

It was not discomfiture that had made the time drag. The after-supper conversation had proved far gentler and more pleasant than the earlier talk, due at least in part to the presence of the impressionable unmarried belles, who ranged in age from fourteen to no older than about twenty. They wanted to discuss their gowns and their flower gardens – well represented at temples and bosoms in the form of elaborate nosegays – and to share laughing stories of younger siblings or treasured lap dogs or beaux. They had no interest in matters of household management, genealogy or propriety, and of course good taste protected their virginal ears from tales of childbirth or illness. Those ladies above a certain age who did not feel able or willing to adapt their dialogue to the needs of the younger set had returned to the front parlor: in the back it was the maidens, the young wives, and the more spirited chaperones. Verbena had to move between the two rooms, of course: a tiresome but necessary part of a hostess's duty. Mary had been under no such obligation and was quite content to settle with a cup of scrumptious tea, the flavor of which she had almost forgotten, and enjoy the merry fluttering of the young women.

Another pleasant thing about the wholesale mixing of the wed and the courting women, which only really occurred during this hour of segregation between the sexes, was that the young girls did not seem to view Mary as a trespasser. The ladies of her own generation, now wives and mothers, had been belles in their turn when Cullen had been a charming and unattached youth, and she wondered sometimes whether they resented her for marrying their erstwhile sweetheart. Certainly Greta Trussell did, though from what Cullen said he had never shown more than a mere courteous interest in her. Many of the older ladies disliked Mary on principle simply because she was a Yankee, and she did not think her afternoon's performance would help their view of her at all. But the young girls either accepted her as simply another part of the county scenery of young matrons, or they viewed her as a genuine and fascinating curiosity. More than once Mary was approached by young ladies with earnest questions about New York and life in a metropolis. She gave generous and informative answers that seemed to delight them and encouraged them to return at whiles as their own conversations allowed it.

An awkward moment in the evening occurred when Felicity Ives, taking advantage of a peak in the volume of laughing voices, had asked Mary a shockingly unmaidenly question about her marital bed. Young Southern ladies were not meant to know such things even existed, and for a moment Mary had not known what to say. Then she had smiled and gently reminded the child that what went on between a wife and a husband ought to remain private between them. Disappointed, perhaps, at finding the Yankee woman less forthright and shameless than expected, Felicity had made a quick retreat. But Mary spent most of the rest of the hour wondering just how many of these girls were really as untouched and maidenly as they seemed. She had hardly been a model of chaste propriety in the last weeks of her own betrothal, but not even her sisters had suspected the truth. It was easy for a girl who had been brought up to present a perfect face to the world to maintain that face regardless of who might spirit her away to his suite of rented rooms under cover of an afternoon flurry. Like a shimmering silk basque over an old corset, a reputation for dainty purity could fool even the sharpest eyes.

Nevertheless Mary was restless long before Verbena reappeared to announce that the dancing would begin forthwith. Now she stood near the foot of the stairs, watching the men come out of the library and pair off. Married couples were sometimes, though not always, reunited; belles were found by the young men who had arranged to lead them in to the dance. The confirmed spinsters had escorts among elderly bachelors and widowers – widowed ladies were almost never seen at such gatherings in the South, unless they were very elderly and their bereavement very distant. Doctor Whitehead, who had proved such pleasant company at dinner, paused at Mary's side. For a moment she was worried that he was without a lady to attend and might ask to lead her in. Whatever her personal desire she could not refuse such a request, both because it was socially unacceptable and because he was such a dear friend to her. But he merely smiled and patted her arm.

"Cullen's just finishing off his drink," he said. "He'll be along presently." Then he moved to offer his arm to Sarah White's formidable aunt by marriage, who had arrived in her own carriage just before supper.

As the couples formed they moved off towards the dining room, from which now came the sound of a five-piece musical ensemble tuning. There were a number of talented Negro musicians in the area, and Boyd had engaged their services for the evening. The practice was apparently common, but it struck Mary as peculiar to pay one man for the labor of another. Once she had said as much to Cullen, and he had dismissed her concerns with the declaration that it was a treat for slaves from different plantations to get together to play, and that they got their pick of the leftovers of the supper as well. That had been in their first year of marriage, when a rare day passed when they did not fall into some manner of debate over the system of slavery. Mary wondered whether he might listen more carefully to her now.

She was almost alone in the vaulted vestibule now. Boyd and Verbena were arm-in-arm by the dining room door, and only one other lady stood waiting for her escort. Mary's pulse quickened when she recognized the aquiline nose and pale, sallow complexion of Mrs. Sutcliffe. That almost certainly meant that Cullen was in the library with the woman's husband, alone except perhaps for old Mr. Ainsley, whom the footmen would soon be helping up to bed. The last encounter between her husband and Mr. Sutcliffe had not ended amicably, and it was the latter's tale-telling that had put the Bohannons in such an awkward social position. Mary was seized with the urge to hurry down the corridor and to burst into the room before trouble could brew between them, but of course that was unthinkable.

Her moment of panic was brief, for Mr. Sutcliffe appeared looking unscathed and unruffled, and strode to take his wife's arm. She settled against it with something like resignation in her movements and they moved towards their hosts. Mary was left alone.

Verbena looked at Boyd, who was wearing an uncomfortable expression. She touched the crook of his elbow and then slipped from his grasp. "I really must check on Mammy and Baby," she said, floating to the stairs and taking three before pausing to smile at her solitary guest. "Do excuse me, Mary dear."

She swept up the stairs, silks whispering, and because Mary was watching her go she did not notice Boyd's approach until he held out his hand. "May I have the honor of leading you into the dance, Mrs. Bohannon?" he asked.

Mary glanced back towards the library from which Cullen would surely emerge at any moment. The last thing that she wanted was for him to discover she had gone. But she could not refuse her host, and the longer they lingered out here the worse the speculation would get in the ballroom. She and Cullen might not have been missed on their own, but she doubted that: all day they had been the subject of inquisitive glances. And the absence of host and hostess would certainly be painfully obvious. "Thank you, Mr. Ainsley," she said in her sweetest voice. "I would be delighted."

Arm in arm they went to the doorway, stepping into the room like monarchs coming among the assembled court. All eyes were upon them, and Mary kept her head high and her steps smooth and decorous. Her gown rustled softly as she moved, following Boyd as he led her across the broad expanse of floor. The enormous table had been pushed against the interior wall, and the trestle boards that had been used to lengthen it had been taken away. Many of the chairs now lined the other walls, and several couches and stools had been brought from other parts of the house to accommodate those who were not dancing. Most remarkable of all given the short time for preparation, a small stage platform had been erected in the corner by the service doors, and upon it the musicians were making ready to play. Boyd stopped short of this platform, and turned to survey his assembled guests with a welcoming smile. Then he nodded to the fiddler, who launched into a cheerful tune that lacked the tempo of any popular dance. It was the cue for the guests to mill about and make arrangements for the first few engagements of the evening.

"If it wasn't my anniversary you and me could lead the first dance together," Boyd said conspiratorially. "As it is I better wait for Verbena."

"Yes, I think that's best," said Mary. She noticed with relief that their mismatched partnership had attracted less lasting scrutiny than it might otherwise have done. Everyone knew that Verbena had a small baby to care for, and there were some comforts an aging Negro mammy could not provide. The natural assumption was that Boyd's spouse was the source of the delay, and that Mary's was gallantly waiting to see her in.

Boyd led her to a chair in the shelter of the rubber plant brought in from the back parlor, and almost at once the young lawyer from the next county appeared at her side. "May I fetch you some punch, Mrs. Bohannon?" he asked.

"Thank you, no," said Mary. This at least was an invitation a lady might courteously refuse. "I have only just finished my tea, and I hope to be dancing quite soon."

"You must save a dance for me," said Mr. Secrest. "If you have not promised them all by now."

"You are the first gentleman to do me the honor of asking, Mr. Secrest," said Mary. "I should be delighted. The second reel, perhaps? I have pledged the first one to my husband." She had not, formally, but she had no intention of giving that most popular dance to anyone but Cullen.

"The second reel it is," said the young man with a bow. "But you must allow me the pleasure of your comp'ny before the festivities commence."

This was only a courtesy, but it was a kind one, for it allowed Boyd to see to his other guests without abandoning her. Mary inclined her head and Mr. Secrest stepped a little nearer to her chair, standing half-turned towards her but still open to the rest of the room.

"I did so enjoy our conversation at dinner, ma'am," he said. "Your husband is a gentleman of fine taste."

"Why, thank you," said Mary. "Certainly I have always thought so. I hope…"

A lull in the conversation drew her head towards the door, where Cullen had just entered with Verbena on his arm. He led her over to Boyd, and handed her off with a bow. Then he searched the crowd and found Mary, striding up to her as the crowd cleared the floor. Matthew stepped up onto a corner of the stage and signaled to the musicians to halt. Then in a strong, deep voice that rang off the two brightly-lit chandeliers he instructed the dancers to take their places.

"May I have the honor of your hand in this dance, Mrs. Bohannon?" Cullen said, bowing gallantly. "Unless you've promised it to this fine fellow?"

"I've made arrangements for the next one," said Mr. Secrest. "If you'll excuse me, ma'am: I'll be back when it's time to collect it."

Mary nodded and smiled as he departed, then too Cullen's hand and rose. Boyd and Verbena were already in place at the head of the room, twin lines forming below them. Cullen led Mary onto the dance floor, murmuring as he went; "I'm sorry I was late in coming out."

"It's quite all right; Boyd took care of me," said Mary. She frowned faintly as she placed her free hand over his. "You're shaking." And he was: quaking deep into the bone.

"Just excited, I guess," he said as he released her at her place in the line and stepped in across from her. "Ain't every day I get to dance with the most beautiful lady in Meridian."

There was a last rush of couples taking their places, and Matthew motioned to the musicians. The opening bars began and the gentlemen bowed as the ladies curtsied. Then all at once they were in motion: forty hoopskirts swinging and forty pairs of neatly trousered legs marching. Mary raised her right hand to step palm-to-palm with Cullen as they swung around one another, and then turned to move in the other direction, left hands together. His feet were swift and sure; his motions perfectly timed to those of the other men. For her part she moved every bit as smoothly and gracefully as the Southern ladies, her heart pounding and her slippers flying. She stepped back as the couples formed their lines again, and then reached out with both hands for her husband. Kid gloves closed on silk and they spun again, leaning against one another's pull as only dancers who trusted one another implicitly could. Mary could feel the delicious inertia of her hoop as it swung with her hips, and she knew she was smiling radiantly. There was still a tremor in Cullen's hands, and his eyes were almost ferociously bright, but he was grinning as he spun her.

Brilliantly colored skirts buffeted one another as the ladies stepped back again, and then brushed the legs of the gentlemen as the dancers sprang into the _dos-á-dos_. Mary felt the front of her skirts sway forward when they were at the nadir of the movement: Cullen had given a little playful kick to the back of her lowest hoop. It was a game they had devised during their courtship in New York, and her spirits soared to realize he had remembered it. In the middle of the line it was almost impossible to notice, but it grew dangerous the closer they got to the lead couple. Such antics were not encouraged.

Boyd and Verbena were galoping down the corridor between the two lines now, while the other dancers clapped, the ladies letting their hoops rock while the men stamped one heel in time to the music. Verbena's hair jounced merrily and there was a high flush on Boyd's pale cheeks that made him look almost handsome. Mary smiled for him as he passed her, and on the return he gave her a tiny but exceedingly daring little wink. Then they began to work their way down the line, twirling with each successive couple as the others clapped or readied for their turn. It was hard work for the lead couple with such a long line: the later reels of the evening would be split into two. But there was an undeniable splendor to the long sashays and a special delight to the promenade beneath the bridge of the head couple's hands when eighty people were dancing. There was hardly a body left among the chairs: young and old, everyone wanted to partake of the heady delight of the first reel.

The lady to Mary's left was in the center now, and she stopped her clapping to stand ready. Boyd's palm met hers and they spun, while beside them Cullen and Verbena did the same. The Bohannons stepped back into their lines and the Ainsleys went on. They reached the end at last and swung back up the aisle of bodies. Then it was time to follow in the broad sweep that led them under the trellis of upraised arms: Boyd's in dark grey sleeves and Verbena's draped with fine cream-colored silk. Cullen's hand closed on Mary's, intimate despite the buffer of their gloves, and they passed between their host and hostess. The lines spread, and the second couple was now first, and the steps began anew.

There were so many couples that Mary wondered whether she and Cullen might have their chance to lead at all, but it came at last and before she was too breathless. Both hands clasped, his left hand leading, they bounded down the long corridor. Had Mary looked she would have seen only a blur of men's faces, but she was watching Cullen. The eerie intensity that had been in his eyes was replaced with glittering quicksilver abandon, and his smile satisfied the last wish of her heart. It was almost painful to tear away from him to turn with another man, but she swung back to him between each one, and always he was smiling just for her. Matthew was calling out the movements of the dance, but no one could hear them over the thunder of clapping hands and the singing of the instruments. No one needed them anyhow. It was the nation's most popular dance, North and South, and everyone present could walk it in their sleep.

The rush of passing bodies tugged at Mary's hoop, and she was glad she had worn her best petticoat, for surely its lace could be seen. Then the last couple was through their upraised arms and they took their new place at the end of the line. And on they danced: merry and light-footed and increasingly short-winded.

When at last the final measures played and the dancers made their bows and curtseys, Mary could feel her pulse beating a staccato in her temples, and she knew her color was high. She let Cullen lead her without watching where, and she opened her sandalwood fan to send a flurry of fragrant air over her face and bosom.

"You seemed to enjoy that, ma'am," Cullen chuckled softly.

"Oh, yes!" gasped Mary, unable to say anything more. Her stays heaved with her breathing and she felt more alive than she had at any time since her illness. "It's a shame I promised the next one."

He raised her hand and kissed the back of her glove. "You can't dance with your husband all evening," he reminded her. "Makes the other men jealous."

The next dance was a waltz, to ease everyone's breathing and offer a rest before the next spirited dance. As she had promised the second reel, and not the second dance, Mary was able to step out onto the floor with Cullen again. Boyd and Verbena were also together: in most instances a breach of etiquette, but eminently appropriate at their anniversary party. Mary rested her hand on Cullen's upper arm and felt his settle on the small of her back. The first few measures they danced in silence, each still recovering from the vigorous reel.

"You know it was my mama and pappy helped get this county used to waltzes?" Cullen said presently, guiding her smoothly through the circling couples so that her skirts scarcely brushed those of the other ladies. "Mama came from Charleston, where it was just starting to be popular. Even out there it was looked on as something scandalous; out here they thought it was pretty near indecent."

"In some places people still do," said Mary.

"And this'd quite likely be one of 'em," said Cullen; "but Mama loved waltzing an' Pappy loved Mama. Every ball they went to he'd pay off the musicians and they'd dance it, hang the scandal. After a few parties folks sort of got accustomed to it. They didn't have much more than four years together, but they did accomplish that."

"That's not all they accomplished," Mary said softly. She wished she could put her head down upon her husband's breast, but that certainly _would _be a scandal. She kept her back straight and maintained the respectable distance required to keep her hoop from being mashed between them. "There's you."

He laughed softly. "There's folks 'round here might take exception to your idea of an accomplishment," he said. "Seems I'm nothing but a scandal."

"Hang the scandal," said Mary. "Just like your mama and pappy."

The next dance was a stately cotillion, and Mary was asked to take it with Doctor Whitehead. Cullen had managed to arrange to dance it with Verbena, thus discharging his obligation to accompany his hostess early in the evening, and they were only two couples away from one another. Then came the next reel, and Mr. Secrest came to claim his due. He was an able partner, but he could not match Cullen in flair or grace. Mary tried to be attentive to the young attorney, but her eyes keep travelling up the line to where Cullen was dancing with Sarah White. The reel was shorter and less vigorous with two lead couples and fewer pairs on the floor, and it was followed by a brief interlude. There was a great scrambling among the younger men to procure punch or lemonade for their ladies, and Mary allowed herself to be led to a chair. She was quickly attended by one of the Ives brothers – she could never keep them straight – and pledged the next dance.

So the evening went on. At such a party the gentlemen were honor-bound to see that no lady – not even a Yankee lady whose husband worked his own tobacco – went without an invitation to dance. Nor could any lady refuse a gentleman for any reason but a previous pledge, or to sit out a dance to refresh herself. To do so would have been to imply that the gentleman in question was somehow undesirable, and that the host ought not to have received him. So both Mary and Cullen had a variety of partners, though he made sure to come back to her every few dances. They had another waltz together, and a quadrille. In the next quadrille they had different partners, but managed to place themselves across from one another in the same square. And Cullen defied convention by claiming her for the final reel of the first set of the evening.

While the musicians rested their instruments and refreshed themselves in the corridor that led to the kitchens, the dancers were served with dainty cut-glass dishes of orange ice. It was just about the costliest treat that Mary could imagine in the first week of August, when oranges had to be brought from Argentina and the ice shipped from New England in the winter was surely running low. She savored it, taking only the tiniest of spoonfuls and letting the taste fill her palate and rise up into her sinuses between each one. But Cullen just stared at the bowl in his hand, a brooding distaste in his eyes. Then, with a sudden spastic motion of his arm, he thrust it back at the slender black maid who carried the tray.

"I don't want it," he said, almost viciously. "Take it away."

Mary did not quite frown, but the corners of her lips twitched downward. "Why don't you want it?" she asked. "It's heavenly."

"You can have mine," he snapped, snatching it back from the girl and handing it to his wife. "Enjoy it. You deserve it."

Mary looked down at the delicacy, now melting into a pale puddle in the bottom of the bowl, and then raised her head with a question on her lips. But Cullen had stepped away from her and was pouring himself a punch-glass full of brandy from the decanter provided for the gentleman.

"Let me take that empty dish, Miss Mary," a kindly voice said, relieving her of her own bowl. It was Doctor Whitehead, hair neatly oiled and hands covered in dove grey gloves but eyes just as gentle as they had been on the day he had attended her as she bled in her bed. "Are you having a pleasant evening?"

"So very pleasant," she said, still looking bewilderedly after her husband.

"Don't mind him; he just needs to catch a fresh wind," the doctor said reassuringly. "It's a long day for him: he must be getting tired."

This was true enough. It was now nearly ten o'clock: by this time in the normal way of things Cullen would be fast asleep, or at the very least Bethel would be downstairs dragging him away from his endless anxious figuring to chase him bedward. He had not had quite his usual pre-dawn start this morning, but he had put in a full day of work yesterday and would drive himself to do the same tomorrow. She watched as he knocked back half the contents of the glass in a single draught, setting his teeth against the burn of the alcohol. The gesture had likely passed unnoticed amid the crowd of revelers; young men fetching refreshments for their favored belles; older gentlemen gathering in groups to talk; girls comparing dance cards. Mary hoped that it had. There was such fierce desperation in that hard jerk of his head and the tilting of the cup.

"I'll go and suggest we take our leave," she said softly, not quite aware she had spoken aloud.

"I wouldn't do that," said Doctor Whitehead. "It'll only put him in a foul temper. He'll know you ain't ready to go. Anybody can see you ain't ready to go."

"Oh, dear." Mary flushed. There were few things as embarrassing at a party like this as having others suspect you did not often have the benefit of such amusements. In New York, at least, a girl made every effort to make a ball seem commonplace, and even a little dull.

"Don't worry: it's no bad thing," the doctor soothed. "It's a compliment to Miss Verbena if you're enjoying yourself. Stay on. When Cullen's ready to go he'll ask if you're wore out. Then you can tell him yes and get him home. But before that happens maybe you could find a little waltz for me?"

"Of course I can," Mary said, a fond smile spreading across her face. Her concern was ridiculous, she realized. In New York there were dozens of parties thrown at dozens of houses every month, and one might go for weeks without meeting the same acquaintance twice. Here, everyone already knew that the Bohannons had not been to a party since the White wedding. "I think Cullen and I are very fortunate in our friends, Doctor Whitehead."

"Well, now, so am I," he said. He patted the back of her hand. "Go on and finish up that ice: they'll be starting up again soon."

Mary did as she was told and hurriedly handed off the little bowl to a servant as Cullen returned to her side. The scent of brandy was thick upon his breath and his eyes seemed clouded.

"What'd Doc want?" he asked huskily.

"A waltz," Mary said, glad of the convenient half-truth. She reached to straighten Cullen's cravat. As she did she noticed a small golden stain on her glove where the orange ice must have splashed when he had thrust it at her. Her first instinct was to find an opportunity to retreat so that she might change her glove for her spare, but then she remembered that she was not carrying an extra pair. She only had the one nice pair of white gloves now. Thankfully the mark was pale and not large enough to be especially noticeable. Still, she lowered her hands quickly and folded her fingers over the discolored spot.

Garland Wheeler came up, gallantly asking for the opening reel. Mary accepted and took his arm while Cullen went to find another partner. As he moved off she wished that propriety did not prevent them from having every single dance together. She could have happily flown about in his arms all night, and she did not like to see him walking away from her with that strange fog in his eyes.

It took four more dances after that reel for Cullen to find the opportunity to lead her out again. Together they danced the Gay Gordons, a dance that Mary had never had occasion to learn before coming to Lauderdale County. Cullen had teased her as he had taught it to her in their parlor, saying that was what came of knowing too few Scotsmen. His eyes were laughing again as he danced it with her now, and Mary wondered if he was reliving the same memory.

They were just stepping off the dance floor when Cullen suddenly balked like a startled mule. Mary was jerked back out of her step by his arm about her waist, and her startled effort to smile at the gentleman who had just stepped into their path faltered a little when she recognized Mr. Sutcliffe.

"You are an accomplished dancer, Mrs. Bohannon," he said politely, his drawling voice strange to ears grown accustomed to the more clipped accents of Mississippi. He sounded almost Georgian, she thought. Or maybe Virginian.

"Thank you, Mr. Sutcliffe," she said. "I regret I have been too much occupied to take note of your grace on the floor."

It was a suitably polite and truthful reply, but Cullen made a soft snorting sound deep in his throat and his grip on her bodice eased a little.

"I shall have to rectify that," he said. "Might I have the honor of the next dance?"

Cullen stiffened afresh, and Mary forced a smile. "I believe it is to be a waltz, is it not?" she asked. "If that is so, I have promised it to Doctor Whitehead."

"Ah," said Mr. Sutcliffe, nodding. It was the only acceptable excuse. "The next waltz, then. Unless you are engaged for that one also?"

She was not, and she could scarcely claim fatigue for any dance but the immediately impending one. "The next waltz, Mr. Sutcliffe," she assented. "It will be my pleasure."

"And mine," he said, and moved off.

"I wish you'd told him no," Cullen hissed, almost too soon.

"How could I possibly?" whispered Mary.

"Dammit, I don't know!" Cullen shook his head. "He only wants to—"

"To make you angry," Mary said, her lips scarcely moving. "You mustn't let him do it. I'll be quite all right. I'm used to dancing with unpleasant older gentlemen."

"You are?" Cullen asked, surprised out of his judiciously hushed voice.

There was no need for her to lower her own voice anymore, either, for her next remark was harmless in this company. "Yes, indeed," she said. "I've danced with every one of my father's business associates, and New York railroad men can be exceedingly unpleasant."

Paulina Trussell and her intended were standing near enough to hear and they both laughed, earnestly amused instead of scornful. Mary smiled at them and then looked back at Cullen. "You'd best go and find a partner," she said. "Perhaps you ought to ask Felicity Ives. I think she might enjoy a turn about the floor: she seemed quite taken with you at supper."

Cullen chuckled and the furrows of frustration faded a little from his face. "A girl like Felicity would've filled her dance card last week," he said. "I'll go ask Greta. She sat out the last few: hopefully she's feeling energetic enough after her rest."

He was sweet to say it that way, with her sister so near. The truth was that Greta was not a very popular partner and despite the fact that good manners demanded the gentlemen give each lady ample opportunity to dance she was something of a wallflower. Mary nodded him off and then turned to look for Doctor Whitehead.

The doctor would have been an excellent dancer, but for the fact that he was so very careful. It kept his movements from having the languorous fluidity that a waltz required. Still Mary enjoyed that dance more than she had enjoyed any other she had had with a partner other than Cullen. Waltzes were made for talking, and Doctor Whitehead always turned the conversation to matters close to Mary's heart. They spent most of the dance talking about Gabe, and the dear man seemed to care genuinely about every small motherly pride or worry. He _did_ care, she thought. He must. He had brought Gabe into this world, after all, and his father before him, and she knew that in his quiet way Doctor Whitehead loved her husband. That love, it seemed, extended to her as well, and it was very comforting.

The dance ended far too soon, and it was time for another reel. Anxious about the waltz she had promised to Mr. Sutcliffe, Mary had intended to sit this one out, but Boyd came up to her.

"Do please tell me I might have your hand in this dance, Miss Mary," he said, oddly shy. "I've been trying all evening to get near you, but I do need to dance with everyone."

"Very well, and thank you," said Mary graciously. As she stepped onto the floor she saw Cullen hurriedly cast about for a partner so that he could join in the dance before the break between sections. He managed it, but only just, dragging a laughing Felicity Ives – free after all, so it seemed – to the very end of the line. Though she enjoyed the speed and the challenge of dancing with long-limbed Boyd, Mary spent the entire reel waiting for the moment when she was in the head couple and could whirl from arm to arm until she reached her husband. He laughed as he pranced with her, and once again she felt as young and foolish as a debutante.

But then the reel ended and the next waltz was announced. Cullen fell back against the wall, stalwartly ignoring his obligation either to dance or to attend upon a seated lady. And Mary smoothed her gloves and settled her composure as Mr. Sutcliffe approached her.

He took her arm and led her out, and they saluted one another: he with a crisp bow and she with a delicate, fluttering curtsey. Then he took her right hand in his left. Their gloves, both silk, slipped against one another and he tightened his hold ever so slightly. Mary lifted her left hand towards his shoulder, turning the palm carefully out so that only her index finger was in contact with his arm as was appropriate when waltzing with a man one scarcely knew. Then his right snaked about her waist and they were off.

"I understand you were brought up in some luxury in New York," he said smoothly. "Your father is a wealthy industrialist?"

"A railroad man," Mary said. "Not precisely wealthy, but comfortable."

"Ah." Mr. Sutcliffe nodded sagely. "It must be quite a change for you, then. Living as you do down here."

"I am sure I don't know what you mean, Mr. Sutcliffe," said Mary.

"Mississippi, of course," he said, a silky note to his voice. "So very different from New York."

"Certainly," Mary agreed. "Particularly with respect to weather. I could scarcely believe it when I celebrated my first Christmas here without even a flake of snow."

"I suppose this Christmas will not be a very cheerful one for you," said Sutcliffe sadly. He let this hang in the air for a moment before adding in a deliberately disjointed fashion; "Unless the results of the election are favorable."

"I'm afraid I have little interest in politics," said Mary. She searched her mind swiftly for the turn of phrase that Southern girls seemed to employ whenever men raised that subject. It was difficult to think, because they had taken a turn on the floor and now she could see her husband over her partner's shoulder. Cullen was glaring at the back of Sutcliffe's head as if he could will it to burst into flames. Mary gave him her most encouraging smile as the words came back to her. "Gentlemen are just ever so much cleverer about those things than ladies are."

Mr. Sutcliffe clicked his tongue. "Now, now, Mrs. Bohannon," he said. "May I call you Miss Mary? Miss Mary, I expected better of you. These silly ornamental girls might believe such things, but you're a different breed entirely."

"I think you'll find that Yankees can be every bit as ornamental as Southern girls," Mary said. She was beginning to grow uneasy. He was dancing rather too close and his hold on her back seemed almost possessive. His eyes too, she noticed, only seemed to spend a few moments at a time upon her face: they kept travelling downward instead. Every time she had touched Cullen that evening she had regretted the gloves on her hands. Now she was very glad of them.

"Some Yankees, maybe," cooed Sutcliffe. "But surely not you. Anyone who could make do as you have can be neither silly nor purely ornamental."

"Isn't the music lovely?" Mary said, leaping to a non-sequitur in an attempt to deflect the conversation from whatever it was he wanted to say that infused his words with such saccharine malice.

"Tell me, my dear, just what _do _you do all day when that brutish husband of yours is out grubbing like a nigger?" he whispered, leaning in now almost farther than propriety allowed. Almost, but not quite. He was still completely aware of their surroundings, like a panther moving slowly in for the kill in hostile territory. "Do you make the beds and scrub the floors? Or do you sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam?"

Mary tried again to take a step away from him, but he only moved in again. She could do nothing else without disrupting the dance, and that was one thing she dared not do. It was not because of the attention they had drawn when they stepped out: Mrs. Bohannon and the man who had been disparaging her husband for weeks throughout the county. She could have endured the embarrassment of breaking away from him, if it would get his hand off her back and his hateful words out of her ear. But if she did that then Cullen would know that Sutcliffe had said something untoward, and he would be livid with rage. He would have hard and angry words for the man – deserved, no doubt, but far more damaging to Cullen's image than to that of the wealthy planter. The way he was looking at them now, he might even be furious enough to do something more than shout. In her four years in Mississippi, Mary had never heard of anyone she knew actually trying to settle a matter of honor with dueling pistols, but she knew such things were still done on occasion. It was improbable, perhaps, but not impossible.

"I believe it's French," she said as if she had not heard him. "The music. Perhaps Mrs. Sutcliffe would know? Is she musically inclined?"

"He really ought to do better for you," said Sutcliffe. "For you and your dear little boy. What kind of a man is he, to let that _dear_ little boy grow up like a field hand?"

Mary found her own angry words rising. "Mr. Sutcliffe, you must not say such things about my husband," she said, forcing calm rebuke over righteous indignation. "Mr. Bohannon is a fine—"

But she was spared. The little orchestra crescendoed and struck the final notes. Sutcliffe had to release her so that they might salute one another, and she was free. "Thank you for the dance, Mrs. Bohannon," he said coolly, leading her towards the edge of the floor.

He did not get far, for Cullen came swooping in to take her arm. Without a word to his disdained neighbor he led Mary back to the discrete corner by the rubber plant where she had started the evening.

"What did he say to you? What did you talk about?" he asked in a hoarse undertone. His eyes were flashing and Mary noticed how the fingers of his right hand flexed as if of their own accord.

"The music," she said as serenely as she could. "The weather in Mississippi as it differs from New York. A Christmas without snow. My father's line of business."

He stared at her for a moment, thinking it through. It sounded like conversation enough to fill an entire dance without anything else. He relaxed a little, but only a little. "He didn't say anything he didn't ought to have said?"

"Well, he did start trying to talk about the election," Mary equivocated; "which is generally considered in bad taste when dancing…" She pursed her lips so primly that Cullen was startled into a laugh. She smiled for him. "He was only trying to make your blood boil," she said. "You mustn't let him spoil your evening."

"Only one thing can salvage this evening," Cullen said, but there was a playful note to the words.

"What's that?" asked Mary coyly, knowing the answer. The musicians were starting up a lively polka tune.

Cullen held out his hand and grinned, eyes snapping with sudden delight. "Dance with me," he said.


	20. Aftermath

_Note: In the immortal words of my baby brother: "Drunk Bohannon is Fun Bohannon". Which I really want embroidered on a t-shirt._

**Chapter Twenty: Aftermath**

The rattle of the buggy wheels woke Bethel from her shallow slumber. She raised her head up off the back of her chair, feeling the sinews of her neck shift and crackle in protest. She had not intended to fall asleep, but she supposed she should have expected to do so. It was long past the time at which she was ordinarily abed, and the day started so early in summertime. Hurriedly but stiffly she got to her feet. She had brought her chair from the kitchen into the dining room, just behind the door to the front entryway, so that she might hear when Mister Cullen and Missus Mary came home. The mistress had said she need not wait up for them, but that was absurd. Bethel couldn't very well rest soundly in her bed knowing that Mister Cullen was abroad at night.

The front doors were open, to catch the night air and to let the sound from the drive carry into the house, and Bethel quickly lit one of the lamps affixed to the wall. She touched the match to the wick of one of the table lamps, too – the one with the tall base that could be held almost like a torch. This she picked up as she went out onto the veranda to greet the returning revelers.

"Woah, Bonnie! Woah, Pike!" The buggy rolled to a stop before the house, its glossy body shining a little in the light of the moon, which was only one night past full. Bethel could see Mister Cullen's silhouette upon the driver's board, but the voice that had called to the horses was Missus Mary's. Frowning, Bethel came down the steps and approached the little carriage.

As her light approached Mister Cullen blinked stupidly at it, squinting against the glow of the kerosene flame. He had the lines in his hands, but they were slack. From the shadow of the buggy cover Missus Mary leaned out, gathering up the lead edge of the lap robe.

"You let me do that, Missus," Bethel said, setting the lamp down on the driver's seat beside Mister Cullen and unlatching the buggy door. "You goin' muss up that pretty dress with dust."

"Thank you, Bethel," the lady said sweetly. "You really didn't need to wait for us."

"I 'sepcts I didn'," said Bethel. "But it only right. You have a nice time at that party, honey?"

The broad, beautiful skirts were free of their coverings now, and Missus Mary gathered them in to make ready to stand. "Oh, yes!" she sighed, looking suddenly like a very young girl. "It was wonderful. Cullen? Wasn't it wonderful?"

"Wonderful," he said thickly. His eyes had adjusted to the lamplight, and he was now looping off the reins with exaggerated slowness. Bethel kept her expression carefully smooth, not wanting to lapse unwittingly into an indulgent smile. Mister Cullen was well in his cups.

On principle Bethel thoroughly disapproved of drunkenness. The elder Mr. Bohannon had been exceedingly fond of spirits, and had often become belligerent when he drank. She had tried in vain to curb the habit in Mister Cullen as a boy, but he had acquired an early taste for liquor and the other wealthy planters' sons with whom he had ridden in those days had all indulged. She privately suspected that he had perfected his head for alcohol during the years when he was out from under her sphere of influence and well away from her watchful and disapproving eye at university. Certainly by the time he had come back there had been no use in even attempting to dissuade him from drinking to excess. But all that was in the past, now, and he could no longer afford even to put wine on the supper table or to enjoy a pleasant (and socially permissible) taste of brandy before bed each evening. If it gave him pleasure to drink heavily one night after months of near-abstinence and ceaseless toil, Bethel was not going to begrudge him that little luxury.

He had finished with the reins and was now in the process of trying to climb down from the buggy. He moved with great care, his head bowed low so that he was peering out from under his eyebrows. He gripped the bar with his right hand and the edge of the board with his left, and shifted his hips, watching the cast-iron step bolted to the buggy box as if it might suddenly vanish.

"Here, min' that lamp," Bethel said, catching it up again before his coattail could drag it off the seat. Mister Cullen stood, swaying a little, and then very slowly and carefully climbed down off of the buggy. He paused as he rounded her, his bare head stretching backward, and he smiled.

"Evening, Bethel," he said. "Everything as it should be?"

"Yassir, Mist' Cullen," she said soothingly. "Ev'ything jus' fine here. You enjoy youself at Mist' Ainsley's?"

"It was about equal parts pleasure an' humiliation," he said solemnly, nodding like a scholar making some grave scientific observation. He shuffled around Bethel and held up his hand to his wife. "Mrs. Bohannon? May I have the honor of escortin' you up to your bed?"

Missus Mary flushed a little at this, but she smiled and placed her gloved palm upon his. "I'll go ahead and wait for you," she said. Her voice had the same gentle, patient lilt that she sometimes used when Mister Gabe was tired out beyond the capacity for reason or good behaviour. "You need to get Pike and Bonnie unhitched."

"Right," said Mister Cullen ponderously. "Tha's right." He looked at Bethel. "She's right."

Bethel shook her head. "You ain't in no fit state," she said. "I goin' get you upstairs, an' then I go wake Nate to see to them horses."

"Don' do that," Mister Cullen said mournfully, swinging his head like a pendulum. Missus Mary alighted from the buggy, keeping her hand lightly upon his, but using her other hand upon the buggy box for the leverage she needed. She gathered her skirts hurriedly after her and smoothed them after her somewhat inelegant descent. Her husband scarcely seemed to notice that she was now on the ground beside him, he was looking at Bethel.

"Don' do that," he repeated. His voice was blurred about the edges, and he blinked very slowly. "He got work in the mornin'."

"So does we all," said Bethel; "an' I 'spects you goin' have a mis'able time getting up for it. But you's like to get down the stable an' clear forget 'bout them horses, or leave the barn door open so they runs off."

He stared at her, clearly affronted. "I wouldn' do that," he protested. "Mary, would I do that?"

"I don't think so, dear, but you might so easily spoil your best suit," she said. "Bethel and I took such care in brushing it. If you do intend to see to the horses you had best get changed first."

Mister Cullen looked down at himself, running his palm along the front of his silk waistcoat. His thumb snagged on the chain of his watch and dragged it clear out of the little pocket. It swung drowsily between his hips until Missus Mary reached and carefully put it back. "Go on upstairs and change your clothes," she said. "Bethel can tie off the horses to wait for you."

He reached for his throat and pulled loose the knot of his cravat. "I think tha's best," he mumbled. "I think tha's best, don' you, Bethel?"

"Yassir, I think that bes'," she agreed stoutly. "You get out them nice clothes, an' don' you jus' leave 'em in a heap on the floor, neither. Put them over the chair."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, bobbing his head obediently. "Yes, ma'am: tha's just what I'll do."

He looked around as though he did not know quite where he was, much less where he was meant to be going. But Missus Mary took hold of his shoulders and turned him towards the veranda steps, then gave him the gentlest of pushes between the shoulder blades. He started off like a clockwork toy, moving in half-stumbling jerks until he reached the first stair. Then he watched his hand as it closed on the bannister, and pulled himself carefully up onto the porch. He got as far as the door and stopped, slouching against the post to look back at the women.

"Ain't you comin', pretty lady?" he asked.

"I'll be along presently," said Mary. "I just need a quick word with Bethel."

"Ah." He nodded as though he should have foreseen this, and then launched himself over the threshold and managed to catch hold of the newel-post before he fell to his knees on the second carpeted tread of the staircase. He began his slow progress towards the upper floor, his dark suit fading into the shadows beyond the reach of the wall-lamp.

When he was gone from their sight, Bethel sighed. "He goin' trip, or fall 'gainst the wall, an' wake Mist' Gabe," she said.

"Better Gabe than Nate," said Mary. "Gabe can have a good long nap tomorrow." She looked at the buggy. "Bethel, you don't suppose that you and I could manage to get them into their stalls? They don't need brushing after such a short ride, and the carriage boy at West Willows said he fed them at sundown, but…"

"You didn' ought to be in no stables in that dress, Missus, an' that the truth," Bethel said firmly. "I go wake Nate: he ought to be expectin' it. He lucky he ain't had to spen' the whole night with them horses on Mist' Ainsley's lawn."

"We could tuck it up," said Missus Mary. "I'd run and change, but if I do then Cullen will know what I'm about, and he really _isn't_ in any state to be looking after the horses. I never should have suggested it."

"Look like he have a mite too much to drink," Bethel agreed quietly.

"I believe he did," she said with a tiny smile. She looked down at her spreading skirts. "Suppose we did tuck it up, and maybe I got out of the hoop?"

Bethel shook her head. "Le's go into the parlor," she said. "We get you out of that dress an' them fine petticoats, an' you can cover up with one of my frocks. It ain't fitting, an' it ain't goin' fit you so well, neither, but there ain't nobody else to see."

Missus Mary's lips tightened a little as she considered this. It was an improper suggestion, of course, but over the last year propriety had bent again and again to necessity. Bethel respected the young woman's determination to do what needed to be done, and to do it herself with as little fuss as possible. Bethel was of the opinion that Nate could just roust himself out of bed and do his duty by his master, but she knew that he would not see it that way. He would be resentful and perhaps belligerent. Lately Nate had been increasingly restive, and Elijah said that when it was just the two of them he almost never stopped complaining. He hadn't been brave enough to bring his grievances to Bethel yet, doubtless knowing just what she would say. Still, she did not really want to have that confrontation in the middle of the night when the horses were waiting to go to their rest.

Finally the mistress nodded. "That's just what we'll do, Bethel, thank you," she said. "You have an answer to every problem, don't you?"

She moved to reach for the reins, but Bethel brushed her hand away. "You let me do that," she said. "An' you go in an' take off them jewels."

While Missus Mary retreated into the house, Bethel took the lines in her free hand. She harbored a secret fear of the spirited northern horses, particularly when they were harnessed together, but she did not intend to let them realize it. She brought the reins over Pike's head and tugged stoutly at them. "Budge on up here," she said, and to her enormous relief they stepped obediently forward, following her towards the fence so that she could tie them off on the rail. "Halt up! Woah!" she said, and Pike stopped at once. Bonnie tossed her head and pawed the ground impatiently, but she did not defy her partner. Bethel hurriedly wrapped the reins as best she could one-handed.

"You wait there," she said sternly, holding the lamp close to her face so that they could see her glare. Then she hastened up the steps.

Missus Mary was standing by the table that held the lamps and candlesticks, taking out her earbobs and setting them in the shallow glass dish meant, but seldom used, for visiting cards. She had already removed her bangles and Miss Charlotte's emerald necklace, and she carefully unpinned her garnet brooch. Then, with Bethel lighting the way, she retreated into the parlor.

The elaborate dancing costume that had taken them three-quarters of an hour to don was doffed in less than ten minutes: the gown draped across the back of the sofa and the petticoats piled on Mister Cullen's chair. Bethel hurried into the little room off the parlor. It had been intended as an office when the house had first been built, but for thirty years it had served as Bethel's bedroom. Lit only by the faint glow of the lamp left behind for her mistress, Bethel went to the battered old clothes press and brought out her Sunday dress. It was clean: freshly laundered yesterday afternoon and just down from the clothesline this morning. And although it was black and unadorned as befitted Bethel's age and position, it was made of good, smooth cotton and was not so very different in appearance from Missus Mary's work dresses. It would do.

She returned to the parlor to find Missus Mary stepping out of her hoop. There was a thump from above, and both women looked up at the ceiling, wondering what Mister Cullen had done to make such a noise. Then Bethel offered the dress and Missus Mary took it and lifted it hurriedly over her head. It was too broad in the shoulders and too short in the body and skirt, and the waist hung loose though it was too snug across the breasts, but they managed to button it up over the underpetticoat and the lacy corset-cover. Bethel took off her own apron and offered it to the mistress, who tied it on as they went out to the front yard again.

The horses were waiting patiently, and Missus Mary took their reins. This time Bethel allowed it, for she was glad not to be the one leading the big rattling buggy and the energetic team, and the mistress was no longer hampered by silk and hoops. Bethel went ahead with the lamp, but neither Missus Mary nor the horses really needed it: the path to the barn was level and well-known. At the threshold the younger lady dropped the reins to help Bethel haul open the heavy doors, and then led the team right in so that their noses almost touched the back door.

Bethel set the lantern on the driver's seat again, and the two women set to work unbuckling the traces and loosening the bridles. Missus Mary, bless her, took Bonnie and left the more docile Pike for Bethel. Missus Mary liked horses a great deal, and Bethel didn't think she was afraid of them at all – though at Mister Cullen's insistence she rarely rode Bonnie. She seemed to know just what she was doing as she worked, too, and Bethel found herself copying the younger woman's movements.

"How you learn to do that?" she asked curiously as her mistress picked the bit out of Bonnie's mouth and lifted the bridle carefully.

"I never really did," Missus Mary admitted with a small shy smile. "I used to sit in our carriage while the coachman did it, though, and I've certainly watched Cullen enough times. Still I'm sure I'll unfasten something that doesn't need loosening and he'll have to do a little extra reassembly next time. As it is we've got the buggy the wrong way 'round."

"That all right," said Bethel, mirroring the younger woman and bending to reach for Pike's belly girth. He sucked in his breath knowingly so that the strap hung a little looser and was easier to unfasten. "Still better 'n Mist' Cullen tryin' to do it hisself, drunk like he be."

She realized too late that this was not precisely the sort of thing a slave ought to say about her master, and clamped her lips together apologetically. Where Mister Cullen was concerned she was often less than formal, but to acknowledge so frankly that he was actually intoxicated, as opposed to the more delicate euphemism of "had too much to drink", was disrespectful. But Missus Bohannon only laughed a little, very quietly, and lifted the heavy harness off of Bonnie's back.

"You didn't ought to lift that…" Bethel protested faintly.

"Nonsense," said the lady. "I'm quite recovered. I was dancing all night, and I'm not a bit sore."

"You might be tomorrow," Bethel warned. "Thing like that tend to sneak up on a woman. Leastways you' feet goin' hurt."

"Yes, but it's worth it." The mistress had the lead halter over Bonnie's head now, and looked at the narrow space between the horse and the door. "Oh, dear," she said. "I think we'll have to take them outside to turn around."

"That easy enough," said Bethel, reaching for Pike's lead. He bowed his head obligingly so that she could put it on, and she dared to stroke his neck. "That a good horse," she said. "You know this ol' nigger don' know what she doin', don' you?"

"I think they knew that Cullen was… ah, a trifle intoxicated as well," said Missus Mary. "They kept to a slow trot even when he let the lines go loose, and they took the home turn without even needing the command. It was only at the house that I even needed to speak out. They wanted to go right on to the barn, and Cullen seemed to forget that he needed to stop them."

"It ain't right, a gentleman havin' to drive hisself home from a party," said Bethel. Together they dragged on the door that led to the paddock. One of the mules, awakened by the groaning of the wood, hawed loudly. The others stirred in their stalls, and Bonnie gave a disdainful snort. "What if them horses didn' behave, an' tried to run 'way with the buggy? It might of flipped right over an' crushed you both!"

"Pike and Bonnie are too clever for that," said Mary. "I tell you, they knew they were driving themselves home." She led Bonnie out into the moonlight and turned her around, then brought her back into the shelter of the barn and around into her deeply shadowed stall. Bethel tried to work up the courage to do the same, but even before she had a firm hold on the line Pike was walking, turning a patient loop and following his partner. Bethel had to hurry to keep step: he was leading her.

"There, pretty girl," Missus Mary said as she removed the simple halter and stroked Bonnie's nose. Bonnie tossed her head and butted at Mary's shoulder, but not hard enough to hurt her. The young woman went to the feed bin and took up two scoops into the pail, shaking it into Bonnie's trough. Then she did the same for Pike. The stalls were clean and laid with fresh hay: Nate and Elijah had seen to that. Bethel made sure the horses were well supplied with water, and Missus Mary checked twice that the stall gates were closed. Then together they shut the back door. Bethel collected her lantern, and Mary leaned over the wagon box, groping under the driver's seat for something.

"Where on earth did he… here it is!" she said, more to herself than to Bethel. She emerged, scrimshaw comb askew and curls coming loose of their pins, with Mister Cullen's good hat in her hand. She dusted it lovingly and smiled. "Poor dear, I'm afraid he's _very_ drunk. Mr. Ainsley is generous with his hospitality, and of course Cullen isn't accustomed to spirits like he once was." She looked up at Bethel. "I don't think he enjoyed himself nearly as much as I did," she said softly.

"Even did he have the bes' of times," said Bethel; "he'd want to know you 'joyed it more. Watchin' them he loves be happy make him happies' of all."

They moved together out of the stable, and closed the big doors on the backwards buggies and horses who were drowsily munching on their small extra measure of corn. Bethel moved to lead the way back to the house, but Missus Mary quickened her pace to walk beside her. This wasn't any more fitting than wearing a slave's clothes – even her best clothes – and seeing to the horses, but Bethel said nothing. There was something in the lady's demeanor that prevented her from speaking out.

"You taught him that, didn't you?" Missus Mary said softly, pausing when they reached the veranda steps. "To look first to the happiness of those he loves. To love the way he does."

Bethel looked at the sweet, earnest face and the tender blue eyes, and she shook her head. "I taught him his prayers an' his table manners an' how to button his britches," she said. "An' ol' Mist' Bohannon, he taught him readin' an' dancin' an' shootin' an' the like. But ain't nobody got to teach that boy how to love. He a good boy, Missus Mary, an' spite of all his troubles the world ain't spoiled him yet. Even when he ain't happy, he still a good boy."

And she walked up the steps and led her mistress into the house.

_*discidium*_

Mary ascended the stairs in stocking feet, a wary apparition in her white underthings. She had removed Bethel's dress in the parlor, and the old woman had loosened her stays for her. Now, with a candle in her hand she slipped quietly past the door of the nursery, standing ever so slightly ajar, and moved down to the door to the main bedroom. She stepped into the moonlit space and paused, unable to keep from smiling.

As he had been told Cullen had removed his evening clothes and placed them carefully over the back of the chair in the corner. Then he had completely negated his efforts to keep them from becoming rumpled by flopping down on top of them. He was asleep in the chair, snoring faintly, his head bent so far over its back that the tip of his nose pointed straight for the ceiling. One arm dangled over the armrest, fingers half-curled only a few inches above the floor, and the other was wrapped loosely around the small, nightshirt-clad figure perched upon his lap. Cullen had managed to get down to his underclothes before being interrupted, but Gabe had reached under Pappy's arm to pull the silver watch from the waistcoat pocket and he was turning it in his hands to catch the beam of moonlight reflected back by Mary's mirror.

Attention captured by the glow of her candle, the child looked up and grinned. "Mama!" he said happily. He jerked his chin in an uncanny imitation of Bethel. "Pappy sleepin'."

"I see that, dearest," Mary whispered, setting the candle on the table by the bed and approaching the strange tableau. "Why are you out of bed?"

"I heared a noise," Gabe told her solemnly. "_Bump_, _T'UMP!_ Bet'l say I de man of de house when Pappy gone, so I get up to look. If it a bear, I goin' shoot it." He pointed at her dressing table, where his little popgun sat next to her hairbrush.

"I see. It wasn't a bear, was it?" asked Mary.

"No, ma'am," said Gabe, shaking his head in a most serious manner. "It Pappy. He home! Sleepin' now, dough," he added regretfully, taking one hand off the watch so he could poke at his father's ribs. Cullen snorted shallowly and stirred, but did not awake. Gabe gave a long-suffering sigh and patted his father's breastbone. "He tired. He work hard today, Mama?"

"Yes he did, dearest, though not in the usual way," Mary said. "Come here and let's get you back to bed."

"Where your pretty clo'es?" Gabe asked, hopping down from Cullen's lap and padding over to take her hand. The watch refused to come with him, affixed as it was to the vest pinned under the sleeping man, and Gabe let it fall. It landed on Cullen's thigh.

"I took them off downstairs where Bethel could help me. Tomorrow you can help put the gown back in its box so it's ready for the next party," Mary told him as they stepped out into the corridor. "Were you a good boy for Bethel tonight?"

"Good boy," Gabe agreed. "I he'p shell dem peas. 'Ottie say it a _mountain_ of peas, an' we shell…" His story was cut short by an enormous yawn that stopped him dead in his tracks. He scrubbed his eyes with one little fist. He stood for a moment, dazed, then slipped his hand out of Mary's and lifted both arms in a gesture of entreaty. "Carry me, Mama?" he asked sleepily.

They were only three steps from his door, but Mary was happy to oblige. She bent her knees and gathered him onto her hip, and he wrapped his small arms about her neck. She drank in the sweet baby-scent of him and wondered how much longer it would linger, before he began to smell like a growing boy instead. She used her knee to push open the door and lowered him gently onto his bed. He promptly rolled onto his stomach and nuzzled his pillow while she straightened the tousled bedclothes and tucked him in.

"Goodnight, my darling," she whispered, stroking his curls as she bent to kiss him.

"Ain't we goin' pray?" asked Gabe in a thick, drowsy voice.

Bethel would have done his bedtime prayers with him, but in Gabe's mind this was a fresh bedtime and required its own benediction. Smiling at this adorable piece of infant logic, Mary knelt down by the bed and folded her hands where Gabe could see them.

"_Now I lay me down to sleep_," she began. Somnolently and with a voice almost as thick and slurring as that of his inebriated father, Gabe joined in. "_I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take._"

Mary bowed briefly over her hands and said; "Amen."

"'Men," mumbled Gabe. "An' God bless Pappy an' Mama an' Bet'l an' 'Ottie. An' Meg an' 'Lijah an' Nate an' Pike an' Bonnie an' Jeb an' dem derned mules, an' de cows an' de chickens an' de new kittens an' Gran'ma up in Heaven. Amen. An' de hogs," he added hurriedly.

Then almost immediately he was fast asleep, leaving Mary – who always had to keep from laughing when he came in his litany to his father's frequent plowing time invective, "them derned mules" – to pick herself up off the floor and slip quietly from the room. She had not been aware of any new kittens, but the barn cats roamed the plantation with impunity and bred as they pleased. So long as the kittens in question grew up to be capable mousers they were welcome, and no doubt it had been Lottie who had found them and shown them to Gabe. Perhaps she could speak to Cullen about bringing one of them into the house. A kitten was a suitable companion for a small boy, and Gabe would dote upon a pet of his own.

Stepping back into her bedroom, Mary was faced again with the sight of her sprawling husband, racked upon the chair in a position he was sure to feel in the morning. She drew near and picked up the watch. Feeling the clicking of the mechanism against her hand she pressed the little tab that caused it to spring open and tilted the face towards the candlelight. She had expected it to be silent in her grasp; it had wound down during backbreaking first week of tobacco-topping and had been dormant since. But Cullen had obviously taken the opportunity to wind it and set it by one of the Ainsleys' clocks. She looked at the time. It was nearly two o'clock: not quite four hours before Cullen had to be up to bolt down his predawn breakfast before the day's work began. Mary settled the watch on the edge of the chair and rested her palm on her husband's cheek.

"Cullen," she said softly. Then, a little louder; "_Cullen_."

He snorted and stiffened into a half-hearted flailing attempt to straighten. His eyes opened to slits and he made a vague grunting sound.

"Come on," Mary said, sliding her fingers around to the back of his head and easing it upright for him. He maintained that position for only a moment before his chin drooped to his chest instead. "We need to get you into bed. Just a few steps."

"Bed?" he muttered leadenly.

"Yes, bed." She lifted his left arm across her shoulders, and got her right between his shoulder blades and the trousers flung over the back of the chair. "You need to stand up, Cullen: I can't lift you all on my own."

His knees contracted and his feet shuffled, the left one skidding too far and tucking up under the chair, while the right one slid sideways instead of back. His head drooped against her breast, still cupped in her loosened corset, and he exhaled heavily. Mary could smell the liquor on his breath, and she could not help but wrinkle her nose a little.

"Try again," she coaxed. "You'll rest better in bed."

He made a valiant effort, and with Mary tugging him forward as he pushed off with his legs, he managed to get out of the chair. He was leaning heavily upon her, and then he opened his eyes again, further this time, and blinked deliberately. "Mary?" he said.

"Yes."

He straightened, unsteady but determined, and dragged his arm off of her shoulder. He looked bewilderedly around the room and then stumbled to the bed, clinging to the footboard as he worked his way around to his side. Mary ran fleetly around him so that she could pull the covers back, and he flopped down onto the feather tick, stomach down. As Gabe had done he buried his face in his pillow, rubbing his cheek against it until he found a comfortable spot. His left leg he had managed to get onto the bed, and he made a feeble attempt to hoist his right one. Mary took hold of his ankle to guide it as the muscles grew taut. She laid it gently by its mate and then stripped off his socks. They were his only silk pair, one heel carefully darned. She smoothed them and moved to put them on the chair with his other fine clothes. These too she straightened, though they were already creased, and then returned to Cullen's side to draw the bedclothes over him. His eyes were tightly closed and his lips drawn into a thin line.

"I'm drunk," he said, sounding almost surprised.

"Yes," she said, in a cheerful and matter-of-fact voice that made him squint up at her.

"You ain't mad?" he asked.

"No," Mary promised. "It was your night to enjoy yourself. _Did_ you enjoy yourself?"

"I enjoyed you," he mumbled, unaware of how indelicate he sounded. "You's one hell of a dancer."

He relaxed against the pillow and Mary thought he had drifted off to sleep, when suddenly he tensed, rolling onto his side and reaching out to seize her wrist. His eyes were open now, shining with great intensity in the moonlight falling from behind her. "I ain't goin' let you go hungry, you hear me?" he said. "Even if I got to mortgage everything I got, even if I got to go crawling on my knees to that bastard, I ain't goin' let you go hungry!"

Mary was startled, both by the words and by the urgency with which they were spoken. But being the mother of a small child had taught her to remain calm in the face of another's agitation, and she managed to keep her voice gentle and melodious as she bent to smooth his hair away from his forehead. "Of course you won't," she soothed. "You never have. Now do go to sleep, Cullen. Morning comes early."

He settled under her touch, but still shook his head petulantly as he settled back against the mattress. "I can feed my family," he protested, his words running together. "God dammit, I can feed my family…"

"You can. Of course you can. Hush now: go to sleep." Mary petted his head and ran her other hand soothingly along his spine, just as she would have done to comfort Gabe in the wake of some imagined horror. Gradually he quieted, snuffling as he breathed into the well-plumped pillow, and his breathing leveled off. At last, almost certain that he was asleep, Mary withdrew from the bed.

She unhooked her corset and laid it out to air for morning, then untied her petticoat and took off her chemise and let her pantalets fall to the floor. She slipped into her nightgown, buttoning it deftly to the throat and bent to recover her cast-off undergarments. She folded the petticoat over her arm and laid it in the wicker hamper behind the door. The chemise followed, and she straightened the legs of her pantalets. She was about to set them down when her eye caught something she had not thought to look for. There was a small dark stain at the top of the left leg, where the garment was split to accommodate necessary conveniences without disrobing. Fingers trembling, she spread the cloth and tilted it to the light. Then she thrust the pantalets deep among the other soiled linens and hurriedly blew out the candle.

She sank down upon the braided rug beside the bed, and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them to her. The merriment and strains of the evening were forgotten. The joy of dancing with her husband, the pleasant conversations with Doctor Whitehead and the young man from Kemper County, the awkward and unpleasant waltz with Mr. Sutcliffe, and Verbena's sweet and very friendly goodnight disappeared. The sense of pride she had felt in helping Bethel with the horses, the amusement at her son's nocturnal escapade, and her concern over Cullen's semiconscious outburst evaporated. There was only that awful, gaping sense of loss: that void inside of her that she had thought she had healed, or at least covered over and buried deep laid bare and raw again. That anguish that, she realized now, would never quite desert her if she lived a hundred years. Mary buried her head in her tightly crossed arms and wept, silently and convulsively, until she was too worn out to weep any longer. Then she picked herself up and fetched the little rag-bag from its hiding place at the back of her underwear drawer. She did what she had to do and slipped into bed beside her sleeping husband, utterly spent and yet wakeful with heartache.

She had started her courses again.


	21. Shrewd Dealing

**Chapter Twenty-One: Shrewd Dealing**

Thursday was the day for churning, and after the breakfast dishes were cleared away Bethel went down to the springhouse to bring up the cream that had been collected through the week. In summertime the cows gave generously, and there was plenty of milk: for drinking and baking, for cream and butter and for cheese making when they could get a bit of rennet, with a good share left over to give to the hogs to fatten them up and make the feed corn stretch farther. Bethel was always able to fill the six large tin jugs with the best skimmings of cream without taking from any other share of the milk. She brought them into the kitchen one at a time, strong thin arms straining under the weight, and set them close to the stove. The day was hot and growing hotter, and Mary was glad: a hot day meant the butter would form faster, and with less dashing.

While Bethel made the wearisome trips up from the creek, Mary scrubbed out the tall churn. It had been thoroughly washed after last week's work, of course, but it needed to be free from dust and perfectly clean before they could begin. In the big boiling pot she scalded the butter molds and the heavy oaken butter dash, and she wiped the kitchen table and measured out salt from the rapidly-emptying keg. Gabe was out in the barn with Lottie, visiting the litter of kittens. His absence from the house left Mary feeling strangely bereft, as though he too had been taken from her.

When the cream was all set down to warm, Mary and Bethel each took hold of one handle of the first jug that had been brought, and emptied it into the churn. Bethel placed the dasher and the stout wooden lid, and the hard work of churning began. They took it in turns: one beating the cream with the heavy rod while the other sat in the back doorway where the heat was not so fierce and worked at stringing the two pecks of green beans that they intended to pickle that afternoon. When it was Mary's turn to churn she could think of nothing but keeping her feet firmly planted and forcing her arms to lift again and again, fighting the thickening cream and the weight of the dasher. As Bethel had prophesied she was sore, but from her freshly-resumed monthly course instead of the miscarriage, and she was very quiet as she worked. But Bethel, stronger despite her age and far more used to such work, sang as she hefted the dasher. She knew dozens of old Negro songs, simple of tune and strong of rhythm; perfectly suited to the hard and repetitive labor, with the thump of wood against wood pounding like a drum in time to the melody.

Mary listened, glad of the distraction from her unhappy thoughts, but she did not dare to sing even when she picked up on the chorus. These songs were so unlike the ballads and the rollicking popular songs that had flourished in New York. They were stirring and almost visceral in their swinging repetition, but there was also a fierceness to them: a bold defiance of work, of weariness, of the drudgery of daily life. It made Mary uncomfortable, though she could not think why.

As the butter thickened the speed of the churning slowed, and tired arms dragged against the growing resistance within the churn. It was Bethel, of course, who declared when the batch was finished, and how she knew Mary could not quite tell. But she never missed her guess: when she lifted the lid the butter would be gathered into a lump that bobbed sleepily in the buttermilk. Bethel would scoop it out into one of her wooden mixing bowls with the butter paddle, and then while she emptied the churn of the residual liquid Mary would rinse the butter. They used fresh well water for this, as cold as they could manage on such a warm day. Mary poured water over the butter and tipped it off into a slop pail, over and over again. When it began to run clear she would press the butter with the paddle, splitting and spreading the lump and rinsing again and again until the last of the buttermilk was gone from it. She could not squeeze it in her fists, though this would have been easier, because the heat of her hands would melt the butter and render it unfit to be used. In the midst of this process she would stop briefly to help Bethel pour off another jugful of cream for the next batch, and the process would begin again.

They were halfway through the third churning when Lottie and Gabe came in from the stable. Lottie helped the little boy to stand upon the stool and clean his hands at the washbasin, then she sat him at the table. Mary was churning and Bethel was busy with the beans. Lottie poured a cup of fresh buttermilk for Gabe and cut a thick slice from the dwindling loaf of bread that was meant to last until tomorrow night. She spread it generously with sorghum-sweetened strawberry jam and put it on a plate for the child. Gabe smacked his lips happily and bit into it.

"What do you say to Lottie?" Mary asked, a little breathless with the effort of keeping the dasher moving against the ache in her elbows and shoulders.

"I likes jam," Gabe said. There was a brilliant red smear at the corner of his mouth, and his questing finger found it, scooping up the sweet preserve and depositing it upon the tip of his tongue instead.

"Gabe," Mary said, a little more firmly. "What do you say to Lottie when she fixes you something nice to eat?"

"T'ank you, 'Ottie," he said, catching on at last. Lottie beamed happily at him, but she did not sit down beside him as a Northern nursemaid would have.

"Lottie, you may have some as well if you wish," said Mary.

"They's some of yest'day's pone in the pantry under the blue checked cloth," said Bethel. "He'p youself."

"You may have bread if you want it, Lottie," Mary said. She was contradicting Bethel's instructions, and she knew the black woman would not approve, but she was in a curious mood today. Lottie was caring for Gabe when Mary could not spare the time, and Mary was very grateful to know her child was in such capable young hands. Bread made of wheat flour was a treat for Lottie, for cornmeal was the starch customarily given to slaves.

Lottie hurried back to the breadbox, halting with the loaf in one hand and the knife midair in the other when Bethel said; "We's runnin' low on flour, Missus Mary. You oughts to save that there for the family."

"There's plenty for Cullen's supper, and Gabe and I can have pone with our dinner," said Mary. "It will make a pleasant change. Go on, Lottie: have some bread and jam, and some buttermilk, too. You know we always make more of that than we can possibly use."

This was certainly true. Bethel usually kept back a pitcher of buttermilk for immediate consumption, and enough to make buttermilk biscuits the following morning, as well as filling a gallon jug for Meg to use or dole out to the others, but most of it was given to the hogs. In this heat buttermilk did not keep long without spoiling, and even in the springhouse it would often curdle.

Lottie prepared her own snack and stood next to Gabe to eat it. The little boy was now watching his mother with great interest.

"Mama, may I try?" he asked.

Mary could not help laughing, just a little. "Oh, darling, your arms are much too small to lift the dash," she said. When you are older you may."

"My arms is strong," said Gabe, pointing at his bicep to show her. "I climbded all de way up de ladder, didn' I, 'Ottie?"

"Which ladder?" Mary asked, surprised at this. She knew that Gabe liked to climb the fence rails or the slatted stall doors in the stable, but she did not much like the thought of him attempting to climb a ladder.

"Only the one in the barn, Missus," said Lottie. "Up to the haylof'. Them kittens is up there, you see."

"I see…" Mary was not sure this was at all reassuring. The hayloft was a good twelve or fourteen feet above the barn floor, and there was no rail to keep a child from wandering off the edge.

"Don' worry," said Lottie. "I steps jus' behind him all the time he climbin'. He not goin' fall."

"Thank you, Lottie," said Mary. She was perspiring heavily now and her arms protested every attempt at lifting the dash. "Gabe, you mustn't go up into the hayloft unless Lottie is with you. Do you understand?"

"Yassm," said Gabe around a mouthful of bread and jam. "How you git butter dat way, Mama? You jus' hittin' milk."

"That's how you make butter," Mary said. "You put cream in the churn and hit it until it thickens."

"But why?" asked Gabe.

"I'm not sure," admitted Mary. "Bethel? Do you know why?"

"'Cause that's how folks always done it," Bethel said, tossing the bean she was holding into the pot at her side and getting to her feet. "You give me that, Missus Mary: it my turn."

"But _why?_" Gabe pressed. "Why you git butter when you hit dat cream?"

"Honey, I don' know," said Bethel as she shooed Mary's hands away from the dasher and took over the rhythm of steady pounding. Mary retreated to the chair in the doorway and filled her apron with beans.

"Do Pappy know?" said Gabe. "I can ask him. I's goin' ask him."

He slid off the bench and under the table before Lottie could stop him, crawling between the legs and scrambling to his feet as he hurried for the door. Mary put out her arm to stop him before he could escape the house.

"You can't go to see Pappy, love," she said. "He's cutting timber with Nate and it isn't safe."

Gabe's lower lip quivered and he stamped one small bare foot. "I want to!" he declared. "I never gets to see Pappy no more, 'less'n he tired out or he goin' 'way. Why he got to work so hard?"

"He a growed man, that why," said Lottie. "He can' jus' sit in the house an' play all day." She frowned. "I don' see why he don' jus' buy wood, though."

"You a fool chil'," Bethel said darkly. "There ain't money to buy what we can make or git ourselves. Now you leave this here boy with us, an' go see how the garden be. Is them carrots fit for pickin' yet?"

"Some of 'em," said Lottie, finishing off her tin cup of buttermilk and picking up Gabe's empty plate.

"Then pick some," said Bethel. "We goin' have carrots with our dinner."

Lottie slipped past Mary with a hurried curtsey, and ran out across the dooryard. Mary watched until she disappeared around the corner of the house, her fingers still stringing beans of their own accord. Working the butter churn with seemingly tireless arms, Bethel began to sing again. Gabe, clapping excitedly in time to the rise and fall of the butter dash, joined in with his own nonsensical and sometimes hopelessly garbled words to the familiar tunes.

_*discidium*_

In the shade of the trees Cullen's headache was not so fearsome, though the ringing of the axe did resonate deep into his skull. He and Nate were taking only the slender trees, felling them quickly and stripping the branches before hefting the logs between them and carrying them over to the clearing where the mules grazed lazily in the wagon harness. It would save work later, because the lengths of wood would only require one or two splittings to get it down to a useable size. It took a great deal of fuel to keep the two cookstoves burning, and before winter Cullen wanted to lay by enough for the fireplaces as well. Then there was the wood for the tobacco barn, and the fire that would burn day and night without stop until the whole crop was cured. He understood now why wood fetched the price it did: it took several days' work to fell and cut and split a single cord, and that was just the river-bottom birch that grew in great abundance on his land. Oak was tougher, and consequently burned longer, but it did not sell for much more. He supposed he ought to be grateful that he was a planter instead of a woodsman.

The truth was, though, that this was more enjoyable work. He liked the whistle of the axe through the air, and the satisfying shudder as the blade dug into the wood. It was hard labor toting the felled trunks, but he could keep his back straight and walk tall while he did it. And the splitting, though ceaseless, required a swift, precise stroke that seldom went awry. He was good with an axe. He was almost useless with a scythe or a plow.

He let the tree fall, tracing its arc with his eyes, and grinned faintly as it crashed into the underbrush. Somewhere nearby a squirrel chittered noisily, scolding him. It wasn't much fun for a tree-dweller, Cullen supposed, to watch a giant with an axe taking out birch after birch and hauling them away stripped and dead. But what of it? The creek bottom was full of trees: hundreds, likely thousands of them. And he left the tallest ones standing. From where he stood he could see at least a dozen saplings that in another two or three years would be just as large as the one he had just felled.

Rather than set about cutting off the branches at once, he picked his way up the sloping bank to the wagon. He fetched himself a dipper of water from the pail beneath the seat and drained it quickly. He was exceedingly thirsty, and no matter how much he drank he could not quite get the sour taste of the morning after out of his mouth. He had drunk far too much the night before, and he had been paying for it all day. At least the dizziness was gone now, as was the vague feeling that he might empty his stomach at any moment, though the headache lingered and with it the cloudy fatigue. Still he couldn't wish away the night of self-indulgence, and was not at all sure that he would want to if given the chance. He remembered most of what had come to pass at Boyd's gathering, and he thought he might not have dragged himself through parts of it without the liquor to warm his blood. He had had his cheerful moments, certainly, chiefly when whirling around the dance floor with Mary. But what he remembered with greater clarity were the moments of discomfiture, displeasure, and downright humiliation. Having young George White offer him charity – that had been uncomfortable. The realization that he was helpless against Abel Sutcliffe's slander had been miserable. But seeing that pompous and brutish and venal old man dancing with Mary… that had been almost more than Cullen could bear to see.

It made him sick to think of that brute, all arrogance and ill-concealed proclivities, laying hands upon his wife, his sweet and beautiful Mary who never had an unkind thought in her head. It did not matter that Cullen had been in the room the whole time, watching them ceaselessly as they waltzed. It was the principle of the thing. And a waltz, of all dances: slower, more intimate, made for talking. Cullen didn't know what the man had said. He wasn't sure whether he believed Mary's version to be complete. What he did know is that even if Mary maybe hadn't realized it, Sutcliffe's words were sure to have been loaded with malice and scorn. It had left Cullen feeling beaten and shamed just to watch it, and the subsequent delight of taking almost all of the last dances of the night with his beautiful Mary had been tainted by it.

He had only foggy memories of the end of the evening: of Boyd, extorting from him a promise to call more often; of Verbena saying they must get together for a small, friendly supper; of Mary suggesting that perhaps the Ainsleys might like to call on the Bohannons in return some Sunday afternoon. He dimly recalled leading Mary out to the buggy, and questioning Pip at length about the care Pike and Bonnie had received that evening. And taking the reins in his gloved hands, and watching the patches of moonlight on the road. He remembered Gabe coming in upon him as he was undressing, at first drowsy and anxious and then briefly talkative, and then…

Then only the morning's miserable awakening, with his head spinning and his mouth full of sand, and Mary gently stroking the hair off his brow as she called to him and reminded him that Bethel would be laying on breakfast. Somehow Cullen had hauled his bones out of bed and into his work clothes, and he had stumbled downstairs to find hot coffee and hominy waiting while Bethel finished preparing the rest of the meal. He had eaten ravenously, his stomach no doubt stretched from its exertions at the bountiful Ainsley table, but by the time he had finished with the horses he had been regretting his appetite. It was only in the last hour or so that the meal had finally ceased to lie like a stone in his stomach.

He shouldered his axe again and returned to the tree. Stripping off the branches was quick work, and he shouted for Nate. There was a crash somewhere off to his left, and shortly afterward the black man came shambling over.

"Take that end," Cullen said, nodding towards the top of the trunk. He drove his axe into a stump and bent his knees to get a hold on the base. "One, two, hoist…"

Both grunting with the effort they got the log off of the ground and laid across their shoulders. Nate had the lighter end, but he also had the harder part of the toting: trailing behind while Cullen climbed the embankment. The heap of logs in the wagon bed was not much below shoulder-height now, and it was easy enough to unload their cargo. Together they pushed it until it was more or less even with the others. The wagon box groaned a little, but the mules, still munching, scarcely even seemed to notice.

"That's about a full load, I think," said Cullen. "You got one more down?"

"One more," Nate agreed impassively. "It ain't bare yet."

"We'll strip her together," said Cullen. He squinted through the glowing canopy to find the sun. "It's just about dinnertime."

"Then back in the tobacco 'til sundown." The other man's deep voice was grimmer now. "Every damn day you got us out in that tobacco."

"I discussed it with Elijah," Cullen said, leading the way back down to the creek bottom to retrieve his axe before gesturing that Nate should show him where the last log was waiting. "He agreed it was preferable to work it when it's dry, and the dew's still thick 'til noon."

"Plants still wet all day," Nate argued.

"Yes, but not as wet. We been staying dryer, haven't we? I mean apart from Monday and Tuesday: that couldn't be helped. It ain't a perfect solution, but it's workable. Elijah said—"

"Don' matter what Elijah say," grumbled Nate. "It mis'able to be out there ev'ry day, an' we all goin' get sick of it 'fore long."

Cullen halted in his tracks. When Nate kept walking he squared his shoulders under the weight of the axe and let out a sharp; "_Hey!_"

Nate halted and turned slowly. When he had the Negro's eye, Cullen demanded; "You got something you want to say to me?"

"Wha's to say? You done discussed it all with Elijah."

The tone was deliberately flat, but there was a belligerent cast to the man's posture and a gleam of defiance in his eyes. Cullen frowned.

"And you think I oughta discussed it with you instead, is that it?" he asked unsympathetically. "Elijah got more experience than you, and what's more he's the foreman."

"You ain't got no need for a foreman," argued Nate. "You ain't got but three field hands, and one of them a woman. Don' go pretendin' you's something you ain't."

"I'll tell you what I ain't," said Cullen. He wanted to close the distance between them, but that would look too much like he was moving into the other man's territory. "I ain't a man that's going to stand for one of his slaves making trouble. Now, if you got a grievance you got a right to voice it, but putting on like you don't intend to do as I say is another matter, 'specially in front of the others. You got to set an example, you hear me?"

"Who for?" snorted Nate. "You jus' said Elijah above me, an' Meg got stars in her eyes when she look at you, on 'count of you treat her like she's a woman an' not jus' some field hand. And there ain't nobody else."

"There's Lottie," said Cullen. "She got to learn how to grow up right, an' it don' do her no favors to let her see you balking in harness. Her father ain't around to teach her how to behave: she goin' look to you an' Elijah for that."

This seemed to make an impression upon Nate, for he took four hurried steps towards Cullen before halting. Cullen kept his expression guarded, fingering the handle of the axe almost boredly, but he was alert to any sign that he might be coming out ahead in the exchange.

"I know she ain't got her father around," he said. "I look out for that girl the bes' I can."

"So do I," said Cullen. "She's my girl."

The darkie's jaw tightened and his nostrils flared with the passing of his breath. Something lanced through his eyes, but it vanished so quickly that Cullen could not even say conclusively that it had been anything more than a trick of the light, much less identify the emotion at play.

"You got a grievance or not?" he asked.

"You got us workin' too hard," Nate declared. "Ev'ry damned one of us. The missus washin' clothes when she jus' out her sickbed, pickin' beans an' makin' butter an' even unhitchin' them horses. Old Bethel doin' the work of cook an' housemaid an' head woman an' mammy all at once. You, me an' Elijah puttin' in fifteen hours a day mos' days, an' Meg not much less'n that on top her women's work. An' Lottie helpin' in the house an' the garden an' the yams, an' prob'ly goin' get in with the corn, too. Only one on this place ain't run ragged is that li'l boy. How long you think we's goin' be able to keep this up?"

The frantic protestation that he did not know almost sprang from Cullen's lips, but he caught it just in time. Nate's words betrayed his exhaustion as his bearing never did, and spoke to his secret anxiety. If he guessed the degree to which Cullen shared in both he would lose faith in his master, and maybe hope in the struggle. That would be disastrous.

"You got some other way of doing things?" Cullen asked. "You got some better idea for getting the work done?"

Nate's mouth opened swiftly, then closed again. His full lips shriveled to a thin line, and at last he took his head. "No. No, sir. I ain't."

"I see. Well, we've just got to keep on going this way, then, don't we?" said Cullen. "I thought maybe it'd take some of the burden off if we didn't need to work long days in the tobacco, and Elijah agreed. We'll try it another week, and if it turns out it's worse like this we can go back to bein' out there at dawn in the damp and the dew. But the work got to get done somehow, don't it?"

'Yassir," said Nate slowly, his shoulders slumping in defeat – not in the debate with his master, Cullen thought, so much as in the fight against bitterness. "Yassir, it got to. But in the old days…"

"In the old days there were thirty people working them fields, and all that pasture was cultivated," said Cullen. "You tell me how I can get my hands on twent-six men and plow up three hundred and fifty acres overnight, and then we can talk 'bout how it was in the old days. And you tell me, Nate. Are you really worse off now? I know I am, the plantation is, even Bethel is, but are _you_? Think about it and be honest."

The nearest thing to a scowl that Cullen had seen on his one-time friend in years spread now across Nate's face. His brown eyes darkened almost to black and his brow furrowed. His hands balled suddenly into fists so tight that his knuckles paled. For the span of two breaths he seemed at war with himself. Then he opened his fists and flexed his fingers, looking down at them.

"Leastways in the old days a man could get a new pair of boots when he start wearin' through his soles," he muttered.

Cullen restrained the urge to scrub at his aching temples. "You'll get your boots when the tobacco's sold," he said wearily. "Not a thing I can do about it 'til then." He thought of his son, now barefoot because his little shoes did not fit, and he felt sick. Try as he might, he couldn't quite take care of his people.

"When the tobacco come in," said Nate, shaking his head. "Ev'ything we need we goin' get when the tobacco come in. Mist' Cullen, you soun' like a farmer. One them down the Sowashee with nothin' but ten acres an' a spavined mule."

Cullen flinched as though he had been struck. Coming from one of his own folks, this stung worse than any barb thrust by Abel Sutcliffe or his cohorts. He had thought – had hoped – that his earnest efforts and his determination to ask nothing of them that he would not do himself might keep the respect of his slaves even if he was no longer an idle planter dispatching commands from the luxury of a well-appointed house. But here was Nate, once a better friend to him than any white boy, resenting his poverty and disdaining him for his struggles. It shriveled his battered pride and filled him with impotent frustration and a feeble, wretched anger.

"I might sound like a farmer," he snapped; "but I'm still your master, and you best stop this talk right now. Let's get on and strip that tree. You ain't stopping to eat until that wagon's unloaded and the mules get rubbed down."

Nate stared at him for a disconcerted instant, and then blinked. "Yes, Massa," he said crisply. "She right over here."

He led the way and Cullen followed. Both unloading the wagon and seeing to the team were two-man jobs, and he could hardly leave Nate to struggle on his own: they would both have to wait for their simple dinner. But at least he had beaten back the rebellion in the other man's eyes, if only temporarily.

_*discidium*_

Mary came into the parlor while Cullen was counting the meagre cache of money kept in the drawer of the secretary. He was lost in idle, worried figuring and did not notice the intrusion until she stepped up behind him and placed two letters on the writing surface. He looked at them, for a moment perplexed. They had long since used the last of their envelopes, and she had folded the papers carefully in upon themselves and closed them with homemade sealing wax. The mixture, made of beeswax from old candle-ends, pine resin and turpentine, had a grubby look to it, but it worked well enough – and the entire packet was likely to be grimy by the time it reached New York or Maine. Cullen sat back from his stooped position over the coins and banknotes, and picked up the plump epistles.

"One for Mother, one for Jeremiah?" he said conversationally, tucking them into the inner pocket of his topcoat.

"Yes," Mary said.

"You remember to send my love?" Cullen asked.

She smiled for him. "Of course."

A week had passed since the Ainsley party, and the time had been nothing more than a blur of summer work and gnawing worries. Nate had given no trouble since their talk in the creek bush, but he was worn out and Cullen could see Meg and Elijah were too. They all worked as hard as they could and as fast as they could, but there was always more to be done and the need to constantly coddle the tobacco sapped strength they might have spent elsewhere. Mary and Bethel and Lottie were doing a remarkable job of managing the garden without much additional help, but Cullen thought they too were flagging. Mary in particular always seemed to look tired and sad, except when she saw him watching and put on one of her brave smiles. She had even begged off of church on Sunday, and had spent the day reading quietly to Gabe instead. In his scant moments of free thinking time between fretting about the tobacco and imagining the dozens of calamities, both material and fiscal, that might visit them between now and November, Cullen worried about her. She hadn't been herself since she had taken ill, and that was a fact.

"So we need salt and five pounds of sugar for laying in some good preserves," he said, ticking off his mental list on his fingers. "A little dried cod if the price is favorable, but we absolutely don't need any more flour. That sound right to you?"

"We don't need cod either," said Mary. "Bethel's just got it into her head that Gabe ought to have more fish. I can't think why: he's a child, not an alligator." She hesitated, her expression wavering. "Cullen, about Jeremiah's letter…"

"I'll send it postage paid, don't worry," he promised. He did not much want to, since the man had not been considerate enough to do the same, but he would for Mary's sake.

"It isn't that," she said. "When he wrote to me, he wrote to propose we might come to Bangor to visit."

"We can't," Cullen said hoarsely. The words came out by reflex, before he could soften them or modulate his tone. "I ain't got no money for rail fares, even if we could be spared off the place."

"I know," Mary said softly, and try as he might he could not help seeing the glimmer of regret in her eyes. "I've written to tell him it's quite impossible for us to travel, with summertime so busy and Gabe still so young."

"That's all right, then," Cullen exhaled. The excuse of the small child was a welcome one. He didn't know how much of their situation Mary had disclosed to her family, but he didn't like the idea of admitting their penury quite so blatantly. Even if such a long journey was an extravagant expense even for a well-to-do man, he preferred to keep his famished finances well away from Jeremiah Tate's scrutiny.

His relief dissolved almost instantly when Mary added, tremulously; "So I told him that he and Frances are welcome to visit us if they wish."

Cullen very nearly choked on his own tongue, straightening up as far as his aching back would allow and twisting on the chair to gawk at her. He managed to curb himself before blurting out that they were most certainly _not_ welcome, not while he had breath in his body. "I don't know that's such a good idea," he managed, much more diplomatically. "Your brother and I ain't never got on that well."

"I know that," said Mary. "But he writes… he writes that he's concerned we might not have the opportunity to see one another again for a long while, with matters as they are at present."

"Matters as they are?" Cullen echoed. "He's an abolitionist and we own slaves. Ain't that matter enough to prevent us from seeing one another?"

"He means the political situation," Mary murmured, avoiding his eyes. "I don't… he doesn't say it, but he seems to think the sla… the _Southern_ states really might secede from the Union. If they do… if Mississippi does… and anyhow he hasn't even met Gabe yet, and I could hardly refuse his invitation without extending our own, and I know you don't like him, but…"

"He don't like me," he told her plainly. "And from what he said when we got married I thought he didn't much care for you anymore, either." That was what he really couldn't forgive. The differences in philosophy and temperament between two men of vastly disparate upbringings was one thing, but the hard and hateful things Jeremiah had said to his baby sister at what should have been a joyful time still rankled deeply in Cullen's heart.

Mary stiffened at that, and such hurt appeared in her gentle eyes that Cullen had felt just about sick with guilt over his ill-chosen words. "He's my brother," she said. "He'll always love me, even when he disagrees with me or disapproves of my decisions." Then she sighed. "I'm sure he won't want to come. He couldn't possibly feel comfortable doing so with his principles, and Frances certainly wouldn't want to. She's convinced that everything south of Philadelphia is wild and dangerous and uncivilized."

Cullen was somewhat mollified by this. After all, the proposed journey was atrociously expensive, and even if Mary's father used his influence to arrange complimentary passage on the railroads most closely bound to the Tate concerns it would cost at couple hundred dollars at least. Even if he had money to burn, he doubted he would squander that sort of a sum for the privilege of spending a fortnight with Jeremiah Tate. He was quite sure the reverse was also true. There was always an outside possibility, of course, if Jeremiah truly did believe that the federal government would force secession and if he truly did want to see his sister as badly as he claimed, but it seemed remote enough.

"All right," he said. "I'm sure you done the right thing in extending the offer, even if I earnestly hope he don't take it. There anything else you need in town? Anything you _want_?"

Mary looked at him, soft eyes thoughtful. At last she shook her head. "Just drive safely and try not to get into any quarrels," she said.

"Quarrels?" He dredged up an impish grin. "What cause would I have to be getting into quarrels?" He got to his feet and kissed her, scooping the few gold coins into his hand and tipping them back into their drawer. He folded the wrinkled banknotes into his pocketbook and tucked it into his coat. "If I head out now I ought to be home in time for dinner," he said.

It was a hard thing to lose another morning's work, but as the buggy jolted over the bump near the turning and swept onto the main road Cullen was visited by a still more disquieting truth. The fact of the matter was that there was a part of him, a substantial and cowardly part, that was glad of the respite. He hated himself for it, but he could not deny it. A chance to get off on his own for a morning, even just to fetch salt and a little sugar, was a mercy in the drudgery of another dreary week. He shifted on the hard board seat, trying to find a comfortable position. His whole body ached with the tobacco-suckering pains that were going to be his constant companion from now until October. Nate was right about that: any individual day was less grueling for the variety of work and the chance to labor in clothes that were more-or-less dry instead of thoroughly sodden, but the sustained and ceaseless field labor was going to grind their spirits away.

Meridian was busy today: the boardwalks crowded and the hitching posts all but full. Cullen managed to find a place just about broad enough for his team two doors down from the grocer's, and gave them their nosebags and some quiet encouraging words before he set off towards the telegraph office. He mailed the letters and, though it galled him, sent them both postage paid as he had promised. He didn't know if it had been carelessness or meanness that had made Jeremiah Tate send them a letter without that courtesy and he did not much care. It rankled him regardless.

He stopped by his buggy to compose himself. It would not do to appear weary or disheartened or desperate. Although he had money enough in his pocket to buy what he needed if it came to that, he was hoping to charm the grocer into extending credit. What cash he had he wanted to keep against some greater future need. If Mary needed the doctor again, if they broke a plowshare putting in the winter wheat, if Nate really did wear through the soles of his boots before the harvest was in, it would be best to have a little money on hand. Cullen straightened his collar and tugged at his waistcoat and carefully wound his watch, then adjusted his hat to a jauntier angle and fixed a pleasant expression on his face. From the floor of the buggy he picked up the little crate wrapped in three layers of canvas that Bethel had given him, and he strolled down towards the shop.

It too was busy today. There was a small group of town women in their best bonnets and hoops, looking over a tray of peaches under the watchful eye of one of the shop assistants. The grocer's son was measuring out cornmeal into a sack for a rough-looking backwoods trapper with an overgrown beard. Two small boys were admiring the display of sweets while their father puzzled over an untidily scrawled list. Cullen nudged past wizened old Mr. Grice, who liked to go from store to store gossiping with the merchants, and set his load down on the countertop.

The grocer, who had been squinting at the ledger on the high clerk's desk beside the storeroom door, came ambling over. "What's this?" he asked.

"Ten pounds of best salted butter," Cullen said, unwrapping the canvas and lifting a corner of the lid. The neat and prettily molded pats, each with a raised rose on top, were separated from one another by squares of brown paper. Bethel had gone to every effort to make it look appealing.

"I ain't buying butter," said the grocer. "Get mine wholesale from the Wilkinson plantation. You could try the stationhouse. They do three meals a day for folks waiting between trains."

"I'm not looking to sell," said Cullen. "I thought maybe you'd take it in trade for a keg of salt."

The man's eyes narrowed a little as he looked Cullen over. He took in the tidy clothes, the good hat and the watch chain. Then his eyes settled on Cullen's hands. The nail beds were dark and the knuckles discolored and the backs streaked with dark tobacco stains. Monday had been the first day he had been able to wash without the homemade soap stinging skin made raw from his ill-conceived efforts with the turpentine, and he had decided that he would just have to live with the appearance of perpetually dirty hands.

"Keg of salt's three dollars," said the grocer. "I won't get more than two for ten pounds of butter, even if you ain't lying about the quality."

"I ain't lying," said Cullen. "Try it."

The grocer took a penknife from his vest pocket and shaved off a curl from the nearest pat. He popped it into his mouth and rolled his tongue against his cheek, looking almost comically pensive as he tasted. "Not bad," he said at last, putting away his blade. "I'll give you a dollar and a quarter for the lot."

This was better than Cullen had hoped, particularly as he had only brought the butter as a means of opening negotiations, but a shrewd haggler never took the first price he was offered. "It's worth at least a dollar seventy," he said. "You could charge a quarter a pound."

"Not a chance," said the grocer. "Twenty cents at most. Butter's plentiful this time of year, and a lot of folks make their own. It's only town people buy it, and not all of them."

"How 'bout this, then?" Cullen suggested. "We'll say a dollar and a half, put towards that keg of salt. Then you ain't out of pocket for the money and I don't need to take the stuff home."

The man considered this. "That sounds fair," he said. "One keg of salt, a dollar fifty."

"Thing is," said Cullen, smiling affably; "I wasn't planning on having to pay anything for it. Could we put that dollar fifty on account?"

The grocer shrugged and pulled the leather-bound account ledger from under the table. He flicked a pencil from behind his ear and licked the tip. "Name?" he said.

Cullen gave it, speaking slowly to give the shopkeeper ample time to note it. He wrote down the transaction and the total, and turned the book so that Cullen could put his mark in the margin. He signed with a tight little flourish. "Your boy can take it right out to my buggy," he said. "Black one in front of the milliner's, two matched Morgans."

The grocer turned and shouted, and a lanky young Negro man appeared at the storeroom door. The instructions were given and shortly afterward the slave appeared with a keg of salt balanced on his shoulder. He navigated deferentially through the crowd of patrons and stepped out into the street.

The grocer put the lid back on the little crate and dragged it off the countertop, swinging around to set it on his worktable. When he turned and saw that Cullen was still standing at the counter, his brow furrowed in mild surprise. "There something else you're needing, Mister?" he asked.

Cullen shrugged. "Seeing as I've got an account now," he said; "why don't you add on another three kegs of salt and five pounds of good granulated sugar? Then I'll be on my way."

For a moment the grocer's expression was stormy as he realized how he had been played, but he had extended credit and could not very well withdraw it now with no reason to suggest that this customer would prove an unsafe risk. "Nine dollars and forty cents," he muttered, opening the account book again. "Added to a dollar fifty for the first keg is ten dollars ninety cents." His eyes raked once more over Cullen, flicking thrice between the coarsened hands and the fine silver chain at his waist. "Anything else for you?"

"Gimme two peppermint sticks," said Cullen, digging out a tarnished half-dime. "But that I was expecting to pay for."

The shop-boy was back, and the grocer told him curtly that three more kegs were wanted in the same gentleman's carriage. Then he measured out five pounds of sugar into a brown paper sack, and wrapped the slender peppermint sticks in a twist of waxed paper. Cullen put the latter in his inner coat pocket and tucked the former into the crook of his left arm. He held out his right, and the grocer shook it.

"A pleasure doing business with you," Cullen said pleasantly.

The grocer grunted his grudging assent. "Hope to see you soon," he said, not without a certain arch implication in his words.

"Certainly," said Cullen. Then he turned, tipping his hat to the ladies, and stepped back out into the sunshine. He felt less worn down than he had that morning. He had struck a good bargain for the butter and he had got his supplies. The uneasiness of racking up still more debt was ameliorated a little by the security of having a little money still in his pocket against the next misadventure of the ill-starred year.


	22. Bringing in the Corn

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Bringing in the Corn**

August dragged slowly on, hot and bright and heavy with summer's ceaseless toil. In three weeks there was not a single heavy, drenching rain, but the occasional midnight shower kept the tobacco and the corn from shriveling in the sun and made the watering of the garden bearable. The peas and beans meant to be picked fresh were all harvested now: only the rows of brown beans and split peas were left, ripening and drying in the summer sun. Mary and Lottie had put in a third crop of radishes when the rows were picked bare, and the carrots meant for the horses and mules were large enough at last that it was worth unearthing a few now and then to leave in the stable for immediate use. The tomatoes, voracious for water, were now large as eggs and starting to turn color. The rows of greens were flourishing with the help of Lottie's diligent sprinkling from the heavy watering cans she now hefted with such ease. Every day she and Mary and Bethel brought in baskets of fresh and wholesome things.

Some were preserved, but more were eaten. In an effort to stretch their nonperishable stores as long as possible, the two women planned meals rich in the bounty of the garden but spare in flour, cornmeal and pork. What side meat was left Bethel kept for adding strength and flavor to the vegetables, and although Cullen and the three field hands were still provided with thin slices of the dwindling stock of ham every day the others ate eggs whenever possible. In a quiet conspiracy with Mary, Bethel put meat on the plates of the mistress and her child at those rare meals – chiefly Saturday supper and on Sunday – when Cullen was at table. Bethel still baked her weekly bread for the white family, but the morning biscuits were gone and the only grain habitually served at breakfast was the parched and boiled hominy. Richly mixed with butter though it was, it did not satisfy Mary's stomach as biscuits would, and she worried that her husband felt the absence still more keenly, laboring as hard as he did every day. But if he suffered from the change, or even noticed it, he said nothing.

In the effort to keep meals varied and nourishing, Bethel was worth her weight in gold. She knew dozens of ways to prepare the garden vegetables, and she made use of them all. From the abundant milk and cream she made rich sauces for the carrots and the parsnips; she served greens cooked with butter or with vinegar or simply blanched so that their sunshine flavor remained. She seasoned beets and young turnips with the choicest specimens from the herb beds, and served okra fried or roasted or spiced. She sent Lottie out to raid the ripening corn to make fresh succotash, and she varied it by adding peas or onions or radishes. She even had a use for the green tomatoes: slicing them into thick coins which she coated in a dusting of cornmeal and fried until they were crisp and savory.

To this myriad of Southern cooking Mary added a few favorites of her own from the book of receipts her mother's Welsh cook had gifted her on her marriage with the intention that her Mississippi servants might prepare things she was used to. As Bethel could not read and had never in her life worked from a written receipt the book had not seen much use until now, but Mary was glad of it at last. She tried her hand at making roasted beets and creamed parsnips, she experimented with a variety of uncooked salads, and she even managed to turn out a couple of egg-and-vegetable bakes that were very pleasant even without the sharp New England cheeses of her childhood.

At every meal there were three or four vegetable dishes to choose from, and even with meat and bread wanting the plates were full. Mary and Bethel took to making twice as much of any vegetable as was needed in the house, because Meg spent such long days working alongside the men that she had no time to prepare additional foodstuffs to supplement the dwindling staples. White and black, the household did not want for variety, and Mary finished every day weary but quietly proud of her efforts in the unfamiliar territory of Bethel's kitchen. She did not have, and perhaps would never have, the older woman's skill or natural talent, but she was getting along quite well for a city-bred debutante who before her marriage had never so much as brewed her own tea.

The only trouble with this diet, flavorful and undoubtedly healthful though it was, was that vegetable dishes did not have the same power to satiate that bread and meat and sweet potatoes had. Though the garden's riches meant that there was no harm in the fact that everyone ate a greater quantity of food now, such foods also did not last as long in the stomach. By the time each meal finally rolled around Mary was always ravenous, and she knew that it had to be many times worse for those who were out toiling in the tobacco. Sitting with Cullen at his late supper, always lovingly kept warm for him, became the greatest torment of her day. He would come in, filthy and exhausted from an afternoon of pulling suckers, and would scarcely find the will to wash before he hastened to the table. The weary dullness in his eyes was replaced, at least in those first few minutes, by a feverish glint of avarice, and when Bethel set his food before him he would fall upon it like a victim of famine, mad with hunger after seven hours' fasting since dinnertime. He could scarcely be dissuaded from scraping his plate, though there was always more of the vegetable dishes, if nothing else, waiting in the kitchen. Only once his stomach was full at last would he slump in his chair, his manic energy spent, and let his overworked muscles relax a little.

Quietly and without consulting anyone, Mary took to slipping into the kitchen each afternoon to prepare a little basket of food for Lottie to take down to the tobacco fields when she brought the cold water at four o'clock. It was simple picnic fare: corn pone and butter, peaches from the trees now near the end of their year's fruitfulness, cold boiled eggs and the pick of fresh carrots or radishes. Sometimes she sent a bowl of succotash as well, or okra if there was any left from the night before. The fried tomatoes made a wonderful cold treat, but they were so delicious that when Bethel made them they rarely survived to the next afternoon. Mary always tried to be sure to send enough for four hungry mouths, but day after day her offerings were devoured to the last scrap and she feared they worked on only half-satisfied. Still, after a few days of this the wild look was gone from Cullen's eyes at night and he remembered to bring his food to his mouth instead of the other way 'round.

They came to the end of the yams on the last Monday of the month, when Bethel and Mary went down to the root cellar to measure out stores for another week and found that there were only eight left in the tired old sack. It was extraordinary that they had come out exactly even, but Mary's worry over the loss of this fundamental part of their diet distracted from any wonder at the coincidence. Without the sweet potatoes there was very little truly sustaining food to put upon the table. For a few days she and Bethel offered the Irish potatoes instead, and then they too were gone. With only a little more than ten pounds of flour left, bread was the next to go so that what little remained could be saved, like the good preserves and last of the sugar and the coffee, in case of company. Cornbread joined the hominy at the Bohannon family table, but the cornmeal was also running low.

"It no use, Missus Mary," said Bethel one hot day in the second week of September. "We gots to have something to feed them men. They's workin' too hard to live on vegetables and cream."

They were out in the dooryard, bringing down clean laundry from the clotheslines while Gabe played happily with a wooden spoon and a rusted-out milk pan in the shade cast by the henhouse. Lottie was just over the fence in the garden, searching for ripe tomatoes to serve with the evening's okra. The others, of course, were sweltering in the tobacco; stooped and tired and worn down with the relentless effort to keep the plants healthy. Week after week Cullen reported that the crop looked good, and week after week Mary tried to laud him for the struggles that were obviously bearing fruit. But week after week he only shook his head and reminded her that they were still a ways from picking time, and a lot could happen in a month. His stalwart refusal even to hope for a good crop saddened Mary, for it left her wondering what had become of the merry young man she had courted.

"What should we do?" Mary asked, folding one of Gabe's little shirts and putting it into the basket by her ankle. "If we start digging the sweet potatoes now they won't be large enough: it's just a waste not to let them sit another three or four weeks. The turnips are almost ready, but…" She shrugged her slim shoulders helplessly.

"Turnips ain't no good; they needs bread, an' they needs more meat. Little slice of ham with supper won't keep a body moving like they got to. Feed corn be ready any day now, an' they ain't goin' have a minute's rest." Bethel shook her head. "We can do without flour, if it don't pain you to keep on eatin' like black folks, but we gots to have more cornmeal."

"How much more?" asked Mary. "To get us through until the tobacco is sold, I mean."

Bethel squinted into the sun, figuring rapidly. "Maybe a bushel, if we ain't too generous with it," she said at last. "The hominy holdin' out at least, an' when we gots yams again we won' need so much pone."

Mary was so sick of hominy that she was just about ready to do without grains entirely, but she did not say this. She knew she ought to be grateful that they had it, but she had not grown up with this particular mainstay of the Southern diet and eating it at every meal was beginning to wear on her. She was craving high white rolls and apples in pastry and potatoes mashed, roasted, baked, boiled and stewed. And beef. What she would not have given for a good haunch of beef to roast slow with peppercorns and sage, moist and tender and faintly pink towards the center! But beef was as unattainable as silk, and almost as unnecessary. She had eggs in abundance, served in twenty different ways, and she had a little taste of ham on Sundays. She wasn't working fourteen hours a day in the blazing Mississippi sun: she did not need more meat than that.

"I'll speak to Cullen about it," she said, conscious that she had stood too long in silence while she dreamed of the foods of her childhood. "He could do with a morning off the planation, and he could fetch the mail as well."

Bethel grunted her approval as she handed Mary two corners of a bedsheet. Together they folded it, moving with a matched rhythm learned in this summer of close association and the unity of hard work.

_*discidium*_

On the morning when Cullen came back from Meridian with a bushel sack of cornmeal in the buggy, and two letters from Jeremiah Tate in his pocket, Elijah was mowing the grass before the house with a long-handled scythe. This had not been much of a priority over the last several weeks, but Bethel had finally put her foot down and declared it had to be done before they grew a jungle out there. From the direction of the woodshed came the ring of an axe: Nate splitting firewood. Likely Meg was harvesting blackberries in the creek bottom: they were prolific this year and Bethel intended to dry or preserve every last one. As Cullen drew up the drive Elijah leaned the scythe against the fence and fetched something from the lowest step of the veranda. Cullen had intended to drive right through to the stable, but he reined in Pike and Bonnie and leaned down as the old man approached.

"What you got there?" he asked.

Wordlessly Elijah handed it to him: an ear of corn still wrapped in its thick green husk. The silk was disturbed and one long leaf had been peeled back a little. The kernels within, until lately plump and sweet and bursting with moisture, were now over-fat, tough, and hard. Cullen pushed aside the husk another inch or so, checking to be sure the same was true further down the cob. Exhaling heavily he let his elbow fall against his knee and his hand flop back as he returned the corn to his slave.

"It's ready," he said dully.

"Yassir," said Elijah. "Pretty near half the ears on the plants I checked be ready. We bes' start on it soon."

Cullen nodded but did not speak. Despite the relief of knowing the feed corn had made it through to harvest, he was not looking forward to the next few weeks. Mornings in the corn, reaching up and snapping off heavy ears to fill large willow baskets, and afternoons in the tobacco, stooping and scraping for the suckers that still persisted in trying to sap the vigor of his crop and spoil the ever-broadening leaves. His back and shoulders, now a perpetual mass of painfully knotted sinews, protested the mere thought of it.

Bonnie was stamping restlessly at the hard-packed dirt of the drive, and Cullen snugged up the reins a little. "I got to get these two out of the heat and rubbed down," he said. "You finish up here and spread the word we'll start in the corn at daybreak tomorrow. I'll see you in the top field in an hour."

Elijah offered quiet assent and went back to fetch up the scythe again. Cullen loosed his hold on the lines and let the Morgans find their own way into the barn. When they were brushed and watered he swung the heavy sack of meal over his shoulder and trudged back to the house.

Mary and Bethel were in the kitchen, chopping parsley and dicing carrots for dinner. They were intent upon their work and did not see him enter. Despite the flies that always wandered into the house at this time of year the back door was always left wide open in case of a chance breeze to cool the kitchen. Bethel had barley and celery and onions boiling on the back of the stove for a soup, and the humidity in the room was terrible. Cullen wasn't sure how the women could stand it, with their work dresses buttoned straight to the collar and their cuffs turned back only to the middle of the forearm. He noticed Mary was wearing her small traveling hoop under her dress, and was briefly surprised by the workday affectation until he realized that he could see the ridges clear through the skirt: she wasn't wearing any petticoats. That told him just how overheated she was, for Mary almost never put comfort above modesty.

He set down the sack with a heavy _thump_, and both women turned. Mary wicked a stray strand of hair off of her forehead with the back of her wrist and smiled for him, but there were faint lines of worry between her brows, and she looked very tired. Bethel, always the stalwart bastion of the family, simply nodded her chin approvingly at the bushel of cornmeal.

"You get a good price?" she asked.

"Best I could," Cullen said. It was the worst time of year to be buying such stores: right before the new harvest when the previous year's supply was running low and demand was highest. Nobody had spoken the truth: that they never should have run out of cornmeal, or salt, or any of the other staples he was supposed to buy for the year. In the tension and frustration that had followed his poor sale in New Orleans, he had somehow erred in his calculation of the necessary supplies. He still did not know what his mistake had been, and that haunted him. But Bethel and Mary were kind, and more forgiving than he probably deserved: neither had uttered a single word of blame.

"Any interesting news from town?" Mary asked. She was watching his eyes very carefully and Cullen wondered just how much she could see.

"Not much," he said. "Everyone's talking about the presidential election. Strange thing is they don't seem to care about any of the rest of it. I had to ask three people before I found one who even knew who was running against Brannan for sheriff." He reached into his coat pocket and brought out the letters, holding them up for Mary to see. "Both from your brother," he said. "Postage unpaid."

"Would you put them on the mantel in the parlor?" Mary asked, nodding at her wet hands. "We'll be eating in a little over an hour."

"Can't spare the time," said Cullen. "Soon as I get out of these clothes I'm going down to help Nate with the wood, then it's back in the tobacco. The corn's ready for its first pass: we'll be starting at dawn tomorrow. Ain't going to be much time for anything else 'til it's done."

Mary managed a small, encouraging smile, but now Bethel was watching him pensively. Uncomfortable under their joint scrutiny, Cullen slipped between the skirts and the stove and moved for the dining room door.

"We'll fix somethin' nice for you to take out with you," Bethel promised quietly. Cullen looked back over his shoulder and tried to turn up the corners of his mouth.

_*discidium*_

As the sun climbed on to midmorning, the activity in and around the cornfield took on the smooth and practiced motion of a dance. Meg, Bethel and the three men were picking, working their way down the rows and feeling each ear for its readiness. When they found one firm enough to be taken, they snapped it from its stalk and deposited it into the basket they dragged down the rows. The two Negro men picked into one basket; the two women into another. Cullen, without a partner at his back, had his own. As the baskets grew full they would be hoisted and carried from the field to the stretch of clover meadow beside it. Here the grass was cropped close from regular mowing for feed, and Mary and Lottie were waiting. The corn was poured out in a heap and the pickers went back to their rows, and the white lady and the dark girl set about spreading the corn on the clean earth to dry in the sun. They gathered an apronful at a time, kneeling in the grass and laying the ears out neatly so they would be easy to turn in a day or two.

It was a calculated risk, drying corn in the sun. The moisture would bake out more quickly than if they spread it in the hayloft, and they could lay out more at one time, but if it looked like rain everyone would have to drop whatever they were doing and hurry out to gather the ears. A soaking downpour would make the corn molder, and it would be unfit even for the hogs. But the skies had been clear for days and Elijah assured them that he wasn't expecting rain. The others seemed to accept his word as infallible – all but Cullen, who was sure to spend just as much time worrying now about the chance of rain as he had spent in July fretting over the want of it.

From where she worked Mary could keep a sharp eye on Gabe. They had brought an old quilt and a mended sheet to the field, along with two kitchen chairs, and out of these they had fashioned a little half-tent so that the child could play in the shade while everyone else was occupied. It had taken the combined and repeated reminders of Mary, Lottie and Bethel to make him stay under the shelter of the sheet, but now he had finally given up trying to sneak past their vigilant eyes. He sat like a little sheik on the edge of the quilt, almost but not quite at the border of the shadow. His wooden horses lay abandoned where the sheet puddled on the ground, entirely forgotten in his entrancement at the scene before him. He kept looking from the pickers where their heads and arms just showed amid the tall corn, to his mother and his playmate in the meadow. Now and then he would call out to someone by name, earning a wave and an effortful but cheery reply.

Between these salutations he was playing with his kitten. The litter in the barn was old enough at last to be weaned from their mother, and Cullen had taken Gabe up to have his pick. He had chosen a speckled white-and-ginger cat with a crooked ear. Bethel, who firmly believed that the plantation's feline population belonged in the outbuildings, had given the poor little thing a rigorous bath with strong, homemade soap and a thorough going-over for fleas before she had allowed it into the house. But Gabe's extraordinary pride in his new pet had mollified her, and after three days she was just about used to the notion of a housecat.

Gabe had named the kitten Stewpot, though why he should think this particular moniker a suitable choice was a mystery to Mary. Cullen had laughed when he had been told, and that alone made the ridiculous name worthwhile. Mary missed her husband's laughter far more than anything else she had had to do without through this hard year. These last weeks it had been almost impossible even to raise a smile from him.

"Mama!" Gabe shouted. He clambered to his feet and Stewpot rolled hastily out of the way so as to avoid being trodden on. The tassel that Mary had fashioned out of the remains of a ball of yarn dangled from the boy's fingers, and as the kitten recovered from his fright he began to caper underneath it, trying to catch the tempting cords with his tiny claws. "Mama, I wants to he'p!"

It was at least the sixth time he had made this announcement, and each time it had been more difficult to persuade him to stay where he was. Mary opened her mouth to try again, and then she hesitated. He was so sweet and earnest in his desire to participate, and although surely such a small child did not feel guilt at sitting idle while others worked he certainly felt left out. Suddenly she could not bring herself to tell him that he was too little to be of any use. Her eyes drifted down towards the corn, where Cullen was reaching with stiff but steady arms to break off another ear. He woke up every day and went out to work at tasks for which he had not been raised, and at which no doubt people had told him he was of no use. And although he worked less skillfully than Nate he worked just as hard and just as long, and he did not let anything stop him. She wanted her boy to grow up to be as brave and determined as his pappy, and she could start by teaching him that he could help simply by doing his best.

"All right, dearest!" she called. "Come here and I'll show you what to do, but put on your hat first."

Gabe's face broke into a radiant grin. "Yass'm!" he said eagerly. He dropped the woolen tassel and Stewpot sprang upon it, tousling contentedly at the edge of the quilt. Gabe squatted down to reach the very back of his makeshift tent, and picked up his small straw hat. At the beginning of the season it had been a scaled replica of his father's, but now Cullen's was mashed and misshapen from constant tugging and frequent wettings, discolored with sweat and ragged at the edges, while Gabe's was still almost pristine. He grabbed the crown with one plump hand and clapped it down on his head in an uncanny imitation of his father, and then came trotting down past the rows of neatly laid ears to Mary's side.

"I goin' pick de corn?" he asked eagerly. He pointed at the field. "Like Pappy an' Nate?"

"I don't think you can reach it, do you?" Mary asked. "Go and try."

He ran down the gentle slope at full tilt to the end of the row his father was working. He reached as high as he could, stretching his back and rising up on his bare toes, but of course his fingers only came two-thirds up the stalk and fell far short of the ears. He tugged on one of the drooping leaves experimentally and frowned. He peered around the plant. Cullen, working far down the row, paused and took off his hat, shading his eyes and squinting against the sunlight at his son.

"Pappy!" Gabe shouted. "I's too short!"

"No, you ain't!" Cullen called back. "The corn's just too tall." He looked questioningly at Mary and she smiled brightly for him.

Gabe came running back to his mother. "Pappy say de corn too tall," he relayed gravely. "Maybe I he'p you, den?"

"What a wonderful idea!" Mary applauded. She reached into her laden apron and picked up another fresh-smelling green ear. "You see? I take the corn and I lay it down, nice and straight so it doesn't touch any of the other ears. Would you like to try?"

"Yes!" Gabe said stoutly. He tried to grab one of the cobs, but his hand was too small to reach even halfway around it and his fingers slipped on the slick wet leaves. He frowned and then dove in with both hands, seizing it successfully and picking it up. He held it for a moment or two, studying it with tremendous interest. Then he laid it down next to the last one with the care of a little girl putting her wax doll to bed. His face lit up with pride. "I did it!" he said.

"You did," said Mary. "You did it beautifully. Now do it again: there's a great deal of corn to lay out, and they're picking faster than we can spread it."

Gabe fell eagerly to work. He was neither quick nor efficient, but he did not slow Mary down and he was extravagantly happy. He was the only one who was. The sun was climbing higher and the day was growing hotter. As good as this was for the drying of the corn, it made for hard going. The pickers got little enough benefit from the shade of the stalks, for their heads and shoulders and arms were still bare to the sun. The constant reaching seemed to wear on them: now and then someone would pause to stretch a neck or roll a shoulder or rub at an aching elbow. Mary and Lottie were perspiring under their sunbonnets, and although they worked steadily Mary's wrists were sore and Lottie knelt more heavily each time she returned with an apronful of corn. Elijah tried to get everyone to sing, but only Bethel raised her voice determinedly in the responses.

Finally, when the sun was at its height, Bethel left the field to lay on a hasty dinner while the others worked on. The heap of corn at the edge of the clover patch was taller than Gabe now, for with five people picking and only two spreading they could not possibly keep pace even with the little boy's well-meaning and meticulous assistance. That was all right, of course: Mary and Lottie could work on through the afternoon while Cullen and the field hands were in the tobacco. Bethel would keep picking and when the heap was gone Mary could join her while Lottie kept laying out the ears they harvested. They would accomplish what they could, and the following morning everyone would be out in the sun again, bringing in the feed that would sustain the stock through the winter. Mary looked out at the sea of corn and wondered if they would ever finish, going at the pace that they were.

_*discidium*_

On Sunday there was no question of going to church. Cullen was too tired and, though he refused to admit it, in far too much pain. As he had expected the disparate efforts in the corn and the tobacco left his back and his arms and his hips and even his knees in throes of twitching torment that only seemed to deepen and clarify during the nights. After lying in a little later than usual it was all he could do to lever himself up off the soft feather tick and dress unassisted. Sitting still and straight for two hours on an unyielding church pew would be torture.

Mary, too, seemed reluctant to leave the plantation. She swore she was not suffering from the repetitive task of laying out the corn, or from the afternoons she spent picking with Bethel so that work did not have to stop, but he didn't know that he believed that. What he did know is that he had married the most courageous woman in New York State; maybe even in the whole country. She worked steadily and uncomplainingly, and between them she and Bethel were still managing to lay on the meals and bring in the garden a little each day. With all that needed doing she had not even had the opportunity to read her brother's letters, and so after breakfast the Bohannons retreated to the parlor and she took them down from the mantel.

Cullen tried to find a less than agonizing position in his chair, and then moved to the récamier under the window. This was even worse, and so finally he stretched out on his stomach upon the faded velvet rug before the empty hearth. He curled his right arm up and rested his cheekbone against it, looking across the small expanse of floor to where Mary's neat buttoned shoes peaked out from under one of her good cotton dresses. She had not put on her church clothes, of course, but she had still taken the trouble to dress prettily and with care, and he felt ashamed of his haphazardly donned second-best trousers and unbuttoned vest. Despite hard work – and field work, at that – Mary was keeping her gentility and her well-bred grace, while he appeared to be going slowly feral.

Mary broke the seal on each letter, looked at the date on the first one, and then laid it aside. As she had done with the last epistle from Maine she did not read it aloud at once, but studied it with a faint frown of concentration upon her face. After scanning a few lines she let her hand fall to her lap and smiled indulgently at him.

"You'll get frightfully dusty down there," she said.

"That's why I didn't put on my Sunday best," Cullen replied, extemporizing. His eyelids felt heavy and he wondered whether he might actually fall asleep here. The nights were getting longer, but not nearly fast enough. He found himself thinking longingly of December, when there were more hours of darkness than a man could possibly sleep through and not enough work to fill the day. December, when for good or ill the tobacco would be harvested and cured and sold and the anxious watching would be over. They were well into September now. In four more weeks, maybe five it would be time to start priming. Five weeks of luck and they would have a top-quality crop to bring in. Try as he might, he just could not trust Providence to send him a whole month of luck.

Gabe came into the room, the absurdly named but very patient Stewpot hugged to his chest with one arm. The kitten's forepaws clutched the child's sleeve, and his hindquarters dangled. He was still only the size of a decent yam, and his head was too big for his clumsy little body. The sidelong sight of his son carrying his treasured new pet brought a tired smile to Cullen's lips.

The boy stepped onto the carpet, wriggling his bare feet luxuriantly in the nap. He crouched down and released his hold on Stewpot, who tumbled to the ground but managed to land on his feet. The kitten disappeared under Mary's chair, hidden by her skirts. Gabe tilted his head far to the left so that he was looking Cullen levelly in the eye.

"What you doin' down dere, Pappy?" he asked. "You goin' get dust in your whiskers."

"I told you," Mary said sagely.

"Just having me a little rest, son," Cullen said. "What you been up to?"

"Bet'l give Stewpot some cream," Gabe said proudly. "He drink it all wid his li'l pink tongue."

He straightened up and came near to Cullen, looking him over thoughtfully. Then he lifted his right foot and planted it on the small of his father's back. Before either adult quite realized what he meant to do he pushed off with his left and put his whole weight across the base of Cullen's spine. There was a sudden pressure followed almost immediately by a deep and almost ecstatic release from the pain in and around the vertebra beneath the small foot. Cullen moaned.

Mary stiffened, dropping the half-read letter and leaning forward with arms outstretched to snatch up her son. "Gabe!" she cried. "You must't do that! You'll hurt Pappy!"

Gabe fell hastily back, removing his modest weight and sending the muscles back into their seething knots. "No, no, no, no!" cried Cullen. "No! Do it again, son; get back up there." He cast wide eyes up at Mary. "It feels good," he panted. "So derned good. C'mon, son: get back up there."

Warily Gabe obeyed, planting one foot and shifting his body to raise the other. It settled next to the first, a little higher on Cullen's spine, and brought the same merciful reprieve. "Now turn 'round so you can walk up my back," he said. "One foot right against the other, heal to toe."

The child hesitated for a moment, and then walked his toes in a counter-clockwise direction and shuffled so that his left foot was on top of Cullen's spine. He lifted his right, and for a moment the pressure was too much. Then he planted it, spreading the range of relief towards the broad bands of muscles over the kidneys where the torment of stooping was worst. Again Cullen's instinct was to groan in abject gratitude, but remembering Mary's earlier reaction he restrained himself to a slow, hot outpouring of breath. "Again," he said.

This time Gabe moved with more confidence, holding out his arms like a tightrope walker. When he placed his left foot Cullen could not help a little grunt, and Gabe giggled. "Good boy," sighed Cullen. "Go on."

As Gabe reached his ribs the weight against his lungs made deep breathing difficult. Cullen simply took shallow breaths instead: the glorious easing of the strained sinews in his back far outweighed any discomfort in his chest.

When Gabe's toes were cupped around the knob at the base of Cullen's neck he stopped, but did not jump off. He was laughing now, and he said; "May I do it 'gain, Pappy?"

"_Yes_," groaned Cullen, his eyes closed as he savored the respite from the grinding pain between his shoulder blades. The rest of his back was tightening again, seizing into knots and snarls off weary muscle.

"Here, try this," Mary said as Gabe carefully turned around. She knelt by Cullen's shoulder and took hold of Gabe's ankle to move his foot. She had a calculating, problem-solving look in her eyes now. "Put your feet so that Pappy's spine is right between them, then shuffle down like you're kicking hay. Shuffle, shuffle… that's it."

This was still more delicious, and Cullen almost wanted to weep at the blessed surcease of torture. Gabe chuckled. "What's a spine, Mama?" he asked.

"A backbone," said Mama. "All those little knobs are the bones that hold together Pappy's back."

Lately Cullen had become convinced that anguish and necessity were the only things holding together his back, but as Gabe turned again at the base of his spine and the vertebrae crackled he revised that theory. There were still bones in there after all: they just needed someone to knead out their misery a little.

"Pappy, I walkin' on your bones," Gabe announced as he scuttled up Cullen's spine again. He moved quickly now, growing agile as he learned the new movement. He turned and hurried down again. The release of tension was spreading like heat from his small feet, stretching out around Cullen's ribs and into his abdomen and even out towards his stiff shoulders. He snuffled quietly against the carpet, not trusting himself to speak coherently in this rapture of sudden liberation from the worst of his physical misery. There was still pain, of course: he would not be free from pain for months yet. But it was no longer so pernicious, and the feel of his son's nimble toes and round little heels was as soothing to his spirit as it was to his spine.

Mary folded her skirts under her and sat beside him, one hand playing idly in his hair while their child walked up and down his back and laughed merrily. Cullen lay there perfectly contented and half-drunk with the euphoria of relief, his burdens forgotten at least for a little while.

_*discidium*_

It was not until Gabe was down for his nap that Mary had the opportunity to pick up her letters again. Cullen was now settled in his customary armchair, legs stretched out before him while he savored one of his handmade little cigars. He had it clamped between his first two fingers and when he inhaled the fragrant smoke his eyes would flutter closed in quiet relish. Mary watched him from the corner of her eye, glancing up between each line. He looked less careworn than he had that morning: the drawn look was gone from the corners of his eyes and he sat a little straighter. It was remarkable and also a little absurd that something so simple and silly as a child treading up and down his back should bring about such a change. Gabe was nothing less than a pint-sized miracle worker.

As she read, however, Mary forgot about watching her husband. Her pulse quickened as she took in her brother's words, and she hurriedly flung aside the first letter so that she could read the second. The brevity she had taken for no more than a postscript now raised a lump of dread in her throat, even as her heart hammered a little with secret joy. Hands trembling she lowered the paper. She looked at Cullen, watching the sunlight on the toe of his boot as if lost in a deep daydream. Mary wet her lips with her tongue; an unladylike gesture, it was true, but necessary if she was going to make herself speak.

"Cullen?" she said tremulously.

"Hmm?" He let his head loll towards the other shoulder and turned up the corners of his mouth drowsily.

"It's…" This was ridiculous, Mary told herself. She had nothing to fear from her husband, however much he might dislike the news. She screwed up her courage and tried unsuccessfully to smile. "Jeremiah's letter."

"Children all safe and happy and doing well at school?" Cullen recited.

"He and Frances are coming to visit." The words were out almost before her mind could shape them, tumbling over one another with the speed of a diving hawk that pinned its prey before there could be any room for second thoughts.

Cullen sat bolt upright in the chair, so quickly and forcefully that he winced against the protest of tired muscles. He shuffled to the edge of the seat, propelling himself with his elbows. The fingers gripping the cigar pinced tightly enough to crimp it. "What'd you say?"

"Jeremiah and Frances," Mary repeated, her heart fluttering anxiously. "They're… they've… Jeremiah writes that if I cannot come to Bangor he and Frances shall come here. He wants to see me. To meet his nephew. He thinks…"

"He thinks Washington will force our hand and Mississippi will leave the Union," said Cullen brusquely. "If the fools in Congress are just as boneheaded as he is about sticking their noses where they ain't wanted, he's not far from right." He sighed and eased back in his chair, grimacing a little as he did so. "You'll just have to write back and tell him it ain't convenient. We can't feed another two mouths, not even for a fortnight."

Mary felt ill. The expense of the journey was enormous; the distance daunting and the philosophical differences between Bangor and Meridian staggering. For these reasons and others she had never truly believed that Jeremiah would accept her invitation. She had only made it because she did not want him to think she was reluctant to see him. As much as she would have loved to spend time again with the boy who had taught her how to roll a hoop and slide down the upstairs bannisters when Nanny wasn't looking, she did not want to watch the strong-willed man, now a staunch and very vocal abolitionist, squaring off with her equally stubborn and no less principled husband. She had made the offer because she wanted Jeremiah to know that she loved him, not because she had actually wanted him down here. And now it was too late.

"I can't," she whispered. "The tickets are bought: they'll be arriving on the first of October, the three o'clock from Memphis. They're going by way of Philadelphia to visit Frances's sister first. They… they'll be departing from Bangor before a letter could possibly reach them. And… and it's three, not two: Missy is coming with them…"

He stared at her, expression unreadable and steely eyes wide. His jaw worked tensely for a moment and he pressed his lips into a thin line. His shoulders slumped further into the chair. "That settles it then," he said dispassionately. "Best go tell Bethel at once. The Lord only knows what she'll say about it, us having houseguests at a time like this."

Mary got to her feet and faltered, one hand still clutching the rumbled second letter with the itinerary. "Cullen, I'm sorry…" she began.

He shook his head, but he now looked grey with weariness and the worry-lines were back at the corners of his mouth and across his brow. "Don't be sorry," he said gently. "They're your people: you got a right to see your family. We'll just have to manage it somehow, that's all."

At once Mary was reminded why she loved him so. No matter what happened, no matter the calamity or misfortune or unforeseen circumstance, he faced it. He might falter a moment in the initial shock, but then he wheeled around like a general marshalling the army of his intelligence, his wit, his determination and his courage, and he did what he had to do to cope with what had been laid in his path. Even now, when it had been her blunder that had laid it, he offered no words of blame. He simply squared himself off and started looking for a solution to the problem.

Suddenly he grinned, a manic and almost gleeful grin. "I wonder if that brother of yours knows how to make hay," he said. Mary laughed a little, thinly, and Cullen chuckled. But they both knew he was only half joking.


	23. The Bottom Leaves

**Chapter Twenty-Three: The Bottom Leaves**

The day came at last, and sooner than Cullen had expected. They had spent the morning in the corn, where they were nearing the end of the second pass through, and after a hurried dinner were just preparing to head out into the tobacco when Elijah appeared from around the woodshed carrying two handfuls of long, slender pikes, each with one end sharpened to a fine point. At the sight of them Cullen's heart rose to his throat and began to hammer furiously.

"It's time?" he asked hoarsely. "It's early."

Elijah nodded and handed one bundle of staves to Meg. Nate was already dragging the cotton sack off of his shoulder and starting back to the toolshed for the knives. "I checked them first rows we put in this morning. They got bottom leaves starting to pale: be yellow soon if we don' get 'em in. It time."

"It's good quality stuff, ain't it?" Cullen asked. It was scarcely more than a whisper; even now he hardly dared to hope.

"For bottom-leaf tobacco it look good," Elijah agreed. "We got to wait and see how the rest of it goes when its turn come."

Cullen closed his eyes and offered up a brief prayer of thanks. They had done it: fighting off suckers and aphids, worrying through dry weeks and toiling miserably through wet ones, sweltering in the heat and shivering in sodden clothes at sunset. Now, at last, he first leaves were ready for picking.

Nate was back with the slender knives with their curved blades honed like shaving razors and their smooth bone handles stained with the tar of years past. He gave one to Cullen, who tucked it into the loop on the front of his heavy oilskin overalls. The two younger men picked up their buckets: one in each hand. Meg and Elijah, each carrying a pole, only took one. They left the other two by the well: Lottie would find them when she came out to bring them fresh water and a bite to eat later in the afternoon. Day after day they had trodden this path, dragging tired bones and flagging spirits out to the broad, spreading fields of brilliant green. Today, despite their aches, they hurried. No one said a word as they passed the top field in which they had been suckering and descended to the corner where the infested plants had been torn out in July. It seemed a lifetime ago now, Cullen thought, though he could still see the scorch-marks in the pasture beyond where he had been forced to burn the fruits of his labor.

Cullen and Elijah took the first row; Nate and Meg the second. Elijah and Meg each brought one staff with them and stood three steps down the row from their partners. The two younger men took out their knives and stooped at the first plants, setting to work with something almost like eagerness. Carefully Cullen cut a slit in the stem at the very base of a leaf. Then he lopped it from the stalk leaving only a small stump. Tobacco sap sprang like blood from the wound, trickling onto the knife and over his fingertips. It was necessary to cut as close to the stalk as possible, but imperative that he did not actually nick it: it needed its strength and its integrity to continue to nourish the higher leaves. When he had made his slice he drew the leaf gently out from among the others, careful not to move too quickly. It caught against its nearest neighbor and he turned it carefully. It would not do to tear either leaf: the best price was to be had for whole, unblemished tobacco.

When the frond was free he handed it to Elijah, who drove the point of the pike slowly through the slit in the stem. Cullen did not watch, because he was already doing the same to the next leaf, but Elijah drew the leaf down to the notch set eight inches from the end of the pike and let it settle there, the tip of the leaf settling on the dirt. When he was given the next leaf he pushed it down until it sat a little less than an inch from the first. This way, when the rods were hung in the barn with the stems to the ceiling and the leaves hanging down they would not touch. Tobacco did not cure properly if the air could not circulate around it.

The leaves that were ready were the lugs, the very lowest ones on the plant and the dirtiest. Mud clumped on the underside and here and there the leaves were pitted where they had been nibbled by passing ants. First-pass tobacco only fetched two or three cents a pound, and on many larger plantations the leaves were only taken for use by the slaves. But Cullen needed every penny he could get from his fields, and that meant cutting and curing and packing the lugs with the same care he would afford to the far more valuable center leaves and the middling-quality tops. He took the third and last of the ripe leaves from the plant he was working, and moved on to the next one.

The leaves were between sixteen and twenty inches long, and about half as broad. The veins were indeed starting to pale: a sure sign that it was ready. It was Cullen's third year helping with the picking, and he was now fairly adept at judging a leaf's ripeness, but he worked with Elijah instead of Meg so that the old man could mutter, "Not that one…" when he erred. In the next row Nate was already a plant ahead, working with a speed and efficiency that Cullen could never hope to match. Determinedly he kept his eyes on his own work, still a little stunned that the long-awaited harvest had begun at last.

Soon the euphoria wore off. Picking was every bit as physically demanding as suckering. Worse, in fact, because they were working only the very bottom of the plants and had to bend almost in two to reach them. The sun was still fierce and the air still hot and heavy even though September was on the wane, and the sweat poured down Cullen's brow and stung in his eyes. The bases of the leaves were wet, where the dew gathered along the veins, and soon his sleeves were soaked. And because he was cutting full-grown stems instead of infant suckers his hands were coated almost immediately in a sticky, nebulous layer of tar that soon spread all over his body.

There were only two or three leaves ready on each plant, but by the time they finished the fifty acres more would be ripe and they would have to start over again. Leaves taken too soon fetched a poor price; leaves left too long still poorer. There was a window of about a week of optimal readiness, which was just enough time to make a full pass of the fields, but the business of working half-days was over. They would be out here from first light to last continuously until the stalks were stripped and the curing barn full. Mary and Bethel would have to finish picking the corn on their own: there was no help for that. Cullen felt a flutter of unease that he tried to believe was not guilt. His Mary, bringing in the corn like a Negro, like an immigrant, like a poor farmer's wife. He did not care about his own position: he had a strong, healthy body and he could use it to do what was needed. But he wished there were some way to keep Mary out of the fields.

At least he could see to it that she kept clear of the tobacco, he thought as he picked up his pace. He could have had her holding his pike, and Elijah picking with Lottie to stack for him. That would have meant three pairs, with Bethel to mind the house and the boy and to keep them all fed. The work would move faster, but it was not worth it. Cullen knew that he could never again respect or even tolerate himself, if he let his brave and beautiful wife stoop to such miserable labor. Anyway as soon as they had a few poles laid up in the barn Lottie would be needed to tend the curing fires during the day. And as soon as the corn was out of the field and drying Bethel would want to clean the house from top to bottom in anticipation of the New England visitors.

That was something that rankled, and it was just another worry to gnaw at him while he worked. He would have preferred to think about the dozen personal reasons he did not want to entertain his brother-in-law and his simpering wife, but Cullen found himself returning again and again to the practical ones. There was the shortage of stores: they did not have enough meat or cornmeal to last the eight of them until the tobacco was sold in late November, and in any case Bethel would not think of serving cornmeal to guests. There would be no alternative but to buy a barrel of flour, likely for two or three dollars more than it would cost him in New Orleans in two months' time, and he would have to do something about meat. If only it were as simple as butchering a hog, but they were too large now to be eaten fresh without spoiling, and the weather was too hot for the meat to firm up enough to be salted. He might smoke it, but who would mind the fire? Lottie could only do so much, and if it came to a choice between the tobacco fires and the smokehouse fire there simply was no choice.

It made his head ache just thinking about it, and he had no solution to offer. Nor had he pointed out to Mary that he could not possibly be spared from his work to help her entertain the guests. He knew she was expecting him to be out early and working through the day, but he wondered whether she understood that he would not be able to halt in time for a civilized supper. There was no question of taking the Tates visiting to the neighboring plantations, either, unless Mary and Frances wanted to call on Verbena. Considerations of time aside, courtesy forbade Cullen from bringing such a very vocal proponent of abolition into the homes of those he might offend – or who might equally offend him. He wondered whether Jeremiah Tate understood just how quiet and rural Lauderdale County was. There were no theatres, no public balls, no gentlemen's clubs. There was, quite simply, not much to do unless one moved in the circles of the county set and had leisure to squander on their endless hunts and suppers and barbecues and dances.

"Too soon," said Elijah, staying Cullen's hand with his voice before the master could cut a leaf that was not quite ready. He grimaced and tried to focus more intently on his work. They were near the end of the row now, but Nate and Meg had already started on their second. It took less time to prime a plant than it did to look for suckers, at least at this stage when so few leaves were ready. Cullen adjusted his hold on the knife, sticky fingers resisting, and tried to wipe his eyes with his wet and tarry sleeve. As he cut another lug his eyes drifted up the plant to the luscious leaves at the middle of the stalk, still not quite mature but broad and whole and filled with promise of a good price. If only the Lord spared them any late-season misfortune or any unforeseen delay they would have a bountiful and saleable crop.

He closed his heart against that hope, remembering the enthusiasm he had felt last year, just before the week of blistering heat that had shriveled the stalks half-ripened after a dry year that had slowed their growth to begin with. Worse than the disappointment had been the hundreds of weary hours, day after miserable, stooping day, cutting leaves too immature to cure but too dry to let stand; knowing all the while that the work would bring little return. Tending the kiln fires day and night, and watching as the tobacco turned color not to the deep and even brown so prized by buyers, but to a sickly greenish caramel color that proclaimed even to the untrained eye that the crop was a failure. Lying awake, exhausted beyond reason but unable to sleep because his mind was flooded with visions of fruitless negotiations in the warehouses overlooking the levees by the sea. The nightmare of that pitiful harvest haunted him, and he was too much of a realist to believe that he was past the crisis point. Until the best leaves were ripe and picked and cured and packed, he would not be able to draw an unburdened breath. Too much depended on this crop: the survival of the plantation, the health of his wife and his child, the wellbeing of his darkies, and perhaps the best part of his spirit. He felt that way sometimes: if this crop failed it would take something with it, something that the mud had been trying to leach from him all year.

He was at the end of the row at last and he straightened his back. The joints of his ribs creaked as he did so, and he thought longingly of Gabe's little feet paddling up and down his spine. He wondered if he might be in less pain each day if he could indulge in such treatment on a regular basis, but of course that was impossible. He did not have time to lie about during the hours his son was awake, and that was all there was to it. When the crop was in…

"You wan' switch?" asked Elijah as Cullen stopped at the next row. He snorted disdainfully at the older man and bent to the first plant.

He _did_ want to switch. He had often thought it might go easier on the pickers if they took a turn piercing in every other row. But Nate would never switch with Meg, and if he did not then Cullen couldn't either. It was not just a matter of keeping what little respect his slave still had for him; his own pride would not stand for it. If Nate could pick all day, so could Cullen. He had managed it last year, though by the end he had been nearly crippled with the pains. The year before he had stood and held the pike, but things had been different then. Then, he had still sometimes had days, or even a week where he did no field work. Then there had still been money enough to pay the taxes, buy the year's stores, and keep everyone decently clothed and shod. And Elijah had been younger then.

He would no more admit it than Cullen would confess to his own tormented exhaustion, but Elijah was past his prime. He was older than Bethel: probably a good eight or ten years older, though it was difficult to make an accurate guess and neither Elijah nor anyone else knew the precise year or date of his birth. Sometime in May; that was all he knew. He'd been born when the magnolias had been blooming, in the year that the master had bought the team of Devon oxen. This was meaningless to Cullen, of course. Elijah had been sold off of that plantation as a child and did not even remember its name; only that it was somewhere in South Carolina and he supposed his mother and father were buried there.

His exact age did not matter anyhow. What mattered was that over the last year or so he had been finding it harder and harder to keep up his old pace. He had not been able to do any of the spring plowing, and he struggled with many of the heavier jobs about the Bohannon place. In better times he would have been allowed to go into an honorable retirement of sorts, perhaps still tending the stock and splitting kindling and doing other light work, but spared the rigors of mowing and threshing and freed at last from the fetters of the tobacco. But there was no one to replace him, and he was needed in whatever capacity he could still manage. Cullen, conscious of his failure as the master to provide another field hand to replace the aged one, tried his best to keep Elijah from the worst of the work. With so few of them and so much to be done this was only possible to a limited degree, but at least he could drive his own mules, haul his own logs, and pick his own damned tobacco.

"These leaves lookin' good," Nate said from the next row. He was speaking to Meg as he moved to a new plant. "Massa goin' get top price."

"Praise the Lord," Meg said reverently. "Even these here lugs ain't bad."

Cullen bit his tongue against the urge to scold them for their optimism. A little hope was no bad thing. He could do with a taste of it himself. The knife slipped and nicked his thumb. Cursing under his breath he brought it to his mouth and sucked off the blood. He tasted the bitter green tang of the plant, so unlike the rich dark taste of cured tobacco, and the sickly-sweet foulness of the insidious sap. He pulled back his thumb and watched as the bright red globe of blood rose afresh on the blackened, grimy skin. Sighing he picked up the knife where it had fallen in the lingering mud at the base of the plant. Let it bleed, then. What was he going to do, stain his oilskins? He got back to work, teeth set in loathing. Mud and blood and futility: the mortar of a farmer's life.

_*discidium*_

There were only about three acres of corn left to harvest. All working together the household had made good time, and the weather that was now unseasonably hot had ripened the remaining ears so well and so swiftly that only two passes through the field had been needed. When the morning chores were done, Mama and Bethel would tie on their sunbonnets, collect the makings of Gabe's little tent, and head out to the meadow. They moved in opposite directions, Mama working northward while Bethel worked south and then reversing, because in this way someone was always less than half a row away from Gabe. He was old enough now to understand that something tremendously important was going on and that he must mind his mother and Bethel and stay where they could see him. He played with his kitten in the shade, or ran up and down the little hillock whooping like a wild thing, or trundled down between the rows of towering corn to follow one or the other of the women, chattering happily. Whenever he wanted to he could fetch a drink from the bucket of water sheltered under one of the chairs, and when Mama or Bethel came to the meadow end of a row he would fill it carefully and carry it to them.

The first time he had done this had been for Mama, because she looked so tired and hot dragging the heavy basket after her. She had looked at him in surprise when he held up the tin ladle dripping with sweet, cool water, and then she had laughed and hugged him and told him he was a darling boy, and so clever! Gabe liked to be clever, for Pappy was clever, and so he kept on doing it.

Pappy was back in the tobacco all day, which meant that Gabe never got to see him at all. At least when he had been working in the corn Gabe could watch him, even if he had to be good and not pester. And they'd had dinner together every day, Pappy eating quickly but at the very same table as Gabe, and at the same time, too. Now he took his dinner with him when he went out before the sun was up, and he ate it with Nate and Meg and Elijah right in the tobacco field so that the work did not need to stop any longer than absolutely necessary. Mama said it was a good thing that the tobacco was ready for picking, but Gabe disagreed. He was starting to resent the tobacco for taking his Pappy away from him.

That was his secret, however. The grown folks wouldn't understand it, because all they ever thought about was the stupid tobacco. Mama and Bethel talked about it when they worked in the kitchen. Lottie wondered aloud about it while she ran back and forth from the heap of corn to the drying rows of ears laid out in the grass. On Sunday Pappy kept muttering about it as he sat at the big desk in the parlor scribbling on the back of an old piece of paper. And although Gabe didn't see much of Nate or Elijah or Meg, he just knew _they_ were thinking about the tobacco, too. Soon Lottie wouldn't be able to play with him anymore, because she'd be busy keeping the fires in the tobacco barn burning all day when the men and her mama were in the fields. The nuisance that had been a constant presence in the consciousness of the family all year was now in command: everything revolved around the tobacco.

Gabe had only the dimmest understanding that the crop was, somehow, very important. Sometimes he woke up late at night when the stairs creaked, and he could hear Mama and Pappy murmuring in low voices as they passed his room on the way to bed. More than once he had heard Mama say, very kindly and gently; "As soon as the tobacco is in you will; just a little longer." Then Pappy would sigh and Gabe would hear the rasp of his whiskers on his strong, calloused palm, and he would know that the tobacco was making Pappy worried and tired. He hated the tobacco.

Only Stewpot knew the truth, though. Gabe whispered it to him in the shade of the bedsheet tent when Mama and Bethel were in the middle of the field and Lottie was up in the meadow laying out the corn. And Stewpot would look at him with his bright green eyes, and he would mew softly to show that he understood, and that he would not tell anyone, ever. Gabe was glad. He thought maybe it would hurt Mama and Pappy to know what he really thought of their stupid old tobacco.

Gabe was bored with lying on his belly on the old quilt. He had been playing with the woolen tassel, making it bounce and dance so that Stewpot would try to grab it with his paws, but now the kitten had retreated to the far edge of the blanket where the sheet puddled upon it. The sheet was warm from the sun, and Stewpot liked to snuggle up against it while he napped. Gabe was meant to be trying to nap, too, but he wasn't in the least bit sleepy. He folded his arms before him and rested his chin upon them. He wanted to do something fun, something interesting. He wanted an adventure.

Lottie was at the far end of the meadow, laying out corn from her apron. Gabe sat up and crept to peer around the edge of the chair nearest the cornfield. Mama and Bethel were down in the middle of their rows, working towards one another. They weren't watching to make sure he was sleeping as he should be. Encouraged, Gabe got to his feet. The cornfield spread out all the way to the bottom of the garden in front of him, and off towards the pasture to the left. To the right it seemed to go on and on like a forest. Gabe grinned. There might be _anything_ in that corn: dragons or soldiers or Indians. It was just the place to have an adventure.

He looked towards Lottie again, but she was intent on her work. She thought he was sleeping, too. He shook his head at this foolishness. How was he supposed to sleep out here in the bright sun where there wasn't even a bed? He took his naps in his darkened bedroom up in the house, not on a blanket in the meadow. That he had napped quite successfully under such circumstances for the last several days did not occur to him.

Quick as his short legs would carry him Gabe bolted from his shelter, running down the gentle slope to the edge of the corn. He hurriedly ducked into an empty row, scurrying along until he couldn't see Lottie anymore. He couldn't see much of anything, he realized eagerly, except the towering green stalks with their lazy leaves. Far down the other end of the row he could just make out the whitewashed rails of the garden fence, and in the direction from which he had come there was a thin slice of meadow, but that was all. Even the big, empty sky was crowded into a thin, ragged ribbon by the empty heads of the picked plants. All around him there was nothing but corn.

Gabe was delighted. This was the _perfect_ place for his adventure. He imagined the stalks were great big towering trees, and he was a soldier scouting after Redcoats. Mama had told him stories about the Redcoats, and how they had wanted to tell the People what to do and how to live. And the People didn't like that, so they fought a great war for Independence. Mama's great-grandfathers had fought the Redcoats in far-off exotic places with names like Saratoga and Philly-delfie, and Pappy's grandpappy's pappy had fought at a place called Sullivan's Island. The People had fought, and fought, in fields and forests and cities and forts, and in the end they had beaten the Redcoats and chased them away, back to England and Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. And that was why there were no more kings and all the People were free.

There were Redcoats in this forest, and Gabe knew it. He wriggled his way through two cornstalks, the big bottom leaves dragging on his arms and tickling his face. He burst out into the next row, ready to do battle. He spun to the left, but there was only the long tunnel of corn that ended at the garden fence. He spun to the right, and he saw Lottie up on the hill, climbing to her feet with her empty apron bunched in one hand. Only it wasn't Lottie, of course: it was a Redcoat sentry, looking for Gabe. Lottie's pink sprigged dress was _almost_ red, wasn't it? Yes, she was definitely a sentry.

Gabe dove into the next row of plants, fighting his way through. This was no good at all: he was behind enemy lines, and he didn't have a weapon. He wished he had remembered to bring his popgun from the house. If he had expected to be fighting Redcoats in the corn he certainly would have. But as he broke out into the next earthy asile he spied something almost as good. It was a bent willow-stick that had broken off of one of the baskets. He picked it up and tested its heft in his hand. It would do. It could be a sabre, or even a musket! Eagerly, now prepared for anything, he wriggled through the next row.

The hunt went on, but the Redcoats were sneaky. They were always just past the next line of corn, but when Gabe got there they had advanced again. It was terribly exciting, never knowing when he might find one, and Gabe began to move in elaborate looping patterns to try to catch them unawares. Once he burst out with a wild whooping yell… but the Redcoat he had been sure he would find when he did was long gone. He began to feel frustrated. The game was no good without someone else to play the enemy. As it was it was just him, tearing through the corn with a bit of broken basket in his fist.

He was sick of the game, and what's more he was starting to feel hot and thirsty. He meandered up the row he had halted in, absentmindedly whacking the stalks on either side with his stick as he walked. He came to the end of the row and stepped out of the shade into the bright sun, and froze in horror.

His tent was gone. The clover was gone. The buckets and the dipper, the heap of picked corn, and the rows laid neatly to dry in the sun were gone. There was only a wide field, dark earth turned but growing thick with weeds – some of them as high as Gabe's waist. Gabe looked all around, but he could not see Lottie anywhere. He ran out into the barren field, the hard clods of dirt hurting his bare feet, and turned around so he could look at the corn. He could not see the dark shapes of Mama and Bethel moving down the rows, picking diligently. He could not see anything at all except the dead field around him and the bare hill to his left and the empty cornfield like an ocean of tall green trees before him.

Frightened, he ran back down into the corn. The stalks flew by on either side as he hurried down the row. On the far end he would come out near the garden: he knew that. And from the garden he could find his way to the dooryard, and the house was just there, not so far from the henhouse. If he could find the garden he could get home.

But he came out in empty grass, short enough to tickle his ankles but endless and unfamiliar. He looked to his left, where he thought he should be able to see the garden fence, but there was nothing. There was a dark shape up on the rise to his right: huge and four-legged. Squinting, Gabe thought maybe it was a cow… but it might just as easily have been a bear or a dragon or something else that liked to eat small boys who wandered off away from their mothers. Stricken with terror, he hurried back into the corn and crawled under the fronds of one of the plants, huddling against the stalk.

Gabe wanted to cry. He didn't understand how he had managed to lose everything familiar when walking through the cornfield that he knew belonged to his pappy. Where was the house? The stable? The woodshed and the well and the willows and the cabins? All the familiar landmarks of his world were gone, and his Mama was nowhere to be found, and he was lost in an endless cornfield with empty land all around him, and he was hot and he was thirsty and he was frightened.

He crouched there a long time, hugging his knees to his chest and whimpering softly in the back of his throat. He stubbornly refused to cry. Pappy wouldn't cry, even if he was lost and alone and far away from home. Pappy was a brave, brave man, and Gabe wanted to be brave just like him. He tried to think what Pappy would do in this sort of awful predicament. Would he hide under a cornstalk, waiting for that bear or dragon or monster or whatever-it-was to find him and eat him? No. Pappy would get up and pick up his musket and try to find his way back in the direction he had come. That's just what Pappy would do. Somewhere in this vast jungle of corn Mama and Bethel were working, and Gabe was going to find them.

He got up and retrieved the willow-wand where he had dropped it. Then he looked at the corn. The two rows between which he stood looked identical, but he was sure the one on his off side was the one that he wanted. At least he thought it was the off side. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the day when Pappy had taught him how to get down off of Pike's back, and he could feel his father's fingers tapping on his knee. Yes, that was the off side, all right. He turned in that direction and dove through the close-growing plants.

Gabe pressed on and on for what seemed like hours, or even days. He got thirstier and thirstier, and his legs began to ache. His face and hands were sticky with green stains from the corn leaves, and his fingers ached from the tight, ferocious hold he had on his stick. But row after row passed and he did not see any sign of Mama or Bethel. A new and awful fear filled him. Suppose the whatever-it-was had found them first, and eaten _them_? It was possible, he thought. Mama was a lady, and in the stories ladies were always getting carried off by monsters. And Bethel was tough and she was bossy, but she wasn't a tall, brave man and she didn't have a gun. She wouldn't be able to fight a monster.

Tears prickled in Gabe's eyes at this terrible possibility. Frantically he pushed through the next row of corn, and the next, and the next.

Then suddenly he was out under the open sky, blinking dazedly in sunshine that seemed very bright indeed after the shadows of the tall plants. Indiangrass tickled his knees, and behind him there was a huge wall of corn stretching far in either direction. But in front of him a little ways was a field of strange-looking bushes. They were taller than Gabe, but only just, and they had a strange squat look as if some huge creature had bitten off all of their tops and left just the bottom leaves. And the leaves themselves were simply _'normous_, big enough to wear as a cape. Curious enough to forget his fear just for a moment, Gabe approached the edge of the field, where a lip of sod gave way to the dark, plowed soil. He stepped down with care and approached one of the strange plants. He tugged at it, and a shower of dew fell from the back of the leaf, sprinkling his toes and the thin layer of mud that surrounded the base of the stalk. The plant had a strong, mealy scent to it, green and sour and vital, and when Gabe let go of the leaf his fingertips were smeared with something sticky and dark. He wiped them on his little pants and looked around again, puzzled.

He retreated back to the edge of the field, looking around to see if there was anyone tending these peculiar plants. He saw no one, but his eyes caught sight of something much more enticing. Away down at the far end of the field, past the countless rows of broad, stunted plants, was an oak tree, and in the shade beneath it there were wooden buckets. Gabe broke into a run, dropping his stick in his single-minded pursuit. Those were the sort of buckets they used at home for carrying well water to the house, to the stable, and out to the fields. As he drew nearer he saw that two of the buckets had dippers leaning up against their sides, and his pace quickened. He ran so swiftly that he could not stop properly when he reached his destination, and he tripped and skidded on the grass, staining his calves and the knees of his pants with green. He scrambled up again and hurried to the nearest bucket, snatching up the dipper as he landed heavily on his knees.

The pail was half-full of water, and Gabe brought up a brimming ladleful. He slurped it noisily, water running down his chin and the front of his shirt and wetting his lap. He drained the dipper and filled it again, drinking his fill. The water wasn't as cool as it might have been fresh from a well, but it was wet and it was delicious. He drank again, and then reached to splash his hands in the water. He cupped his palms and brought up small handfuls to pat on his cheeks to cool them. Then he sat back on one foot and looked around. There were six buckets, three of them empty and two only half-full. One of these was the one he had been drinking from, and the other had a red rag tied around its handle. And one of the empty ones was lying on its side in a patch of slick wet grass, as if it had been dropped hastily or kicked over in a sudden panic. Gabe hardly looked at it: he had seen something more interesting. Nearby on the ground there lay several long, skinny poles with sharpened tips. Gabe studied them for a moment from afar, and then his heart began to hammer high in his throat.

Spears, he thought. _Indians_!

Gabe had heard about Indians, too, though not from his mama. All the land in Lauderdale County had once been Indian territory, before the government had taken it over and driven them off. Indians were wild and dangerous, and they sometimes fought wars against white people and burned their homes and scalped them. Gabe didn't know what _scalped_ meant, but he had heard Nate and Elijah talk about it in the eager, scandalized tones that grown-ups used when they talked about far-off horrors they never expected to experience themselves. Grown-ups didn't understand that all the bad things you could imagine were real: that you could wander off in your pappy's corn and find that suddenly your whole world had disappeared; that a monster or a dragon or a whatever-it-was could eat your mama and your Bethel and leave you all alone, that you could stumble out of the forest of corn stalks and find strange and smelly plants that some kind of giant beast had been grazing on. Bad things did happen, and Indians were real, and they had been here: they had left their spears behind, and this was probably their water, too!

That realization was the final horror. Gabe had taken the Indians' water! They would find out that he had stolen from them and they would catch him and hurt him. They would burn down his house and take Pappy's horses and they would maybe even scalp Gabe, and Lottie, and Meg and Elijah and Nate. They wouldn't scalp Pappy: bad things could never happen to Pappy. He would fight them, but what could he do against so many Indians? There were lots and lots of spears lying there in the grass: many, many more than Gabe could count.

Panicked and now on the very verge of tears, Gabe bolted to his feet. He looked around frantically for somewhere to hide, his fingers dripping with the stolen water, and he could see nowhere at all. The cornfield was so far away: he would never reach it in time! There was a stone with a hollow under it, but there was something stuffed in there, wrapped in a napkin, and anyway it was too small for even a little boy to crawl into. There was nowhere to hide, except among the low green plants with their huge leaves.

Gabe ran, stumbling as he stepped down from the edge of the sod. His fingers scrabbled in the damp dirt, streaking his palms with mud, and he bolted down to the middle of the row. The plants grew out of small shaped hills, like the potatoes and the yams did, and he got down on his hands and knees and crawled under the spreading lower leaves to press himself close against one. The mud soaked through the seat of his trousers and wet his drawers, but he did not care. He drew in his legs so that his feet were close to his bottom and lay down in the dirt, curled on his side and trembling. The plant under which he was sheltering was sticky and smelled even stronger than the one he had examined earlier. Looking up Gabe could see little knobbly wounds where leaves had been cut off: one, two, three, four of them. They were dripping pale sap that ran in tiny rivulets into the dust. Gabe watched the juice oozing from the cuts, and tried very hard to fight off his terror, but it was no use. He shrank closer to the stalk, deeper under the shelter of the leaves, and silent tears began to course down his round little cheeks. He was lost and he was frightened: his mama was gone and his pappy was far away and the Indians were coming.

Exhausted from his exertions and worn down with the elaborate torments of a young imagination, he fell asleep.


	24. The Wanderer

**Chapter Twenty-Four: The Wanderer**

Cullen took the sharpened end of the loaded rod, and Elijah lifted the butt. It leveled between them, the leaves settling down to dangle from it. Each man rested his end upon his shoulder, and Elijah led the way to the end of the row, and then over to the foot of the rise where the other filled poles were lying in the grass. They lowered the new one carefully, so that the leaves would not fold or tear. The effort of bending slowly and smoothly sent familiar daggers into Cullen's kidneys, and he straightened as quickly as he dared when the stave was out of his hands, regretting the motion as the rest of his back protested. He took off his hat and dug out his filthy handkerchief, blotting the perspiration from his brow. Elijah scratched the back of his neck, waiting for some sign of what his master wished to do next.

"Best get some water," Cullen muttered, turning away and trudging over to the oak tree. He squatted stiffly and drew up a full dipper. The water was tepid, but he was too thirsty to care. Elijah helped himself from the other bucket, and Cullen picked up the wash-pail to drizzle a little over his hair. Dirty rivulets ran down his cheeks and the back of his neck, but it cooled him. He dragged the wet tendrils out of his eyes with his left hand, and the hairs stuck to the thick coating of tobacco juice. He wrinkled his nose in disgust and tried to dust his palm on the seat of his oilskins.

"Damned stuff gets into everything," he muttered.

Elijah only looked at him, filmed eyes unreadable.

Cullen tossed his head and settled his hat again. He bent back the brim to keep it from drooping too badly. It was a good thing straw hats were worthless, because he had pretty near destroyed his. He wondered whether Mary might consent to make him a new one. Then he put that thought from his mind. She'd have enough to do once the corn was in; Bethel would want to start right in on the fall cleaning a month early so the house would be ready for guests. Looking out towards the field he called out; "How you two getting on over there?"

Meg turned, keeping a firm hold on her pole, and waved her free hand. "Jus' fine, Mist' Cullen!" she promised, then reached hurriedly as Nate handed her another broad leaf.

Three minutes wasn't much of a rest, but it was all he was going to get. Cullen stood up with a muffled grunt and shuffled over to the clutch of empty staves in the grass. He hooked one with the toe of his boot, kicking it up so that he could catch hold of it. "Let's get back to it," he said to Elijah.

Then his eye was drawn to the top of the rise beyond which lay the house. Lottie was cresting it at a full run. "Mist' Cullen?" she called as she flew down the hill, pigtails flying and bare feet narrowly missing one of the loaded rods. "Mist' Cullen, be Mist' Gabe down here with you?"

Cullen handed off the pole hurriedly to Elijah. As he started off his boot struck the end of one of the buckets, and it tipped, spreading its contents over the grass. He scarcely noticed as he went striding to meet the girl, his brow furrowing in an uncomprehending frown. "What you mean, is Gabe with me?" he asked.

She stopped short before him, panting and looking up at him with stricken eyes. "He ain't come down to be with you?" she asked.

"No. Why would he? He never comes out this far." In his puzzlement he still did not quite understand what she was saying. "What you looking for him for? It's his naptime, ain't it?"

"Oh, Mist' Cullen, he gone!" she cried, wringing her hands in the heavy fustian work apron. "He meant to be nappin' under them chairs out the sun, but when Missus Bohannon look up, he gone! He musta up an' wandered. They's lookin' for him in the corn, the missus an' Bethel, but I 'spects he could be 'most anywhere by now."

Cullen might have reassured her that there was only so far a child could roam in a short time, but her obvious distress was infectious and he felt his pulse quicken. "Did you check the house?" he asked. "What about the barn? The cowshed?"

"I's goin' to," said Lottie; "but Missus Mary, she say you all got to come quick an' help look. She say they's a lot of ways a li'l boy like that could get hurt on a farm. An' she right, Mist' Cullen. Hurt or even…" Tears glittered on her eyelashes. "I didn' mean to take my eyes off him, Massa, only he lyin' there, s'posed to be sleepin', an' the corn got to be spread…"

Elijah had come up behind Cullen now, and he was listening intently. Cullen glanced at him, and then turned to beckon with an urgent arm to the others. "Get over here!" he shouted. "Gabe's wandered off and we got to find him before he gets into mischief."

Nate straightened, frowning, and Meg hurriedly tilted the pole towards him. He grabbed it and they carried it, only a little more than a quarter full, to lie on the grass with the others. Meg came hurrying over, gathering up her muddy skirts. "Mist' Gabe wandered off?" she repeated. She seized her daughter's shoulder. "Where he wander to? You's s'posed to keep you' eye on that baby: he too li'l to be runnin' 'bout the plantation all by his lonesome!"

"Leave her be," Cullen said absentmindedly. He was running through the list of places a small child might want to go, and with it the litany of ways he might be hurt or maimed – or even, as Lottie was reluctant to say but obviously thinking, killed. "Meg, you run right now and check the toolshed. Then the henhouse and the cowshed and the cabins. Elijah, the barn and the paddock. Don't forget the hayloft: he been up there after them kittens all month. Lottie, you run check the house and the root cellar. Then be sure the smokehouse is locked." He closed his eyes, thinking frantically, but nothing else rose immediately to mind. "Nate, you and I going to take the corn. We'll start this side of the fields and work in towards Mary."

Nate shook his head, and for a moment Cullen wanted nothing more than to slap him. Impudence while felling trees and a half-cocked rebellion on a Sunday were one thing, but if he refused to put in his oar now when Cullen's son was missing…

But Nate said grimly; "I goin' check the creek bottom. An' somebody ought to look in the well."

The courage drained from Cullen's heart as the color drained from his face. Dear God, the well! Gabe had developed a fascination for it early in the year, and more than once Bethel had caught him climbing up on a crate to look over the low stone wall. Everyone had assumed she had cured his curiosity with her scoldings, but what if she had not? Cullen's body jerked towards the rise, ready to bolt, but he hesitated just long enough to snap; "Get on then, and look! Anybody finds him, first thing you do is get him safe, then bring him right down to the corn to see Mary. She must be sick with worry."

Then he tore off up the rise towards the house.

He did not look to see if the others were scattering as they ought. He only knew that he had to get to that well, and right this minute. If Gabe _had _fallen in he might be trying to hold onto the bucket, or even to float. Cullen had been attempting to teach him to float down in the creek that spring, but the lessons had to be abandoned when the tobacco got large enough for topping. Now he cursed his shortsightedness in neglecting that important lesson in survival. He skidded down the hillside towards the dooryard and vaulted over the fence one-handed – a feat he would not have thought his tired body capable of. He reached the well at such a speed that he had to grab hold of the windlass to keep from pitching into it himself. He bent so that his forehead almost touched the knot of rope, staring down into the stony darkness. He saw a glimmer of sunlight on the water below, rippling placidly, but nothing else.

"Gabe?" he shouted, his voice echoing back hollowly at him. He waited for ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty. There was no splash of water to indicate a struggle. No sudden, bobbing mass breaking the surface. A living child might sink, fighting for air, but a dead body would float. Wouldn't it? Anxiously he looked at the ground around the well. He saw the marks of the field crew's boots, deep in the earth that had been wet with the dew that morning. He saw Bethel's shoeprints, and the rounded scratchings of Lottie's bare toes. But no small, three-year-old boy prints. At last he was able to breathe. Gabe was not in the well.

But the creek… The child knew that he was not allowed to go down that way without someone to watch him, but as Cullen had scarcely been a model of boyhood obedience himself he had little faith in the strength of such edicts. He ran off in that direction next, passing Meg as she came out of the toolshed. He hesitated, casting her a questioning eye. She shook her head and hurried towards the henhouse. That was something. The shed was filled with forks and scythes, saws and mallets and long, wicked butchering knives; it was a mercy that there was no sign of the boy in there.

When Cullen came to the place where the pasture met the wood he started to call out again, shouting his son's name over and over as he stepped down amid the trees. He hurried to the water and without regard for his boots rushed down into the shallows. He splashed downstream a few dozen yards, shouting all the way, and then moved upstream again. He heard Nate before he saw him, calling; "Mist' Gabe? Mist' Gabe, where you at? You' mama be worried 'bout you. Mist' Gabe?"

They met not far from the place where the bluff rose too high for ready access to the stream, Cullen now soaked to the knees and Nate somewhat more dignified as he stood with one foot up on a hanging root. "No sight of him, Mist' Cullen," the black man said, genuine relief in his eyes.

Cullen nodded weakly. "Let's go help check the corn," he said. "Mary must be frantic."

She was. The moment she saw him, moving as quickly as he could despite the stitch in his side from his mad dash in the creek, she came flying out of the corn. Her sunbonnet hung by its ribbons down her back and her hair was coming loose from its pins. It looked as though she had been clawing at it. Her face was white and her eyes wide, and she hurled herself into his arms with no regard for her clean clothes against his filthy overalls. Awkwardly he caught her, staying one wildly gesticulating hand.

"He can't have gone far!" she cried. "He was there just a minute ago… I only took my eyes off of him for a _minute_, Cullen, I swear it!"

"Was closer to ten 'tween when las' I see'd him an' when we noticed he gone," Bethel said, coming to the end of the row. "Quick li'l legs can get awful far in ten minutes."

"But where would he go?" cried Mary. "And why? Gabe!" She whirled out of Cullen's grasp and ran back towards the corn. "_Gabe!_"

She stopped suddenly, halfway down the gentle slope, and swayed. Cullen was at her side in an instant, bracing her shoulders. The color was gone even from her lips now, and her eyes had an alarmingly glassy cast to them. "You best sit down," he said softly in her ear. "Running 'round without your bonnet in this heat, you'll make yourself sick. Nate 'n me will look. We'll find him. I got the others checking the house and the outbuildings. He ain't down in the woods."

He took care to say nothing of the creek or the well. That thought had very nearly stopped his own heart; it would be too much for Mary.

"We have to find him," Mary whispered hoarsely. Frantic eyes searched the field. "He might be hurt, or frightened."

"We'll find him," Cullen promised. "You got to sit down. Bethel, come sit her down."

The black woman strode up and put her arm around Mary's shoulder, stroking her hair as Mary leaned in towards the comfort of her hold. "Hush there, honey: he 'round here somewhere. You come sit a minute 'til you ain't so white, an' then you can help look again."

"Best give her some water, too," Cullen said. "Nate, you check down that end first." He gestured broadly at the rows that had yet to be picked clean. "Call his name, but gentle. He might be scared to come out. It's easy to get lost in a cornfield if you ain't but three feet high."

Bethel had Mary on the quilt now, under the shade of the worn old sheet. Mary's face was a ghastly shade of grey and she was breathing heavily as if she were about to be ill. Knowing she was in capable hands, Cullen turned his back. The best thing he could do to comfort Mary was to find their boy. Nate was walking down the row that the women had been working, calling out to Gabe as cheerfully as he could. Cullen plunged recklessly among the stripped stalks, not caring that he was crashing through them and knocking them down, crushing stalks beneath his boots as he went. They were used up anyway: ready to be mowed down as hands could be spared for the labor. Then they would be left to dry and ultimately burned, the ash mulching the soil for the winter wheat.

"Gabe?" he called as he shoved through row upon row. "Gabe, you out here, son? Just give a shout if you are. Gabe?"

The sound of Nate's voice grew distant, and Cullen picked up his pace. In each long aisle he hesitated only long enough to look left and right, sharp eyes watching for bare toes peeking out from under a stalk. Of course with the leaves as verdant as they were a child could easily conceal himself completely, but it might take days to check every plant. He just had to hope that Gabe was neither too frightened nor too hurt to call out in response to his name.

"Gabe? It's Pappy. Where you gone? Gabe? _Gabe_!"

At the end of one row he caught sight of the distant form of one of the cows on her picket-line, grazing contentedly and clearly oblivious to the agitation among the plantation's human residents. He ran down to the edge of the corn, looking out in case Gabe had wandered off to try to visit with the animals. He had less interest in the cows than in the other livestock, with the possible exception of the mules, but it was possible. But there was no sign of Gabe, and Cullen hurried back into the corn.

He continued, walking and shouting. His hips, already sore from priming, began to ache mercilessly with the effort of shoving through the corn, and his throat stung. His hat was taken from his head by a particularly ornery stalk, but he did not stop to retrieve it. Again and again he called, but no answer came. At last he reached the far end of the field, a good half-mile or more from where he had started, and he came out at the farthest corner of the tobacco patch: the last to be planted, and the last in each pass of the fields. Beyond it were the fallow acres resting from last year's disastrous crop. Next year it would be laid in corn, and the cornfield in tobacco, and the fifty sorry acres now green with the cash crop would rest.

"Gabe?" Cullen called again, pointlessly. He had been working just down the field from this spot up until Lottie had come running: he would have seen his boy if he had come out of the corn. Weary and perspiring and hoarse, he stumped along the border between the indiangrass and the muck, thinking only of the water under the oak tree. He called his son's name one more time, halfheartedly.

He felt sick, and his stomach churned as he drank. Where else could the boy be hiding? He might have started off across the pasture, but surely Lottie would have seen him as he crossed her path. In any case he could not possibly have got far enough over the relatively level northern acres to be out of sight of the women by the time his absence was noticed. It wasn't even likely he could have reached the trees. He had to have gone into the corn… but then what? Had he fainted from the heat, or twisted his foot in a gopher hole and passed out from the pain? If he had lost consciousness, he must have done it where he could have fallen concealed by the corn plants. But that couldn't be so, thought Cullen belligerently. If Gabe was in the corn and couldn't answer them, they would have to search each plant by hand. Even with everyone looking they couldn't possibly finish by dark. It wasn't yet very cold at night: just cool enough to take the heat out of the bedrooms. But how much of a chill could a three-year-old boy stand, left out in the dark and the dew? Gabe couldn't be unconscious in the corn.

He might have gone through the rows to the garden, and so to the dooryard. But then surely someone would have found him by now, and if they had they would have come to find him as soon as they obeyed his orders to bring the child to his mama. What if he had got as far as the front lane? He might be out on the road now, unable to find his way home. Or maybe…

Cullen's thoughts returned once more to the well, and the strength went out of his knees. He sank down in the grass, soaked by the spilled pail, and bowed his head over his lap. Maybe a corpse didn't float, not right away. He might be wrong about that. If Gabe was at the bottom of the well…

He looked at the dipper in his hand, frowning. He had had to swing it around to the right side of the bucket to drink: it had been tilted to the left. He could have sworn that when he had put it down the last time, after laying out the pole, he had left it canted to the right. Nobody else had touched this bucket since: they had all gone off at once to search for Gabe. Cullen looked at the pail, puzzled, and then again at the dipper. No, he was _certain_ that he had left it on the other side.

He put it into the bucket as he knew he had done before, and watched it. It swung a little towards the handle tab as the bowl floated, but only a little. It did not swing clear around to the far side of the bucket. He flicked it with his finger, trying to induce such a motion. It rocked, but did not shift position.

Gabe had not quite mastered the art of using a dipper. Instead of lifting it to his lips by the handle alone, he grabbed the shaft with his left hand and cupped his right around the bowl as if holding a mug. He used both small hands to lift it to his lips, and the handle was always on the left so that his dominant arm carried the weight of the laden bowl. Cullen reached out and moved the dipper to the other side of the bucket. Yes, that was how his son would have put it in, all right.

"Gabe?" he bellowed, rocking back onto his heels and climbing to his feet. "Gabe? You out here somewhere? _Gabe?_"

There was a sudden rustling in the tobacco, and a small, frightened yelp. Cullen's eyes searched swiftly for the plant that had moved. It stirred again as the child sheltering beneath it shifted. It was in the sixth row.

"Son?" he called, more gently this time. He hurried down into the dirt and dropped to his knees just short of the plant. In the shadow of the broad leaves Gabe was almost invisible, particularly with the sun shining in Cullen's unshaded eyes. Despite this he could just make out wide, anxious eyes and the shape of small shoulders in a shirt that had once been white.

"Come on out, son," Cullen coaxed. "What you doing hiding under there?"

The arms that had been clutching drawn-up knees fell to the child's sides, pushing to lift him up off the hill of soil. Then suddenly Cullen was struck square in the chest by the hurtling body of his boy as Gabe flung himself full-force into his pappy's arms. He clutched at the bib of the oilskin overalls, babbling in senseless panic.

"Trees 'n trees 'n a _monster_!" he wailed. "Eated Bet'l all up, an' de Injuns goin' get me, an' dey goin' scalp 'Ottie, an' I dropt my mug-sket, an' de big flat plants…"

"Slow down there, son, just slow down," Cullen said. Unsure what else to do he wrapped his arms around the quaking little body and held him close, cupping one filthy hand around the crown of Gabe's head. "You're all right. Just slow down and take a breath."

"De Injuns!" sobbed Gabe, hiding his face against Cullen's armpit. "Dey's goin' git me: I didn' mean to steal dat water. I was jus' t'irsty, Pappy! An' Mama… oh, oh, _OH!_"

And he began to sob, huge, sundering sobs that felt strong enough to tear his little body in two. Unable to bear such a terrible sound from his own child, Cullen scooped Gabe up against his shoulder and hugged him tightly, rocking back and forth against his heels. Gabe's bare feet kicked at his thighs, and the plump hands closed in a death-grip on fistfuls of his coarse, sweat-soaked shirt.

"Here now, stop that," he said feebly. "Hush; you're all right. Be a little man, son. Hush now."

Gabe did not hush, but after a while he seemed to run out of energy. The sobs died down and he began to snuffle miserably against Cullen's shirt, now and then twitching with the force of a hiccough. When he was able to speak again he whimpered; "De Injuns, Pappy. Injuns."

"Son, there ain't no Indians. Not within two hundred miles. What's put that idea in your head?" Cullen asked, his hand beating out a slow soothing rhythm between the child's shoulder blades.

Gabe mumbled something unintelligible about water, and then said something Cullen caught, but didn't understand.

"Appears?" he said. "What do you mean, they appears?" He looked around almost as if he actually expected to see Indians skulking in the tobacco, but of course there were none to be found.

"No, no," moaned Gabe. "Dey gots _'pears_. Dere in de grass. Lots 'n lots of 'em."

"I don't rightly know what you mean, son," said Cullen dazedly. "Come on and tell me now: who's got you so scared?"

Gabe looked up at him, flooded eyes wide with the desperate need to make himself understood. "_Injuns_, Pappy!" he cried. "Dey gots 'pears, an' dey goin' stick me wid 'em!" This declaration was too much for him and he dissolved again into abject weeping.

"Spears!" Cullen exclaimed, his momentary excitement at the sudden comprehension overruling his wish to be calm and comforting. Gabe flinched at the volume of his voice and fell to trembling afresh. "There are _spears_ in the grass."

"Ye—eh—_es_!" howled Gabe, trying again to burrow against his father as if he could actually climb inside his ribcage.

Now Cullen understood, at least the bit about the Indians. "Oh, son, they ain't spears," he said. "And they don't belong to any Indians. They're tobacco poles, and they're mine."

"Yours?" Gabe swallowed another terrified sob and craned his neck to look up again. "Dey's yours?"

"Yes," Cullen promised. He shifted one arm under Gabe's bottom and struggled to his feet, a little unsteady on weary legs and hampered by the shifting weight he was carrying. He settled Gabe comfortably against him, keeping up his steady tattoo on the child's back. "Here, look."

He walked to the end of the row and down to where the staves were lying in the grass. He kicked one up as he had before, catching it and planting its butt next to his boot. Gabe's eyes travelled the length of the rod to where it came to a point above Cullen's head.

"You see, we put the leaves on the sharp end and push 'em down the pole," Cullen explained, letting his body sway so that Gabe rocked with him. "When our day's work's done, we take the poles down to the tobacco barn and put 'em up on the rails so the leaves can dry."

"Dey ain't 'pears?" asked Gabe, still tearful.

"No they ain't," promised Cullen. He tossed the pole down and went over to where the laden ones lay waiting. "Look: here they are with the leaves on."

Gabe looked, curious and obviously comforted. With their strange garland the sticks looked much less daunting. He snuggled closer to his father. "But den what was munchin' on dem plants?" he asked.

"Munching…" Cullen looked at the field, and realized for the first time that the tobacco plants _did _look a lot like the shorn stalks of the bluehearts after Pike and Bonnie had cropped off the blossoms, only about forty times larger. It was extraordinary, sometimes, how Gabe saw the world. "Nothing's been munching them," he said. "They grow like that 'cause we're out there every day pinching off the tops. It makes the leaves grow bigger."

"Dey's 'normous," Gabe agreed. He shivered in Cullen's arms and whispered; "Pappy, did dat whatever-it-was really eat Bet'l an' Mama?"

He said it with the stoic air of one who can bear a terrible truth if only he has someone to share it with. Cullen wondered what kind of horrors had been seizing his boy's mind since he had wandered off from his little tent. Immediately upon this thought came the wave of guilt: here he was quieting the child's fantasies while over in the cornfield Mary was doubtless wracked with her own horrors. At once he began striding off up the rise.

"Nobody ate Bethel," he said. "Don't you think she'd make mighty tough eating?"

Gabe giggled a little, wetly. Then he snorted loudly as he inhaled and shook his head. "Dem plants," he said. "Dey's de tobacco."

"They's the tobacco, all right," said Cullen. They were cresting the hill now, and he stopped long enough to point. "Look: there's the house right there."

Gabe looked, eyes widening this time with wonder. "I didn' get lost," he said.

This was demonstrably untrue: certainly he had had no idea where he was, and neither had anyone else for pretty near an hour. But Cullen said consolingly; "No sir: you were right here on our land the whole time."

He walked in silence down the hill and past the dooryard, following the garden fence towards the corn. Elijah appeared around the corner of the barn, saw Cullen with the child in his arms, and slumped in relief. Cullen nodded his head towards the cornfield, and Elijah began to find his own way on the opposite side of the garden.

"Pappy," Gabe said presently, in a voice so quiet that Cullen almost missed the words even though the boy's head was resting on his shoulder. "I hates de tobacco."

There was no one else within earshot, and Cullen allowed himself the rare luxury of confessing his inner thoughts. "So do I, son," he said wearily. "So do I."

He cut through the corn, raising ripples on either side. The very tops of the plants were about level with his head, and so Mary and Bethel could not see his cargo until he stepped out onto the stretch of mown clover. They had both been sitting on the blanket, Mary staring down at a crumpled handkerchief while Bethel had a comforting arm around her shoulder. When they saw that Cullen was not alone they both rose at once, Bethel with careful dignity and Mary in a flurry of petticoats.

"Oh, you found him!" she cried, laughing and weeping at once as she ran to embrace her child. Gabe leaned out from Cullen's chest, one arm gripping his pappy's neck while the other reached for his mama. He was briefly stretched between them, Mary hugging his waist with one arm and stroking his hair with the other, and then Cullen got his right hand loose and wrapped that arm around his wife, pulling her close. Mary was showering Gabe with kisses, and drew back only when she ran short of breath. She looked him over, hooking a stray curl behind his ear. "How dirty you are, dearest!" she exclaimed.

He was filthy, all right. The seat of his pants was smeared with mud, and his bare toes were choked with it. His hands were grubby and his face was streaked with dirt and tears and a shiny, sticky substance that was unmistakably tobacco sap. But he was smiling now, and he loosed his hold on his mother so that he could pet her cheek. "Dat ol' monster didn' eat you," he said stoutly.

"Monster?" asked Mary. She turned her eyes on her husband. "Where did you find him?"

"He was burrowing in the tobacco," said Cullen. "Must have found his way there after we all came out to look for him."

There was a rustling of cornstalks as Nate emerged. He took one look at the Bohannons, still snug in their three-pronged embrace, and set off down the row towards the garden, no doubt to find Meg and Lottie to tell them the good news.

"Have everyone come back here," Cullen called. His next command was muffled when Mary kissed him squarely on the lips. She was weeping joyfully and as she broke from his mouth she turned again to kiss Gabe's forehead. Then she stepped back and blotted her eyes with her handkerchief.

"Here, son, hop down," Cullen said, bending painfully to set Gabe's feet on the ground. "Why don't you go and have a drink of water?"

"I tooked water," Gabe confessed, eyes enormous in penitence. "Down by de 'pears: I stoled it."

"You had a drink from the bucket under the tree," Cullen translated. Gabe nodded, his young face positively wracked with guilt. Cullen grinned. "They wasn't spears, remember? They's my tobacco poles. That water was mine, too. You couldn't have stolen it if it's mine: you're my boy and everything on this place belongs to you, just the same as me."

Gabe looked enormously relieved. "I didn' stoled it?"

"You didn't."

Gabe grinned and ran to Bethel. She bent down and scooped him into her arms. "Honey-lamb," she murmured, rocking him from side to side and kissing his cheek. "Don' you never run off like that again. You tryin' to scare ol' Bethel into her grave?"

"He's going to need a bath," Mary said, looking down at her apron. It was smeared with grime, and her sleeves had fared no better. She looked Cullen over. "You could do with one yourself."

"Maybe tonight," Cullen said. He glanced over at his son, who was hugging Bethel tightly. He was obviously not quite recovered from his ordeal. Cullen looked up at the sun, squinting as he gauged its height. They still had a good six hours of sunlight left.

Meg and Lottie came out of the corn, closely followed by Nate. All of the slaves were now looking to their owner for direction; all but Bethel, who was more interested in the little master than the grown one. Cullen exhaled heavily as he considered his orders. "Nate and me are going to keep on picking," he said. "Meg and Elijah, you get in that corn. I want it finished tonight, you hear me? No rest for anybody 'til it's done. Lottie, you keep on laying it out like you been doing, double quick. Bethel, you get Gabe back to the house and fix him a bath: Mary will go with you. No more working the corn for either of you: it's too much on top of tending the house and watching that boy. Right, then; jump to it!"

Meg and Elijah moved immediately towards the half-filled and wholly-forgotten basket, and Lottie hurried to fill her apron. Nate looked skeptically at Cullen. "Who goin' hold them poles?" he asked.

"We'll pick it and _then_ pierce it," Cullen said. "A few minutes in the dirt won't hurt the lugs."

"I don' know…" Nate said hesitantly.

"And _I_ don't care!" snapped Cullen. "That corn got to get done today: it's made enough trouble. Get along with you, now!"

Nate stiffened at his hard tone, and Lottie stared at him. Cullen felt a pang of remorse, but kept his expression hard. He could not very well apologize to a slave for responding sternly when he questioned orders. He stared the black man down, and Nate started off back through the corn. Cullen relaxed only marginally. He was irritable from the strain of the search and his worries for his son's safety, and his anger was magnified by the knowledge that the whole thing was his fault for putting Mary to work in the cornfield in the first place. He had been so anxious to get the feed laid out to dry before the tobacco was ready that he had compromised his own rigid rule. It would not happen again.

"I'll see you tonight," he said, stepping in to kiss her silken cheek. She smiled thinly and nodded. Cullen moved off to follow Nate.

Suddenly there was a blood-curdling shriek and Gabe flailed so violently in Bethel's arms that she had to set him hurriedly on the ground before he did either of them an injury. Gabe came barreling down upon Cullen, flinging his arms around the man's knees and pressing his face against the muddy oilskins.

"Don' go, Pappy, don' go!" he wailed, suddenly overtaken by sobs again. Cullen stood helpless, staring down at the child clinging like a limpet to his legs. His jaw worked, but no sound came out. Not knowing what else to do he patted Gabe's head.

The boy was rambling again, words tripping out more swiftly than his small tongue could manage. Among them Cullen caught _Injun_ and _monster_ and _Redcoat_ and _Mama_, and although he could not quite follow the narrative he knew that Gabe was once again fretting over his imagined terrors. He pried the short arms off of his knees and knelt down so quickly that almost before Gabe realized he had been detached he was recoupling around Cullen's neck. The anxious litany of fears bubbled against the base of Cullen's ear, and Gabe wrapped his legs around his Pappy's waist. Cullen hurriedly shifted an arm to support the child's bottom. One thing was plain: he could not abandon his son in this state, not even to the tender care of Bethel and his mama.

"Nate, get back here!" he shouted, unable to turn around to see if the Negro obeyed him. Soon he heard heavy footfalls behind him. "Elijah?"

"Yassir, Mist' Cullen," the old man said crisply, lumbering up out of the corn.

"You two finish that pole that's been started, then get the loaded ones strung up in the barn," Cullen ordered. "Then get back out here and help finish that damned corn. I got to get this here boy cleaned up and safe in bed. Don't look like he'll let no one else do it."

He raised his right knee and braced himself to rise. Mary bent hurriedly and took hold of his left elbow, providing extra leverage and some much-needed counterbalance as he stood up without disturbing Gabe. He turned around, eyes flashing like steel as he challenged Nate to say anything against this revised edict. Nate's expression was unreadable, but there was a thrust to his jaw vaguely reminiscent of Bethel's nod of approval. "Yassir, Massa," he said. "Bring in what we picked, then finish the corn."

"Good," said Cullen. He stretched his throat so that his chin could rest on the top of Gabe's head. His Adam's apple thrummed against the child's brow as he said; "Come on, Bethel, and see about that bath. Mary?"

With his wife behind him and Bethel respectfully bringing up the rear with Gabe's kitten in the crook of her arm, Cullen carried his son down the row of empty cornstalks towards the house.

_*discidium*_

Bethel stood in the corner of the kitchen, watching as her one little boy bathed the other. Mister Cullen had stripped off those horrible oilskin pants that never protected him as they should, and he was kneeling in drawers and work shirt beside the tin tub. His sleeves were pushed up over his elbows, but they and the front of his shirt were soaked with water, and there were puddles on the floor that soaked his knees. Mister Gabe would not stop splashing, and of course his father's chuckles only encouraged him. Mister Cullen dipped the old sponge and wrung it out over the back of his son's neck, so that a stream of warm water rained down over the boy's bare shoulders. Mister Gabe laughed happily and slammed his palm down on the surface again.

"I'm getting wetter'n you are," Mister Cullen said fondly. He picked up the bar of store soap and lathered his hands, then started to work them through Mister Gabe's hair. They never used homemade soap on the little boy's head, for it stung terribly in the eyes. There were some economies that simply were not worth it, and Bethel knew that Mister Cullen would rather go without boots or clothes or flour or meat himself than cause his son any unnecessary hurt.

Mister Gabe had finally reached the age at which he no longer resisted their efforts to wash his hair, and he tilted his head back as far as it would go. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, but he was smiling, and as the man's fingertips got right down against the scalp he wriggled. "Scratch harder, Pappy. I's itchy," he announced.

"I'll bet you are," agreed Mister Cullen. "You got mud in your hair."

A shadow flitted through his eyes at these words, and Bethel wondered why. But now he was reaching for the pitcher from the washstand, which had been warming close to the stove. He tested the water with one finger, and then pressed his free had to his son's forehead to form a dam as he poured the water over the child's hair. Mister Gabe squealed delightedly and laughed as his father set down the vessel and worked free the last of the soap. Then he picked up a rag and put it in the child's grasp so that Gabe could wipe his eyes before opening them again.

"Now let's see those hands," Mister Cullen said, scooping up a small globule of the homemade soap this time. "Would you look at this," he said, running his smallest finger along a dark streak on the child's palm. "You been touching the cut stalks, ain't you? Now you got hands just like mine."

"Jus' like yours," the boy parroted happily.

"Now, that ain't no good thing," his father warned. "When you go into town folks'll look at you sideways, and everybody gonna know you been out in the tobacco. They won't want to give you credit on account you look poor, and some of 'em might even be ill-bred enough to mention it. And when you go to the neighbors' for a supper and a dance…"

"I danced wid Mama," Mister Gabe declared proudly. "In her pretty clo'es."

"That's so," said Mister Cullen thoughtfully. "Now, Mama don't seem to mind it much. Tobacco hands, I mean. Don't ask me why she don't, but she don't. We're lucky we got Mama, you and me. Ain't many ladies of her quality got time for scoundrels like us."

He had finished with the child's hands, and now had one foot up out of the water as he scrubbed it firmly. He was smiling broadly and to Bethel's eyes he looked like a boy again. Only the faint crinkling at the corners of his eyes hinted that he was no longer young and free from care. He was always at his best when he was with his child. Missus Mary could gentle him, soothing his worries and his restless spirit like a skilled rider with a half-wild horse, but only Mister Gabe could bring back the blithe innocence of childhood. Moments like these were so few these days, and so precious.

"Gimme that other foot!" Mister Cullen laughed, hand flapping uselessly in and out of the water while Mister Gabe slid from side to side in the tub so that his leg eluded his father's rambling grasp. "Give it here, I tell you! Give it to me!"

He bent forward and blew noisily against Mister Gabe's breastbone so that the child shrieked with laughter. His fright and his tribulations were forgotten, and he was reveling in this rare private time with his pappy. Both of them had quite forgotten that Bethel was in the room, and that was how it should be. She was only there in case she was needed, not to intrude upon their magic moment.

"Gimme that foot!" Mister Cullen repeated. The child shook his head so that his wet curls slapped his cheeks and sent a spray of water over his father's face. Mister Cullen wrinkled his nose and squinted exaggeratedly, then lifted a hand to brush the water from his beard. "All right, then: scrub it yourself."

"I needs soap!" said Mister Gabe, holding out an upturned palm. His father gave him a little dollop and he put his ankle up over the opposite knee, brow furrowed in intense concentration as he washed his foot. Mister Cullen cupped his hand and poured a handful of water over the child's back, rubbing circles over the small spine with the rag. Bethel knew it was just an excuse to touch his son, to maintain the loving contact that grounded him in his heart of happiness. She smiled, wondering if there was ever a woman in the world who loved her boy as much as she loved hers.

"All done!" announced the child, sticking his foot high in the air for inspection.

"Just about. You got a little smudge of muck between these last two toes," said Mister Cullen. With his index finger he wicked it away, rinsing his hand. Then he pinched the child's great toe. "_This li'l pig went to the_ _market_," he began. He took the next toe in its turn. "_This li'l pig stayed home." _And so on down the foot._ "This li'l pig had a bit of meat. This li'l pig had none. And _this_ li'l pig cried 'Wee, wee, wee!', all the way home!_"

When he reached the last toe he ran a tickling hand up the child's tummy and under his chin. Mister Gabe let out a merry whoop and tried to writhe away. His bottom slipped on the slick tin of the tub, and the back of his head cracked loudly against the rim. The tub made a sound like a gong, and the little boy's eyes went wide. Instantly contrite, his smile gone, Mister Cullen sat the child up, one had supporting him across the chest while the other flew to his skull.

"You all right?" he said, breathless with consternation.

Mister Gabe's face cracked into a broad grin. "We do it again?" he asked sunnily.

For a moment his father could only stare in shock. Then he laughed, deeply and richly, and rumpled the wet curls with his hand. Gabe kicked, sending up a fountain of water that lapped over the sides and thoroughly soaked the lap of his father's drawers.

"What's all this commotion?" a gentle voice asked from the doorway. Missus Mary stood there with a towel over her arm. She had changed out of the soiled work dress. Bethel thought it was probably ruined. The mud from Mister Gabe's clothes and body would wash out all right, but the sleeves and back were stained with tobacco juice from Mister Cullen's hands and arms, and no amount of scouring would get rid of that. It was only an old cotton work dress, but Missus Mary didn't have so many clothes anymore: not as many as it was fitting for the mistress of the house to have. It was a shame, Bethel thought. Missus Mary had been a fashionable lady in New York, and a dressmaker had made all of her beautiful gowns. She wondered if it was hard for her to put on simple calico frocks and help to pick the corn.

"We're just about clean," said Mister Cullen, grinning up at his wife.

"Well, Gabe certainly is," she said, picking her way carefully across the wet floor; "but it seems to me that you could still use a little scrubbing."

"Scrub me, then," he murmured, and Bethel felt her cheeks grow hot. He really had forgotten she was even in the room. Missus Mary had not, for her color rose and she flashed a small apologetic glance at Bethel.

"I think I'll get this young man into some clean things instead, thank you," she said neatly. "Stand up, dearest, and let Mama dry you off."

The child obeyed, and Missus Mary wrapped him in the blanket and lifted him out of the tub. She sat down on the edge of the kitchen bench so that he could sit in her lap while she rubbed his arms and legs and downy head dry. Mister Cullen got to his feet, shaking off his wet arms and looking sheepishly at the swamped floor. He fetched a rag from the basket under the washbasin and dropped it into the largest puddle. With one bare foot he pushed it around, a little uncertainly.

"Never min' that," Bethel said. "I's goin' scrub the whole kitchen jus' as soon as you has your own bath."

He looked up, surprised. "I ain't having a bath," he said. "I'm going out to finish that corn."

Bethel bristled. "You ain't goin' out there in them wet drawers," she said. "Ain' you learned your lesson yet 'bout workin' wet in the heat? An' if you gots to put on clean un'erwear, you might as well wash firs'. The water already right there."

"It's a waste of daylight," said Mister Cullen. "I don't aim to waste no daylight." He abandoned his inexpert mopping and moved towards her. "The wet clothes won't hurt me none, neither. Keep me cooler, most likely. I'll be in the corn instead of the tobacco anyhow."

"Cullen, really," Mary chided. "You might at least try to compromise. Put on some dry things."

He shook his head. "They'll only get wet with sweat and sticky from the oilskins," he said. "I don't aim to give you girls any more wash to do than you got already." He pressed his lips together for his wife, miming a kiss from across the room, and reached to squeeze Bethel's hand affectionately. "I'll clean up good before bed, I promise. Just as soon as the light's gone."

Then he stepped out onto the stoop and sat down on the bench to pull on his filthy stockings. The oilskin overalls were next, and it was all that Bethel could do not to flinch as he pulled them on. She hated those pants. They were hot and heavy and useless, but Elijah insisted that they were what folks wore to work in the tobacco, and Mister Cullen – insecure in his own lack of knowledge and experience – did just about everything Elijah said. Her suggestion that if he was going out to the corn he might wear his woolen work pants died on her lips. He would only throw back the same argument he had made against changing his drawers. She watched as he yanked on his boots and got to his feet, silently but stiffly, hiding his pain. Then he stumped down the steps and was gone from sight.

She shook her head mournfully. "That boy is the stubbornest person I ever knowed," she muttered to herself.

"He is, isn't he?" Missus Mary said fondly.

Bethel turned. She had forgotten the other woman's presence. Instinctive embarrassment at her lack of discretion welled up, and then faded. Missus Mary understood. They weren't alike at all in most ways, but in this they were all but identical. They both understood the joy and the frustration, usually found in equal measure, of loving Cullen Bohannon.


	25. Collecting the Guests

**Chapter Twenty-Five: Collecting the Guests**

With the feed corn picked, the cleaning of the house began. Bethel superintended the operation, and Mary and Lottie were pressed into service to do her bidding. Even Meg was taken away from the tobacco for a morning to haul the rugs out onto the line so they could be beaten until the dust rose off of them in clouds. Bethel cleaned every corner of the kitchen, organizing the pantry afresh. She blacked the stove and polished the hardware on every door and drawer in the house. She mixed batch after batch of vinegar and water, and wiped down the clapboard walls in the kitchen and the dining room, the corridors and the nursery. With a rag only just moistened with a similar concoction Mary carefully blotted the wallpaper in the parlor and the two large bedrooms. She washed the inside of the windows, and Lottie got up on a stepladder and finally onto the roof to wash the outside. They laundered all the bedding and laid out the best towels to bleach in the sunlight for days. They took down the curtains and washed them and starched them and pressed them with care. Every lamp in the house had to be cleaned and polished, the wicks trimmed neatly and the bowls carefully half-filled with the precious kerosene they had been saving only for the lamps most often used. Lottie spent an entire afternoon rubbing the silver with polishing powder.

They readied the front bedroom, where once Cullen's grandparents had slept. It was now used chiefly for storage, and before it could be made presentable, Nate and Cullen were enlisted to move Mary's patented sewing machine – a wedding gift from her sisters and their husbands – down the stairs. They tucked it in a disused corner of the front hall near the parlor door. They also moved the trunk of winter clothes into the master bedroom, and they dragged the heavy bedstead across the room so that the women could clean beneath and behind it. The following night they hauled it back again, and by lamplight Cullen unlaced the sagging ropes that were meant to hold the mattress and strung them tightly again. Then Lottie climbed up onto the bed and walked across them, bouncing a little at each junction between the squares of hemp so that the ropes laid straight and true and would not squeak when Jeremiah and Frances stirred in bed.

The plump feather ticks were removed from Mary and Cullen's bed, and placed in the room made ready for the guests. The Bohannons would make do with a straw mattress instead. Bethel and Mary made the bed with the best sheets, and from out of the chest in the nursery Mary brought the beautiful green Star of Virginia quilt that she had sewn during the last months before Gabe's birth. It had never been used, and the colors were rich and bright and the stitches as smooth and perfect as they had been when she took it off the frame. When it was aired and ready she spread it over the bed and tucked it neatly, and it brightened the whole room.

She still had pieces of the dark sprigged calico dress she had cut up to make the right points of the stars, and from this she sewed new curtains for the front bedroom, her foot working the treadle of her machine while practiced fingers guided the fabric under the flashing needle. Bethel carefully cut the lace from Mary's second-best petticoat to edge them, and with light muslin liners fluttering behind them the curtains added the perfect touch. The old clothes-press was cleared of its detritus and wiped inside and out with oil so that it glistened, and Mary made a cloved apple to tuck inside for a sweet scent. There was a dressing table already in the room as well, though they had to bring up the mirror from the dining room to hang above it. They moved the best basin and pitcher into the washstand in the dormer, and Bethel laid out bright rag rugs at either side of the bed. A tatted lace cloth on the chest of drawers and a cut-glass vase that could be filled with flowers on the day of the visitors' arrival completed the tableau.

Last of all they tidied the nursery, making sure that Gabe's toys were tucked away and moving all of his clothing into his parents' room. He would sleep with Cullen and Mary while the Tates were staying, and his seven-year-old cousin would have his room. Mary tried to make the room more appealing to a little girl by changing the sedate blue-and-brown rag rug for the cheery red one from Bethel's bedroom, taking down the etching of knights in armor and replacing it with one of her needlepoint samplers, and bringing up _Tanglewood Tales_ from the parlor. From an old chest in the narrow attic under the ridgepole, she brought out her doll with the china face and hands and the dainty velvet ballgown. She was no longer the fashionable little lady that she had been when Mary was a girl, but she looked very sweet sitting on the small nursery table and Gabe, at least, found her fascinating. Hopefully Missy would take to her as well.

With the house positively glistening, Mary and Bethel undertook the difficult task of planning meals for a fortnight with company. Bethel had firm ideas about what was and was not acceptable to serve to guests, particularly out-of-state guests, and Mary's attempts to be the voice of practicality were more often than not rebuffed. There was no question of serving cornbread, and certainly not hominy except at breakfast. They could make corn muffins, two-thirds flour and one-third cornmeal: these were apparently perfectly acceptable. But white bread and biscuits were a necessity, as were pastries and other sweet confections made with good sugar – never sorghum. Mary argued that her brother and his wife had never had sorghum and would not recognize the taste or understand its significance, to which Bethel responded that was all the more reason to use sugar. Only the preserves made with sugar could be served, she insisted, and they would have to make an assortment of pies and cakes to serve with supper. For months the Bohannons' dessert course, when they troubled with it at all, had been limited to stewed fruit and coffee, but even Mary had to admit that was unacceptable for guests.

The variety of vegetable dishes was highly desirable, both to add more courses to the meal and because the garden's harvest represented a Southern bounty beyond the imagination of the average Yankee. Vegetables tasted richer here, and they were more vividly colored and, so people said, more nourishing. However it was impossible to entertain Northern guests without a supply of potatoes, and so Bethel and Lottie dug up two rows. They were small and immature, and it seemed such a waste to take them now when in another month they would be twice the size. But they were smooth and beautifully white inside, and however Mary might regret the spendthrift measure of the early harvest her mouth watered at the thought of mashed potatoes thick with cream.

And cream they had in abundance. The week before the Tates were expected, Mary and Bethel made cottage cheese. They mixed fresh milk with cream, and scalded it, mindful that it should not scorch. To this they added vinegar to make the milk curdle and let it stand to cool on the sideboard in the dining room, away from the heat of the kitchen stove. Then they used a square of cheesecloth to strain off the whey, salted the soft curds, and put it into a covered crock to keep in the springhouse. They had no rennet, for there was no calf to butcher, and so the cheese did not have the same firmness or rich flavor that it might have possessed, but it was still very tasty and would make a welcome addition to the bill of fare. Gabe ate a whole dessert dish full of it, and had to be dissuaded from helping himself to more while they salted the next batch.

Cullen would buy a barrel of flour when he went into town to collect the visitors, and with what was left in the old one Mary and Bethel got a head start on the baking. They made bread, three times as much as Bethel had baked in a week even that spring before the flour ran low, and they shaped dainty little rolls as well. The other things would be best made fresh, but Mary talked Bethel through her mother's favorite receipt for vanilla cake and a couple of other confections that had appeared frequently on the Tate table in New York. They also made a small batch of toffee for the children, and candied some late-blooming blossoms for garnishes.

The issue of meat was a difficult one. There was one ham left untouched in the smokehouse, and this Bethel intended to roast, but otherwise they had nothing left but the salt pork kept back for adding strength to the vegetables. They would be able to serve chicken, at least. There were two tired-out layers whose time had come, but there was no question of serving these to Frances and Jeremiah. Those, Mary declared, would have to be killed anyhow, because Meg and Nate and Elijah needed meat if they were going to keep on working twelve hours a day in the tobacco. Bethel gave her a long look at this, but did not argue. Killing a couple of tired-out chickens was preferable to taking one of the hogs at a time when two-thirds of the carcass would spoil before it could be eaten. It also meant taking young pullets to offer in the house, and that was harder to do, but in the end they had to settle for the lesser waste. Cullen could pick up a few pounds of salted mackerel, and they could serve fish on some nights. Still, there would be little variety to put before the guests.

"It jus' a shame they ain't puttin' off this visit another month," Bethel said as Mary made the final notation on her meal plan. "Once the tobacco slow down a bit, Mist' Cullen can go hunting an' bring back some venison. P'raps you can talk 'im into goin' out anyhow? Do him no harm to take a day for hisself, in the shade an' the quiet, doin' somethin' he like an' knowin' he helping at the same time."

Mary smiled regretfully. She would have loved to send Cullen out for a day of hunting, but she knew he would never agree to it. They were on the second pass through the tobacco now, and the higher leaves kept right on ripening – and it was the higher leaves, on the well-protected middle of the stalk, that fetched the best price and had to be taken at precisely the right time. He was already resenting the afternoon he would lose collecting Jeremiah's family at the station.

"A deer would be just as much of a waste as a hog," Mary said. "We can't get it cool enough to preserve properly."

"True," said Bethel. "That true. On'y we ain't been feedin' the deer up all year."

_*discidium*_

Cullen stood in the doorway of the tobacco barn, watching with his heart in his throat while Elijah fingered one of the broad leaves thoughtfully, his other hand holding the lantern aloft in the grey dawn. It was Monday morning, the first of October, and neither Cullen nor Nate could be out picking because they had to keep themselves looking presentable for the after-dinner drive into Meridian. They would be taking both the buggy and the wagon: the latter because there was no room in the buggy for three guests, a driver, a barrel of flour, and the trunks and baggage a pair of well-to-do Yankees would undoubtedly bring, and the former because Frances Tate would never consent to ride in a wagon. When Mary had pointed this out in her quiet, diplomatic way, Cullen had actually shouted – something he did rarely in his wife's soothing presence. But at every turn this disruption of the knife-edge balance of the harvest season seemed to thwart him, and the loss of two able bodies for what amounted to almost eight hours of daylight was too much to bear. In the end, of course, he had given in: Mary had a way of talking him 'round, and he knew the situation was already well out of control. A little more chaos could not make that much of a difference.

Still he hoped that Elijah's verdict would be favorable. The morning, at least, could be salvaged if the first batch of leaves was ready to be moved into the kiln. The tobacco barn was built in two halves divided exactly beneath the ridgepole of the sharply sloping roof. The south half was the drying shed, with the wall-slats widely spaced to allow free flow of air from without. When the tobacco was picked, the poles were left out in the sun until the dew evaporated, and then moved into the south side of the barn. They rested suspended between rails, pegged to the east and west walls with each pair twelve inches below the last. The top rails were filled first, poles set six inches apart with the leaves hanging down from them. On the next pair, the poles were offset so that they were exactly between the two nearest poles of the upper row. Then on the third pair, the poles were placed directly under those suspended from the top rails, and so on down. In this way the tobacco leaves did not touch one another, neither above nor below nor to any side. Placing the poles was finicky work, but the sight of the barn, now better than four-fifths full, was impressive and grimly satisfying.

Once the tobacco dried enough that the lurid green faded to a brownish-yellow, the poles were moved into the other side of the barn. It had a similar arrangement of rails, but the walls were solid, the boards close together and tightly chinked where they had shrunken over the years. This was the kiln, where three fires would be kept smoldering continuously, day and night for weeks until all of the tobacco was cured. On the Bohannon plantation, all of the lugs and the top leaves, which were of middling quality, were fire-cured in the kiln and sold for pipe smoking and for chewing. Most of the center leaves would be too, but the very best would be left to cure in the open air: a slower process used for cigar tobacco. They could expect to get only a couple of hogsheads' worth of best-quality tobacco out of the crop, and with the extra time required it would almost not be worth the effort, except that the financial shoestring was so taut. Cullen could get an extra dollar for a hundred pounds of best air-cured tobacco. Two full hogsheads would bring an extra twenty: enough to buy a pair of boots or shoes for everyone on the place. That was not something to be sneered at.

"They's good," said Elijah, ducking deeply so that he did not disturb the lowest leaves as he moved back to the threshold. "All them blue ones. We can move 'em."

At the beginning of the picking, Mary had gone through her rag-bag and cut ribbons of brightly colored cloth, sorted by color in willow baskets. When they were brought in from the field, the field workers tied a rag around the sharpened end before the pole was raised on the rails. Each week they used a different color, so that there was no confusion over which tobacco had been picked first and sitting longest. Tobacco of the same age had to be cured in lots, so that it was ready at the same time and could be easily sorted and packed. The poles with the blue cloths represented the result of their first week's picking, and the poorest-quality haul of the entire crop. It was a simple system but an effective one, and proposing it had been one of Cullen's few genuinely worthwhile contributions to the farming effort.

"Good," he said, looking up at the rows of neatly-hung poles. They could spend the morning moving them from the south side to the north, and with a little luck they would be finished by dinnertime. He could lay the fires before he left for Meridian, and set Lottie to tend them. There was still no help for the three or four hours he and Nate would lose, but at least they would not have to sit idle all morning just to keep clean.

As soon as the sun was bright enough that they could see what they were doing in the kiln, they set to work. They took the lower poles first, and placed these highest in the other side of the barn. Climbing a stepladder while keeping a laden tobacco rod level was a challenging business, particularly once the leaves had started to dry and could tear much more easily than fresh ones. They worked in pairs, but not as they did in the field. Cullen and Nate were best matched in height, and Meg and Elijah were not so very different. It was easier to do this work with someone who saw the world at about the same level.

It made a pleasant change working out of the sun, and the slaves talked happily as they worked. Cullen felt uncomfortably removed from the conversation, for they were daydreaming about the price the crop would bring and the luxury of a full storehouse and new boots. He did not understand how they could bear to dream about such things, when only a fraction of the crop was picked and none of it was cured, and they had no idea what the market was like this year and there were still so many things that could go wrong. When Meg started talking about the new dress she wanted to make Lottie to replace the threadbare and too-short one the child wore now, Cullen had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her to shut her mouth. It galled him that he could not provide these things when needed. In the old days there had always been more than enough food to last out the year, and bolts of dress goods laid by in the pantry, and money on hand for necessities like shoes and buttons and hairpins. He had not realized then what a comfort it was not to be worn to the last thread by harvest time.

They still had twenty-two poles left when it was time to break for dinner. "Meg an' me can finish 'em this afternoon," said Elijah. "We still goin' have time to bring in the last of the corn."

The corn that had been drying in the meadow was finally ready to be moved to the huge bin in the barn. Once the tobacco was sold and the winter wheat planted, the men would spend rainy winter afternoons sitting on stools in the empty stall next to Bonnie's, shucking and shelling the corn to be mixed with oats and clover for feed. Or, Cullen thought grimly, packed in sacks to be carried to the grist mill in Meridian. He had never yet had to make meal out of feed corn, but if something – anything – prevented him from getting the full yield of his fifty acres of tobacco to market, it might well come to that. He tried to see this prospect as insurance against starvation, but he could not quite manage it.

Bethel was tossing steamed turnip greens with butter and fennel when Cullen came into the kitchen. She looked up from her work and frowned.

"Wha' spooked your horse?" she asked. "There somethin' wrong in the tobacco?"

Cullen's eyes caught hers gratefully. It seemed that someone, at least, shared his worries and realized that they were not safely out of the woods yet. "Not a thing," he said. "Not yet."

"Tha's all you can reason'bly hope for," she said, but she did not try to tell him that his fears were unfounded. Just at that moment Cullen wanted to hug her. "You been sweatin'. I hope you stayed out them fields?"

"I got more sense than that," he said, holding up his hands to show her that they were not soiled. "We've been moving the first lot into the kiln."

"Praise the Lord," Bethel breathed, closing her eyes reverently. Then she wiped her hands on her apron and went to the dish dresser for a cup. She took the coffee pot off the back of the stove and poured, handing it to him. "Sit an' drink that," she said. "Dinner be ready direc'ly. I tol' Missus Mary she cain't be in here helpin' in the kitchen while her high-flown New York family around, but it seems I's got used to the extra pair of hands. Slowin' me down, workin' by myself."

Cullen poured a little sorghum into the cup and stirred it. The brew was hot and strong, and he drained it away even before he found his way to the bench. It was strange how working in the shade seemed to tire him out after weeks in the fields, and his shoulders were starting to stiffen up after the constant controlled reaching. He found he was constantly aware of every little muscle in his body now that he used them so ceaselessly.

"If we got a few minutes 'til dinner I think I'll go spend it with my boy," he said. "Not meaning to offend."

Bethel laughed shortly. "Mist' Cullen, if I thought you'd rather sit here than go see that chile, I'd be shamed that I raised you up wrong. I think he in the parlor, though he bes' not be makin' a mess of it!"

Cullen nodded and went through to the dining room. He halted near the head of the table, puzzled by a curious buzzing sort of clacking sound. It seemed at once familiar and oddly out of place, and then he realized why. It was the noise of Mary's sewing machine, and it belonged in the upstairs hall instead of the dining room. She was just around the corner now, instead of in Grandpappy's bedroom, because heaven forbid the Tates sleep in a room that also served an actual, practical purpose!

"What's that racket?" he said cheerfully as he stepped through the door and into the corridor. "I thought you were… oh."

He stopped short, surprised and a little embarrassed. Mary was sitting at the machine, her foot frozen over the treadle and her hands still poised on the cloth. She had brought the secretary chair from the parlor to sit upon, and her broad skirts billowed over it. But beside her, where she had been looking fascinatedly over her mistress's shoulder, was Lottie. The little girl was stripped down to her shift, a clean but painstakingly made-over garment with a gaping neck and no sleeves at all. It was also too short, coming well above the knee, and the child's skinny legs looked impossibly long and woefully bare. She took one look at Cullen, her color rising, and then scurried around the corner into the parlor.

Mary's head turned swiftly to follow her, and then swiveled back to her husband. "Oh, dear," she said softly. "We were just taking in the side seams. I didn't expect you in until dinnertime."

"It is dinnertime; Bethel's just running a little behind," said Cullen, still looking towards the parlor door. "Shoot, I didn't mean to embarrass her. You all right in there, Lottie?"

"Yes, Massa." Lottie's voice came from the other side of the wall. "I's all right. I jus' gots no clothes on, tha's all."

From behind the sofa, Gabe said; "You gots clo'es on, 'Ottie. I sees 'em."

"Yes," she said to him. "But this jus' my shif'. I ain' meant to be running 'round in jus' my shif'. Ain't fittin'."

Cullen looked around and spied Lottie's work dress lying limp and sorry-looking on the little table in the corner. He picked it up and approached the parlor door, keeping himself to the left of it and reaching around the jamb with his elbow. "Here you go; put this back on," he said. From the other side of the wall he felt her hand close on the garment, and he released it. Then he turned to Mary. "What's that there?" he asked.

"A new dress for Lottie," Mary said, starting up the machine again. "Her old one isn't fit to be worn, and her other is too short to be decent, too."

"I can see it's a dress for Lottie: where'd you get the material?" he asked.

Mary reached the end of the seam and clipped the thread with her tiny silver scissors. She turned up an edge of the fabric so that he could see the print more clearly. It was her blue sprigged calico; one of her own work dresses. Mary had cut up one of her own dresses to make a new frock for the child.

Seeing his expression, she smiled. "It's the one I was wearing the day Gabe wandered off," she explained. "The sleeves and basque were all stained with tobacco juice: not fit to be seen. Bethel tried, but she couldn't get the stains out."

Cullen grimaced. This did nothing to ease his conscience, as it has been his filthy hands that had stained the dress. But Mary was smiling proudly. "There wasn't a thing wrong with the skirt except the hem was worn," she said. "Almost six yards of cloth: more than enough for a good dress for Lottie."

Cullen drew his hand over his mouth, his callouses rasping against his whiskers. "I got me the cleverest wife in Mississippi," he said. "What about a pattern?"

"I just sized up the last one a little," said Mary. "She's growing longer more quickly than she's growing wider. Isn't that so, Lottie?"

"Yass'm," Lottie said, coming back out of the parlor and dipping a little curtsey. She had her dress back on, and now that he was looking Cullen could see that it really _wasn't_ fit to be worn anymore. The elbows were so thin that he could see the threads of the weave, and the pattern was faded. The hem only just brushed her knees, and it was fraying, and the skirt was covered in green stains from working in the garden and the corn. He tried to remember whether her other frock was any better, but he couldn't, and if Mary said it was too short, it was too short.

"We was almos' don, Mist' Cullen," the child explained, watching as Mary turned the garment right-side out and settled the bodice lining with skillful fingers. "Tha's why I didn' put my dress back on: I was goin' try it on again right off."

"Well, I'm sorry I startled you," he said.

"I think that's all we'll do for now, Lottie," Mary said. "We'll be dining in a few minutes. Would you take Gabe and wash his face and hands?"

"Yass'm," Lottie agreed, skipping back into the parlor. A moment later the negotiations began to get the boy away from his horses.

Cullen watched as Mary neatly folded the half-finished garment and got to her feet. He stepped forward and slipped his arm about her waist. "Can I have a quiet word?" he asked.

She nodded serenely and let him lead her around the foot of the staircase and out onto the veranda. He moved to the left of the door so that they would not be immediately spied by Gabe when he left the parlor with Lottie. Mary looked at him expectantly.

"It's about your brother," said Cullen.

Mary's face collapsed contritely. "I wish I had never even suggested this," she said. "If I had thought for a moment he truly would come… I wish he'd had the sense not to."

"It ain't too late yet," Cullen teased. "I could bribe the signalman to send the train right on through to Mobile."

Mary laughed a little, and shook her head. "That's surely against the law," she said.

"Maybe." Cullen shrugged. "But listen. While he's here, I don't want you working. I know Bethel's chased you out of the kitchen, but I don't want you tending the garden or making the beds or doing the wash, either. You just look after our boy and entertain your guests and be the lady of the house, all right?"

She pressed her lips together. "Cullen, I couldn't," she said. "Everyone else will be working and Bethel has so much to do, and Lottie can't manage the garden on her own."

"I'll have Meg help her in the mornings," he said. "Nate and me can both pick onto Elijah's pole: it'll be crowded, but we can do it. I need you to do this for me, Mary. I need you to wear your pretty clothes, and sit in the parlor and sew, maybe read aloud to the guests, play with Gabe, preside over meals. I can't take time out to play the idle planter, but at least I can make it look like I'm treating you right."

"You do treat me right," Mary said. "There's not a thing I do around this place that is hard, or unpleasant, or painful. It's not at all like what you do yourself."

"Never mind what I do and don't do," Cullen muttered. He cupped his hands over her elbows, feeling her warmth through the soft cloth. "Will you do this for me? I don't want him thinking… don't want him saying… I don't want him going back up North and telling your friends and your parents and everyone who'll listen how you married some ignorant, bankrupt Southerner who's got you working like a farmwife."

"If I'm a farmwife, I'm proud to be one," Mary said stoutly, tilting her chin. At his anxious look her expression softened and she reached to place her hand on his cheek. Her thumb stroke his beard gently. "I understand," she murmured. "It's a matter of pride. I'll do it. It isn't going to be pleasant for me, but I'll do it."

"It ain't just pride," said Cullen. "You got to keep 'em entertained, too. I don't want them nosing about the place making trouble. I don't much even want them talking to Nate."

Mary nodded. "Jeremiah won't understand," she said. "Even after four years I'm not sure I do, except that I know you're a good man and you do right by your people, and they may not be free but they aren't miserable. Except poor Bethel, when you're wearing yourself out." She smiled tremulously. "I'm afraid it will be a difficult couple of weeks, Cullen, but we'll get through it together."

He sighed softly and bent to kiss her. "You promise?" he asked, securing her pledge not only in the matter of maintaining appearances, but in the vow that they were and would remain united before her brother.

"I promise," she said.

_*discidium*_

Cullen sat on the buggy box, doing his best to keep from slouching into the position his tired back wanted to assume. He was perspiring under his hat, and he removed it, fanning his face with the brim as he dug out his handkerchief. It was October, for heaven's sake: it had no right to be this hot. Bonnie was shifting restlessly in the traces, while Pike lapped quietly at the water the station-boy had brought. Cullen had pulled up right near the platform to wait for the train out of Memphis. Nate, sitting on the seat of the buckboard and holding the reins of the mule team, was further along the southbound track, near where the baggage car might be expected to pull up. The station was abuzz with activity. The first cotton bales were ready to go to market, and under the open-air shelters of the depot crews of darkies hauled them and stacked them and took orders from overseers sent to ship the produce of the plantations. The train on the northbound track was being loaded with sacks of corn and crates of fresh vegetables destined for sale in Corinth or St. Louis. Firemen were crawling over the sooty black engine, checking valves and raking out charcoal and filling the tender. One was polishing the side of the locomotive with a greasy rag so that the legend _Mobile and Ohio Railroad_ stood out brightly once more in its golden paint. The shouts of workers laying track for a new carshed came over the roof of the stationhouse, accompanied by the ringing of hammers on the spikes.

Cullen took all of this in with wonder. The sleepy little hamlet of his boyhood years had blossomed into a busy town built on the steel skeleton of the intersecting tracks. His grandfather had been among the men who had foreseen what the railroad could mean to a country – especially to this vast and only half-tamed country. He had used his cotton wealth and his political influence to support the efforts first to create the railhead, and then to attract the second line that had made Meridian an essential junction between Memphis, Mobile, Jackson and Selma. Anything that had to travel across Mississippi came through Meridian. Anything that wanted to get from Alabama to New Orleans by rail had to pass through Meridian. Anyone changing trains stopped in Meridian. The trains themselves only had one opportunity to turn around on their tracks between Memphis and the end of the line, and that was here in Meridian. The heart of the South was its cotton, but it was the arteries of the railroads that now kept its lifeblood flowing. There was something fiercely inspiring about this innovation of Man that had opened up the quiet places of the world to trade and commerce, to progress. It was exhilarating to sit here and feel the frontiers of humanity expanding all around him.

He supposed he ought to be proud, too, knowing as he did that his grandpappy had had a hand in all of this. The truth was that he didn't feel proud at all. He felt ashamed of himself for failing to live up to that legacy. His grandfather had come to a wild land at a time when it was still Indian territory. He had carved a plantation out of empty forest, and he had built it into a successful thousand-acre place manned by dozens of slaves. In a few short years Cullen had managed to whittle that legacy down to a struggling oversized farm just one freak storm from disaster. His grandfather had conjured up a railroad that had spawned a bustling town and would nourish it into a flourishing city that would stand forever. Cullen picked tobacco to sell so that he could buy up seeds to grow more tobacco next year. His grandfather had been a giant who still loomed tall in local legend. Cullen was nothing more than a small, discontented man living a small, discontented life.

He realized he was shrinking in the buggy seat, and he straightened again. He tried to tell himself that it didn't matter: that he had a wife who loved him, a beautiful, clever and courageous wife; that he had a son any man could be proud of. But however he cherished his family, he still wanted more. More for himself, and more for them. He wanted his son to grow up to be more than just a struggling planter. He wanted his wife to have the scope she needed to shine like the great lady she was. He wanted to be able to look after Bethel properly when she got too old and tired to run the house; to allow Elijah his well-earned rest; to train up Lottie to be a house servant and maybe someday a head woman, instead of a maid-of-all-work who labored in the garden and the corn because there weren't enough field hands. He wanted to be able to look around and to see what he had created, what he had built for himself and the people he loved, not what he had inherited and was barely holding on to. And he had no idea how to achieve any of those things.

The clarion howl of a train-whistle roused him from his reverie. The three o'clock out of Memphis was pulling in. Cullen tightened his hold on the reins to quiet his horses, even though he knew they would not bolt. They were too well-trained and far too fearless to bolt. Still, they didn't much like trains – he had never met a horse that did – and it would be a comfort to them to know that he was firmly in control. As he had expected, Pike tugged on his bit just to reassure himself that Cullen was paying attention. Bonnie whinnied ferociously, but the sound was lost in the clatter of the wheels and shriek of the brakes the stentorian roar as the train let off steam.

The locomotive rattled past, and behind it the boxcars tightly bolted to safeguard their cargo. The flat cars were next, piled high with freshly-sawn lumber from the vast forests in the north of the state. Then came stock cars: pigs squealing and cattle lowing in protest of the noise and the drag upon their bodies as the engine slowed. The baggage cars were next, and finally the passenger coaches, glass windows glinting in the sun. Cullen could see his buggy reflected in them, rippling and jumping as the cars moved, slower and slower until finally their steel wheels ground to a halt and the train was still.

Conductors flew open the doors of the passenger cars, and porters hurried across the platform to start unloading the baggage. People began to pile out. Young men always seemed to be first, springing down off the train without bothering with the steps, gunny sacks or carpetbags thrown over their shoulders. They were always in a hurry, though what they were hurrying to not one of them could say. The young men of the South were a vast source of untapped energy, their settled lives inadequate to fulfill the unarticulated yearnings of their spirits. That was precisely Cullen's problem, too. By nature he was filled with vigor and the desire to do great things, but instead he spent that strength and those longings in the endless battle with the mud: to till it, to shape it, to make it produce. He was at war with the mud, and the mud was winning, and the prize it wanted was his spirit.

Next came harried-looking women, usually accompanied by young children and a darkie or two. These would be wives of railroad men or entrepreneurs who had come to Meridian to build up businesses where the county was thriving, and had sent on for their families once they were established. An elderly couple was next, arm in arm and looking more than a little rattled. Likely it was their first journey by train. Visiting a married daughter, maybe, thought Cullen. Three young ladies were next, broad hoops impractical for travelling bouncing and jostling through the narrow door and opening like sunflowers in the unrestricted space of the platform. A stern-looking older gentleman with meticulously groomed whiskers was on their heels, watching them with the possessive air of a chicken-hawk and brandishing an umbrella as if he meant to rebuff with violence any trespass upon the virtue of his charges. Their father, or perhaps an uncle.

Cullen shifted his attention to the last car before the caboose. That was the first-class car, with upholstered seats instead of bare benches and a stovepipe at each end. It was positioned at the rear so that the smoke and cinders from the engine dispersed as much as possible before reaching the wealthy passengers. He did not doubt that Jeremiah Tate would have booked passage in that carriage for his bride and her delicate sensibilities.

Sure enough, the very next person out of that car was a girl of about seven years, wearing a camel-colored frock and a matching pardessus jacket decorated with a large quantity of coffee-colored braid stitched in a Greek key pattern. Her golden curls, somewhat wilted, jounced from beneath a coordinating bonnet as she hopped one-footed down the steps. She was showing rather more spirit than Cullen would have expected from Frances Tate's daughter and he began to think that he was mistake about the identity of the child. Then a stocky mustached man in a charcoal-colored travelling coat stepped out after her, offering his hand to a whey-faced woman who called out nervously to the girl not to wander too far. Even after four years they were instantly recognizable: Jeremiah and Frances Tate.

Cullen hopped down from the buggy box and climbed onto the platform, not troubling with the stairs. He did tug his waistcoat straight however, and tucked his handkerchief into his pocket, holding his hat respectfully against his chest as he approached.

"Miss Frances," he said courteously, bowing to the lady. She seemed flustered, but managed to put out one hand, clad in a rather sooty glove.

"Mr. Bohannon," she said as he took her hand and raised it in the suitable courteous approximation of the far older gesture that ended with a kiss. "I mean to say Cullen, of course: we are family now."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Have been for quite some time now. But of course, you knew me longer in my unwed state."

"Indeed we did," said Jeremiah, pulling out his gold pocketwatch and consulting it unnecessarily: there was a clock in the cupola of the stationhouse. "You spirited Mary away so quickly that we scarcely had time to think of you as a married couple.""

"We were anxious to depart on our honeymoon," Cullen said, grinning affably. "After which, I confess, I'd had my fill of snow." He turned to the child and bowed to her. "Why, Missy, you've grown right up," he told her. "I don't suppose you even remember me." She had been younger than Gabe when he and Mary were wed, and he remembered her for her fondness of trying to shelter under the ladies' hoops at large gatherings.

"You're Uncle Bohannon," the child said neatly. "You married Auntie Mary and brought her to Mississippi."

"So I did. And what do you think of Mississippi?" Cullen asked.

"It's hot," said Missy. Her mother cleared her throat and pulled a rosewood fan out of her reticule. Missy glanced anxiously towards her and added; "It's green."

"I ought to see about the baggage," said Tate, looking over his shoulder and up the platform. "You can never trust these porters to put things where they belong. I swear that fool in St. Louis put the big steamer trunk in upside-down."

"No worry about that here," said Cullen. "My man will take care of it."

And there it was: the first mention of the subject that was going to sear between them like a firebrand for the next two weeks. It was more than a little amusing to watch the man's face turn color from New England city white to florid puce. His lips pursed and his brows knitted and Cullen wondered, not for the first time, how this man reconciled his loudly proclaimed principles with visiting a home where he had to know he would be waited on by slaves.

"Yes, of course," Jeremiah said in a strangled voice. "Your _man_."

"Nate is very reliable," Cullen assured him, as if that were the real concern. "And he knows how to get things done. Have you much baggage?"

"Two trunks," said Frances faintly. "And the portmanteaux of course…" She turned to look at the carriage. "Will they be bringing out the portmanteaux?"

"Assuredly," said Cullen. With Nate out of earshot he could make the most of his university lexis. He knew that Mary's brother liked to try to dismiss him as an uneducated Southern oaf with more charm than breeding, probably because it made it easier to explain to his Yankee friends how his sister had come to marry a slaveholder. And although Cullen was only willing to stretch so far with his choice of language, it did not hurt to remind the man that he was every bit his equal when it came to schooling. Better than his equal, as a matter of fact, for he knew from Mary that Tate only had two years' college to his not-quite-three, and had not made the best use of them.

Missy looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn't seem able to pluck up the courage to say it. For a moment Cullen wondered whether she was shy about strangers, and then he remembered the rigidly enforced rule in Jeremiah Tate's household that children should only speak when spoken to.

"How can I be of service to you, Miss?" he asked, looking right at her so that there should be no mistake about whom he was addressing.

She maintained her prim expression, but her eyes looked relieved. "Is there somewhere we can get a drink of water?" she asked. "The water on the train tastes wrong."

"Missy!" said her mother. "You mustn't say such things."

"No, ma'am, she's right," said Cullen. "Train water never tastes right. I think it must be on account of the cisterns. Here, Missy, I got a jug and a tin cup in the buggy. You and your mama can have a drink while your pappy and I go see how Nate's getting on with the baggage."

He offered her his hand and with a glance at her mother she took it, following him to the edge of the platform. Cullen stepped down and turned to lift her after him, but she drew back.

"I shall take the stairs," she said with absurd girlish dignity. Cullen inclined his head to indicate she might, and she walked up the platform to the steps and descended with care. Jeremiah was leading Frances in the same direction, but she kept glancing over her shoulder at the conductor offloading luggage from the overhead racks.

"Our cases!" she exclaimed as a pair of dark leather portmanteaux and a little carpetbag appeared. She put her free hand on her husband's arm. "Do go and fetch them before someone steals them!"

"May I escort you the rest of the way, Miss Frances?" Cullen asked, offering his arm. She clutched it hurriedly, shooing her husband with anxious eyes.

Tate frowned, and Cullen almost laughed. Apparently he didn't like the idea of leaving his wife in the hands of his brother-in-law. But Frances's wordless urging sent him hurrying to fetch the baggage.

Cullen opened the buggy door and helped her up into the shade of the top. Then he turned to Missy, who was standing at a safe distance and eyeing Pike and Bonnie with admiration. "You'll ride up front with me, Miss Missy, if you don't object," he said. He grinned. "Maybe once we're out of town you could drive them a piece."

"Oh, I couldn't!" Missy exclaimed, trying to sound horrified but coming across far more breathless with longing. She glanced at her mother, who obviously gave her a quelling look over her uncle's shoulder, for she added more coolly; "Ladies don't drive carriages."

Cullen boosted her up onto the driver's seat, and took out the earthenware jug beneath it. He poured water for the child, and then for Frances. By that time Jeremiah had returned, grappling with the three cases which seemed to be a great deal heavier than they looked.

"Let me take that," Cullen said. He relieved the man of the carpetbag and the left-hand portmanteau. It did not seem much above average weight to him, but he did not remark upon that. "We'll be back presently, ladies," he said.

Nate was only about fifty feet away, directing two darkies who were loading a hefty barrel into the back of the wagon. Cullen frowned as he looked in that direction. "Though you said it was just the two trunks," he said.

"The trunks and the barrels," said Tate.

Cullen looked at him, eyebrows raised. "Barrels?" he echoed. How much baggage did a family of three need for a fortnight? "What's in the barrels?"

"Apples!" said Missy cheerfully. "And Christmas presents!"

"Christmas presents," Cullen repeated. He was not sure he liked the sound of that.

"Mother and Father had a great many things they wanted to send," said Jeremiah. The nasal quality of his voice was already irritating Cullen. "They had to restrict themselves to a single barrel. Freight costs are so exorbitant these days."

"It wouldn't have been a problem if we could have come all the way by rail, of course," said Frances, fanning herself fervently. "Or even with the steamboats. It was the _stagecoach_!"

She spoke the word in the hushed, horrified tone ordinarily reserved for mentions of Perdition, and Cullen put on a sympathetic face. "You had to come part of the way by coach, then," he said.

"_Sixty miles_!" moaned Frances. "It was dreadful. I don't think my spine shall ever recover."

"Ah, well, no sacrifice too great to see our dear sister," said Jeremiah. He held out the other case and Cullen took it reflexively before realizing what the gesture implied, two fingers awkwardly gripping his hat. "Would you take these down to your man yourself?" he asked. "It looks as though he's got everything, and I do hate to leave the ladies unattended."

Cullen managed a thin smile. "Of course," he said. "In Mississippi you'll find we put the comfort of our ladies above all other considerations. Miss Frances, Missy." He gave them a small bow and strode off down towards the wagon.


	26. Girlhood Affections

_Note: This chapter, originally posted prior to the filming of Season 4 on March 8, 2014, was modified on October 5, 2014, in order to incorporate the canonical name of Cullen's firstborn son given in Episode 410. For the full explanation, see the Note on Chapter 88._

**Chapter Twenty-Six: Girlhood Affections**

Mary was sitting on her rocker on the veranda when the buggy came up the drive. Gabe was at her feet, playing with a ball and an old tin cup. He had wanted to run down to climb the paddock fence, but Mary had managed to distract him. She had dressed him in his good suit of blue sateen, and she intended to keep it clean. But for the absence of shoes and stockings he was the perfect dapper little gentleman, his curls tamed with a dollop of Cullen's quince seed oil and parted sharply on the left. The glossy jacket buttoned onto the trousers at the waist so that it could not creep up as he played, and the jet buttons glittered even in the shade. Mary herself was wearing her lavender church dress with the deep flounces, and she had her full hoop beneath it. She had even dressed her hair with her crimson velvet ribbons, and her lace collar was fastened with her gold bar pin. She hoped that she looked every inch the planter's lady, as Cullen obviously wished her to.

She understood, or thought she understood, why he had insisted upon this. It was not simply a matter of pride before guests, nor the fact that someone did have to keep the visitors entertained. Cullen had doubts about the life he had made for her, deep and unsettling doubts. He wanted to prove to himself that he could still support her in ease and luxury; the pretty superfluity in which she had been raised as the youngest child of a wealthy man. What he did not believe, however she tried to make him see it, was that for all its strains and worries she preferred this life to the one she had left behind in New York. She loved the plantation, quiet though it was. She loved the modest house with its cheery yellow paint. She loved the willows that whispered in the wind of a summer evening. She loved the magnolia that perfumed the whole yard through the spring. She loved the sunrise that stained the gentle hills a glorious crimson every morning. She loved Pike and Bonnie, and faithful, tired old Jeb who just at present was napping in the shade under the bench by the door. She loved Bethel, who had come to trust her and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her through the trials of this lean year. She loved little Lottie, who was so willing and hard-working. She loved dear sweet Meg, and faithful old Elijah who for all his superior knowledge never made Cullen face his own shortcomings. She supposed she even loved Nate, quiet and incomprehensible though he was, for he worked so tirelessly and was cool-headed in a crisis. She loved her little boy with every fiber of her heart. And she loved Cullen. How she loved him! She would have thrown away all the pearls of India to be with him. Giving up drawing-room socials and long evenings in a stuffy opera-box was no trial at all.

Yet somehow Cullen didn't seem to see that. He believed, or at the very least feared that she was discontent. Mary thought this was because he was discontent himself. She knew his life was not shaping up to be what he had imagined, but she did not know how to help him set it right. She did not even know precisely what it was he wanted; she thought that even he did not know. But she knew it was not this: hard work and slim reward, constant useless drudgery for nothing more than money to buy stores and seed for next year. It was wearing upon him, and she could see it, but she did not know how to stop it. The philosophical question was insoluble; the practical questions were insurmountable. He had – they had – responsibilities they could not simply lay by for an indistinct dream.

The buggy was drawing near the house now, and Mary got gracefully to her feet. "Stand up, Gabe dearest," she said. "Here comes Pappy with Uncle Jeremiah and Aunt Frances."

"Pappy?" The boy scrambled to his feet, impressively unhindered by his stiff suit. He turned around and spied the carriage, and danced from one foot to the other in glee. "Pappy!" he cried.

He knew better than to charge out to meet the horses with their strong, high-stepping legs and ironclad hooves, but from the light in his eyes and the spring in his feet he obviously wished to. "Hold my hand, dear, and stand straight like a little gentleman," Mary said. "What do you say when Uncle and Auntie step down?"

"How d'you do!" Gabe recited cheerfully. He waved his free hand vigorously. "Pappy!" he shouted. "Pappy, you's home!"

Cullen stopped the buggy just short of the front yard gate instead of bringing it in as he usually did. This was the more widely accepted way of approaching a house, of course, and he was conceding his usual lax attitude out of deference to the guests. He flung the reins down over the fence-rail and hopped out of the buggy, opening the door and drawing back the laprobe from Frances's skirts. Beside her, Jeremiah took the other corner, frowning a little as Cullen offered Frances his hand. She took it and stepped down, her skirts with their travel hoop shrinking and then billowing as she passed the narrow space of the buggy door. Jeremiah climbed down after her, taking her arm from Cullen so that he was free to round the carriage and lift down the child who had been riding beside him. Mary realized abruptly that it was little Missy, once upon a time her darling pet, all grown up into a dignified young lady of seven.

"Jeremiah!" Mary said with a loving smile as he approached the porch with his wife. "And Frances; how wonderful to see you again!"

There was no need for pretense now. For all her doubts about the visit, and for all the inconvenience and worry it was brewing, in that moment all she could see was her big brother, whom she loved for all his faults, stepping towards her with a smile on his face and love in his eyes.

"Mary Beth!" he said as he stepped up onto the porch, released his hold on Frances and stepped to kiss her cheeks. "You haven't changed one bit." He clasped her hand in both of his and blinked very rapidly. "Not one bit."

"You've grown a mustache," Mary observed, gently playful. "You look very distinguished."

"You know how it is in the business world," said Jeremiah. "For the first few years the old guard accepts you as a bit of a young prodigy, but then if you show no signs of growing up they begin to get skittish."

Mary nodded, though she did not really know how it was at all. Jeremiah was almost fourteen years her senior: by the time she had come along their father had been firmly established as one of the old guard himself. Remembering her duties as hostess, she turned her attention to her sister-in-law.

"Frances, it was so very kind of you to agree to come such a long way just to see me," she said. "It must have been such a tiring journey."

"It was," said Frances. "Not that I've any objection to travelling by rail, but four days of it at one go is more than I can take. At least on the steamboats we had a proper berth to stretch out in, but the _stagecoach_! Oh, my dear, how ever did you manage it in wintertime?"

Mary's eyes flitted over her shoulder and caught Cullen's. He was standing at the bottom of the steps with his hand on Missy's shoulder. His eyes twinkled mischievously and his lips curled in an inconspicuous smirk. They had kept each other warm, of course, as newlyweds would; though certainly within the bounds of propriety, at least on the stage. They had quite likely had farther to go by road, as well: in recent years the railroads had seemed to spring up out of the very earth.

"It was so long ago, I'm afraid I scarcely remember it," said Mary. "But you must be anxious to wash up and to change. Do come in and Bethel will show you to your room. Nate will…" She glanced questioningly at Cullen.

"He's about ten minutes behind," he said. "The mules take their time with a loaded wagon."

There was a queer note to his voice, and Mary tried to read his expression, but he was guarding it and in any case she had to see to her guests. "Perhaps we can all have a nice cool drink, then, once you've washed your hands and faces. The soot does get everywhere, no matter how they try to keep it out, doesn't it?"

"Positively everywhere," Frances mourned. Then she turned and beckoned to her daughter. "Missy, say good day to your Auntie Mary."

"Good day, Auntie Mary," the child said, curtseying prettily. Mary released her hold on Gabe and held out her arms.

"It's so wonderful to see you; and how you've grown!" she said as Missy came obediently forward to embrace her. She did not hug tightly, but merely touched her hands to Mary's forearms. "I suppose you scarcely remember me!"

"I do. A little bit," said Missy. She had her mother's strong Maine accent and bobbing pale curls. "I remember your blue gown: I wanted one just like it."

"I wore that at my wedding supper," Mary said, her smile blooming afresh at the memory. "You must have been peeking through the bannisters."

Missy blushed a little, and suddenly Mary realized that her own child was being remarkably quiet. He had not called out to his father again, much less hurtled down the steps to meet him, and looking down at her side she saw that Gabe was pressed close against her hoop, his left hand reaching across his body to clutch a fistful of the third tier of her gown while his right thumb had crept into his mouth. He was staring up at Jeremiah with wide and wary eyes.

"This is Gabe," Mary said. "Joshua Gabriel. Gabe, what do you say to your Uncle Jeremiah?"

"Howdoo," Gabe whispered around his thumb. Mary reached down to gently brush it away from his mouth. He looked at it for a moment, surprised to find it once more level with his elbow, and then curled his hand around a second bunch of crisp cotton.

Cullen chuckled and stepped up onto the porch, slipping around Jeremiah and picking up his boy. "Now, then, son, there's no cause to be shy," he said bracingly. "Uncle Jeremiah is your mama's big brother, and Aunt Frances is his wife. Would you say how-do to Aunt Frances for me?"

"Howdoo Aunt F'ances," muttered Gabe, but his eyes were still enormous and his expression guarded. He closed his hand around the edge of Cullen's watered-silk vest. Jeb, awake at last, raised his head sleepily. His ears perked at the sight of the visitors, and then relaxed when he saw his master nearby. He laid his chin back down on his paws again.

"How do you do, Gabriel," said Jeremiah gravely. "I can see you're a fine little man."

"The finest," said Cullen, completely disregarding the rule that parents ought not to boast of their own children. "Gabe already has a fine seat on horseback, and he knows his numbers all the way to eleven, and he's a mighty explorer, too. Ain't you, son?"

Gabe grinned up at him, his reticence forgotten as he spoke to his father. "I founded de tobacco!" he announced proudly. "An' dem poles."

"Poles?" Frances echoed in puzzlement. Then she smiled thinly. "He's a very handsome boy, Mary. You must be very proud. Henry and Julian send their love, of course, but they couldn't possibly be spared from their studies. Education is so very important to a gentleman, you know."

"Yes, of course," said Mary. There was a distant rattling noise and the buckboard came into sight, Nate drawing in the reins to turn the mules towards the back of the house. "Here comes Nate with the wagon; he'll bring your trunks up to your room while we refresh ourselves. Do please come inside."

The refreshments were simple: ginger water made fresh from the well for the ladies and Gabe, and whiskey for Cullen and Jeremiah, with little dishes of peach preserves. Cullen took his restlessly, his eyes straying again and again towards the door. Mary knew that he was anxious to get out to the tobacco barn to see how Meg and Elijah had fared in his absence, but he could hardly excuse himself until the guests had retired upstairs to remove their travel clothes.

There was a series of loud _thumps_ from the front entryway, and Frances startled. "Dear me, your man _is_ making a dreadful racket," she said.

"Ain't easy carrying a loaded steamer trunk without help," Cullen said with a courteous but insincere smile.

Mary, who was sitting on the récamier with Gabe in her lap, dabbed at her boy's chin with a corner of her handkerchief as a little peach syrup dribbled from his spoon. "Tell me, Frances, how is your sister? I understand you sojourned first in Philadelphia?"

"She's well," said Frances. "Worn out with campaign suppers, of course. Her husband is running for the State Senate in the upcoming election."

"Let's not talk politics now, my dear," said Jeremiah, admiring the color of his whiskey before he took another swallow. "We're tired from the journey and I'm sure Mary would be more interested in news about the boys."

Mary declared that she would like nothing better to know how her nephews were faring, and the next few minutes passed in a tally of school reports, academic achievements, and sporting prowess. Cullen shifted restlessly, but gave every other appearance of enraptured interest. Finally a quiet knock sounded on the parlor door.

"Come in!" Cullen exclaimed, rather too loudly. Missy looked at him in some alarm, and Gabe, who had been beginning to doze against Mary's arm, sat up and grinned instinctively at the sound of his father's voice.

Bethel opened the door, remaining respectfully on the threshold with her hands folded over her best apron and her eyes lowered in the posture she always assumed with guests. "Your pardon, Mist' Cullen, Missus Mary," she said; "but the trunks is upstairs an' I got soap an' warm water all ready for washin', if Mist' an' Missus Tate care to tidy up aft' their journey."

"Thank you, Bethel," Mary said with a smile. "Would you show them up, please? Jeremiah, Frances, Bethel will take care of you."

Frances got to her feet as quickly as propriety allowed, and Jeremiah drained his glass. He looked suddenly uncomfortable, and his color was high. Mary wondered again what had possessed him to come. But in another minute they were out of the room, Missy trailing behind, and Cullen watched the ceiling as he listened for their footsteps moving into the front bedroom, followed by Missy's lighter tread passing into the nursery, and finally Bethel's familiar steps on the stairs again.

"I got to get out there," Cullen said hurriedly, getting to his feet and wriggling out of his frock coat. He flung it over one elbow and started to unbutton his waistcoat as he moved to the door. "You know whether Elijah's laid them fires yet?"

"He ain't," said Nate from the doorway. Mary had not even seen him standing there in the midafternoon shadows. "He been fixin' that loose board on the henhouse fence. Said he figured you'd want to see that done youself."

"He figured right," said Cullen. "I'll meet you out back in five minutes and we'll unload them barrels, then I want Lottie to meet us down at the tobacco barn: I got to make sure she remembers what to do."

"She remember," said Nate. "That girl gots a heap of sense."

He moved off, footsteps heavy once more, and Cullen pulled off his cravat. He looked apologetically at Mary. "I'm sorry to leave you," he said. "You goin' manage all right in here?"

"Of course I will," she said with her brightest smile. "Will you be in for supper?"

He grimaced as though the question pained him. "Mary, you know I can't. Minute I get them fires laid we'll be back to picking. Couldn't be a worse time for visitors."

"I know," said Mary. "You take care in that heat. Will it ever cool off?"

"Longer it stays like this, the faster the tobacco dries," Cullen said. He shrugged grimly. "But if we don't get rain sometime the middle leaves is going to stop growing before they're full-sized. I keep hoping for a thunderstorm."

"I don' like no t'understorms," Gabe put in conversationally. He had been looking from one parent to the next as they spoke, still unusually subdued by the presence of strangers in the house. It had not occurred to Mary before this, but the little boy had very little contact with people beyond his own household. He must be startled to find his home suddenly overrun.

Cullen gestured helplessly, the cravat fluttering from his fingers. "Mary, I got to…"

"Go," she said again, with all the reassurance she could offer. "Gabe and I will manage beautifully with the company."

Gabe did not look convinced, but Cullen's face softened in relief as he hurried from the room.

_*discidium*_

Lottie watched from the crack between the ajar door to the dining room and its post as Missus Bohannon's brother and his wife came out of the parlor and went upstairs after Bethel. She was surprised. She had never seen a Yankee before except for her mistress, and she had been expecting a very tall man with a hooked nose and a powdered wig like the ones in the book about the Declaration of Independence on the parlor shelf. Instead she saw a man who wasn't even as tall as Mister Cullen, and who was furthermore a little bit fat. He had a gingery mustache and he wore a rumpled, dusty-looking grey suit. His wife wasn't any more remarkable. She was pale and rabbity like a Cracker, and her dress wasn't pressed and her gloves weren't clean. Even more extraordinary was that her face was dirty! Lottie could see the pink, clean skin behind her ears and just under the collar of her dress, but the rest of her face and neck was powdered with a fine layer of soot. The way her ma and Bethel had talked, Lottie had expected a grand lady in rustling silks whose every wish had to be immediately fulfilled lest she whither from neglect. Instead she just looked cheap and tacky next to Missus Bohannon in her lovely purple dress, with her ribboned auburn hair and her beautiful, gentle face. Lottie felt fiercely proud of her mistress. She was the kindest and most wonderful lady in the county, and she was prettier than that other Yankee, too!

After the disappointment of her imaginings, Lottie had scarcely looked at the little girl except to notice she was blonde and that she was wearing a great many petticoats that made her skirts stand out in a bell and showed their lacy ruffles beneath. Lottie didn't own a petticoat for summer wear; only the warm flannelette one she wore on cold days. But she was going to have a new dress just as soon as Missus Bohannon finished sewing the buttonholes for her, and Lottie guessed that meant she had nothing to be ashamed of. Mostly nigger girls wore old handed-down clothes that belonged to older girls, and the older girls wore the cut-down dresses of the slave women. Over at Hartwood the girls' dresses didn't hardly seem to cover them at all, and they were ragged and tattered. Mister Sutcliffe didn't believe in keeping his slaves decently dressed, Pa said, on 'ccount of the expense. Even on Mister Ainsley's place where the darkies had good clothes the girls Lottie's age never got new dresses all their own, and certainly not dresses made from the mistress's clothes. Only ladies' maids and head women got the mistress's dresses.

Lottie swelled with pride at that thought. Missus Bohannon thought well enough of her, and of the work she did in the house and the garden, and of the way she played so nicely with Mister Gabe, that she was making her a real grown-up housegirl's dress. It had real cuffs that would have two buttons to fasten them, and a good full skirt pleated into the body. It even had a ruffle 'round the bottom, which Missus Bohannon had sewed onto the edge of the skirt with her wondrous patented New York sewing machine. Best of all, it didn't button up the back like a child's dress, but down the front like a woman's. Lottie wouldn't have to struggle to reach that troublesome buttonhole right in the middle of her back anymore, and she would have a row of neat buttons to look at whenever she wanted to. And Missus Bohannon had said that because it fastened in front Lottie would need a collar for the dress, and she thought she could make a pretty one out of a bit of starched muslin. This was almost more than Lottie could hope for.

Mister Cullen was talking now, hurriedly and apologetically, and Lottie abandoned her post behind the door. Ma told her time and again not to listen when the master and mistress were talking privately together. Once Lottie had argued that Bethel did it, and her mother had rapped her knuckles with a fork.

"That be diff'ent!" she had said. "Bethel be Massa's mammy, an' she always goin' watch out for him. But if you wants to grow up to be a good house servant, you gots to min' your own business when Massa an' Missus is talkin'. You got to be a well-behavin' chile when I ain't 'round to watch you. Mist' Cullen been good to us, keepin' us on when what he need is 'nother man, an' we gots to act right an' work hard to pay him back!"

Lottie didn't understand quite what her mother meant; surely she wasn't suggesting that Mister Cullen would ever sell them just to buy some old field hand? Lots of white men did things like that, maybe, but not Mister Cullen. All Lottie's life she had admired her master, even when he was only the Young Master, and old Mister Bohannon was still alive. Then some of the slaves, the old ones who were dead now, had said Mister Cullen was just a no-good wild thing and wouldn't ever come to much. Lottie thought she remembered Elijah saying the same thing, but she wasn't sure. Maybe that was just a dream, because Elijah admired the master and respected him for trying so hard to keep everyone fed and clothed and together. Times were hard: Lottie was old enough to see that. But Mister Cullen kept right on trying.

In the old days he _had_ been a bit wild, maybe: tearing around on his hunter in the dead of night and waking folks that needed their sleep, and coming into the house drunk in the early morning hours, and sometimes staying away for two or three days at a time. But he would always come back, and he would always sober up, and he had always had peppermint candy in his pocket for Lottie. She guessed she hadn't been much older than Gabe, but she remembered he would come out of the kitchen on dewy mornings when she was helping Ma feed the chickens, and he would sit down on the stoop with his riding boots planted wide.

"Here now, Lottie!" he would call, and she would run to him, standing just out of his reach with one bare foot up on top of the other and her hands behind her back. He would grin at her and his eyes, often red and puffy after the night's exertions, would twinkle merrily. "You been a good girl?" he would ask her.

"Yes, Massa," she used to say, and then he would reach into the pocket of his waistcoat and bring out a peppermint drop, and she would grab it shyly and retreat to her ma's skirts.

Then Ma would say; "You thank Mist' Bohannon now, Lottie." And Lottie would mumble her thanks. Then the smiling young man would get to his feet and give her ma good day and stride off towards the stable.

It had just about broken Lottie's five-year-old heart when he had gone away. She hadn't understood then that he would only be gone a season or two, or that he would come home a married man with a wife as pretty as she was kind, or that they would have them a little boy that sometimes Lottie loved so much she wished he was a little _black_ boy and her own baby brother. She knew that was a sin, to wish Missus Bohannon's baby belonged to her ma instead. And anyway this was just as good, or nearly. But Lottie wished that _somebody_ on the plantation would have another baby; a little girl baby. White or black, it didn't matter, but she would dearly love to help take care of a baby.

She wandered through the kitchen and out onto the stoop. Elijah had been mending the henhouse, and now he was giving the mules handfuls of corn from the sack of chicken-feed. He muttered something to Gus, who brayed irritably and butted his hand. Lottie didn't like Gus. She preferred Betsy, and she liked Shadow most. Nobody liked Snort, especially not Mister Cullen. Snort was stubborn and balky, and he liked to smack unwary people with the side of his head. If he wasn't so strong and tireless, the master declared, he would have shot him for glue last spring. Lottie had learned all of her best oaths listening to Mister Cullen shout at and about Snort.

The trunks and cases had been unloaded from the wagon, but there were three barrels still in the back. One was flour: Lottie knew that because Missus Bohannon and Bethel had talked of almost nothing else when planning meals to serve the guests. Missus Bohannon just didn't understand why she couldn't serve corn pone, since that was what the family had been eating for weeks now, and Bethel kept trying to explain that it wasn't fitting. Every time she said that – that something wasn't fitting for white folks to eat or have or do – Lottie wondered if that was what she really meant. Because the way she looked sometimes, it seemed like what Bethel was really saying was that she didn't much care what other white folks did, but she didn't want _Mister Cullen_ making do with this or managing without that or wearing himself thin doing the work of two field hands. Of course Lottie never said this. Little black girls who questioned Bethel generally got a swift swat on the bottom with a wooden spoon.

"Wha's in them barrels?" she asked, planting her hands on the back of the wagon and putting her weight onto them so that she could kick both feet up off the ground. It was more fun than she had expected, and so she did it again.

"Flour," said Elijah. He shook his head. "Buyin' flour on account got to hurt a man's pride."

"What use we got for three barrels of flour?" asked Lottie. She didn't understand what _on account_ was, but it had something to do with town business and therefore didn't concern her at all. "Tobacco's almos' in: Mist' Cullen can buy flour then."

"On'y that one's flour. Got one barrel apples, an' one barrel gewgaws from Missus Mary's family in New York," said Elijah. "What you doin' lollygagging 'round out here?"

Lottie was about to answer when Nate came out of the house. He nodded at the barrels. "Think you can give me a han'?" he asked Elijah. "Massa jus' changin' out his good clothes, then he goin' set them fires. You was right: he wan' to do it hisself."

"An' why not?" said Elijah. "He might be still learnin' some things, but he can lay a good fire. You bes' hang 'round, girl: he goin' want you tendin' them."

"Yassir!" Lottie said, her chest puffing a little. Last year she had been given the all-important task of keeping the fires in the tobacco barn smoldering through the day. The grown folks took shifts through the night, but it was Lottie the master relied upon from sunrise 'til dark to feed them with chips and bank them with split logs so that they burned neither too quickly nor too slow. The smoke and the heat had to be just right, and perfectly steady, so that the tobacco would cure properly and fetch a good price. Most important of all, someone had to be on hand at all times lest a stray spark should fly up and ignite the hanging tobacco, destroying weeks of work and pounds and pounds of produce and maybe the barn itself. Tending those fires was a position of supreme trust, and Lottie undertook it gravely.

She hurried out of the way while Nate climbed into the back of the wagon and upended a barrel. He rolled it near the edge and then hopped down, taking hold of one end while Elijah took the other. It was large, but did not seem to be filled with anything too heavy. They carried it around to the hatch of the root cellar where Lottie could not see them. She wandered around to the front of the wagon and stroked Betsy's nose. Jealous, Gus nudged at her shoulder, and so she petted him too. Nate and Elijah returned and took down the next barrel. This one was larger and heavier, and Elijah's end hung lower than Nate's as they trundled it up onto the stoop. They had just set it down when the master came out of the house, buttoning the front of his stained shirt.

He froze for a moment, looking at the two men. "I said…" he began, then shook his head. He sat down on the bench and rammed his feet into his heavy work boots. He stamped to settle his heels, then strode to the buckboard and hopped up onto the back. "Nate."

The last barrel was definitely flour. It was heavy enough that it took the coordinated effort of both men to tip it and ease it gently onto its side. They both grunted, low but audibly, as they hoisted it down, and they shuffled around the corner of the house. As soon as the wagon was empty, Elijah led the mules away. Left alone, Lottie straightened her tightly curling pigtails. She was glad her new dress wasn't ready yet. She didn't want it to get all sooty and smelling of smoke as she minded the fires. She decided she would wear her old dress to do that, just the same as Missus Bohannon wore her old dresses to work in the garden or wash the clothes. That thought made her feel very grown up indeed.

_*discidium*_

Mary nodded her thanks as Bethel moved to the sideboard and set down the large china platter with the roasted chicken glistening enticingly upon it. The older woman gave her a tiny smile and withdrew from the room. The sun was setting in carmine glory beyond the open windows, but it would be a long while yet before it grew too dark to see. Cullen would not quit a minute before he was forced to, chasing the demon of the lost afternoon with the zeal of the desperate. The air was cooling, and faint upon it came the scent of wood smoke from the tobacco kiln. The smell would persist now until the crop was brought in and cured to the very last leaf. It was not an unpleasant aroma, nor was it very strong, but Mary was attuned to the air of the plantation and the change was obvious to her.

To Jeremiah and Frances it was doubtless just another unfamiliar sensation in an unfamiliar place. Frances, especially, seemed quite out of her depth. Though at times she found her sister-in-law frustrating and a little foolish, Mary felt sorry for her. She remembered her own early days in Mississippi, shocked by strange sights and smells and the heavy, indolent feeling of the air that was so different from the crisp winds off the mid-Atlantic. At least Mary had had Cullen to guide her through the labyrinth of peculiar experiences that were perfectly natural to him. Jeremiah was no more acquainted with the South than his wife.

"Would you please carve, Jeremiah?" Mary asked, gesturing to the sideboard where the knife and prong lay waiting.

"Me?" said Jeremiah, somewhat startled. "I thought… well, isn't there a valet or someone who is supposed to… a butler? Would you call it a butler?"

He flushed again, as he seemed to be doing every time the slaves were mentioned even in passing. It was so unlike him, and it struck the softness of Mary's heart. He was trying so hard to accept a situation that he must surely find untenable, so as not to give offence to her husband or to raise a rift between them. Before her marriage and immediately after, Cullen and Jeremiah had engaged in several biting debates on the very questions of philosophy, morality and economics that were rending Congress and the Senate apart. These debates had degenerated swiftly into quarrels, and then into pitched battles of will that very well might have come to blows if not for the presence of the ladies. Then, at least, they had not been in one another's homes. If such a scene could be avoided this time Mary would be grateful.

"No," she said serenely; "it is the custom for the gentleman to carve, except at very large gatherings where one person could not possibly serve everyone in a timely fashion."

"Oh. Of course, then. Yes, yes I would be happy to carve." Jeremiah got to his feet and moved to the sideboard, adjusting the lamp in its wall bracket. The room was more brightly lit than it had been in a year: all the wall lamps were lit, and the best lamp stood in the middle of the table flanked by the last two beeswax candles. Mary had been saving them for Christmas, in case there should not be enough of the harvest money left over after purchasing necessities to buy more, but the occasion demanded the utmost hospitality the house could offer. She tried not to think about the prodigal outpouring of kerosene. It could not be helped.

"Frances, what was it you were saying about Henry?" Mary asked. They had spent most of the afternoon talking about the boys, while Missy sat quietly in a corner of the parlor, tired out from her journey. Gabe had planted himself upon the hearthrug in the lee of Mary's skirts, playing quietly but keeping one uneasy eye on the guests at all times.

"He's been accepted to Foxcroft Academy for the winter term," said Frances. "It's a very good school: it will be such excellent preparation for university. Where will you send your dear little boy to school, Mary?"

The question was innocent enough, but the tone was almost too guileless. Mary smiled. "I shall be teaching him at home for at least another year," she said. "He has been learning his letters and his numbers."

"All the way to eleven!" Jeremiah said cheerfully, coming back to the table with the ladies' plates. He set them down and went to fill his own.

"And then?" asked Frances.

"Our nearest neighbors to the east have an accomplished governess, and have invited Gabe to study with their children," Mary said, filling her sister-in-law's plate with potatoes and greens, creamed carrots and fresh buttered peas and Bethel's spiced succotash. "They have a little boy who is six, and another just a few weeks younger than Gabe. Their eldest daughter is only a little older than Missy; I thought perhaps you and I might take the children to call one day this week."

"That would be very pleasant, I'm sure," said Frances. Jeremiah sat down and started to help himself to the other dishes.

"You can't send him to a neighbor's governess forever, you know, Mary," he said. "Sooner or later he needs to start being schooled by men."

"There's a school in Meridian," said Mary. "It's only six miles, and the present schoolmaster attended Cullen's university."

"That's right: he did get a little formal education, didn't he?" said Jeremiah. "Pity he doesn't use it."

"I believe the point of a well-rounded education is that one always uses it," said Mary; "whether or not one does so in a quantifiable manner. Education is meant to enhance the quality and depth of one's consideration of the world."

Jeremiah chuckled and patted her hand. "My sweet sister, always putting everything so prettily!" he said. His eyes softened and he looked almost sad. "Perhaps a little too prettily. It's easy to see only the pretty things in life, and to ignore more uncomfortable truths."

Frances cleared her throat delicately and took another small morsel of chicken from the tip of her fork. "We did promise to give Mary all the news from home," she said.

"Indeed we did!" exclaimed Jeremiah, cheering considerably. "Well, my dear, the girls miss you dreadfully. They just cannot understand why you couldn't pick up and come to visit. Silly geese: they'd never make that journey with a little boy! Imagine taking a child that age on a steamboat: it would be absolutely wretched. Our Missy is no coward, but even she was distressed by all the noise and commotion. Anyhow, Emily asked me to tell you…"

And so the meal passed, Mary listening eagerly to news of her sisters and her parents and her eldest brother. Jeremiah talked ebulliently, Frances cutting in now and then with some quiet comment. But when the peach tart was served and the coffee finished, the Tates retired to bed at once, exhausted from their journey. Mary saw them up the stairs, and looked in on Missy in the nursery. She was fast asleep, of course: overtaxed by the excitement and the heat. Gabe was slumbering peacefully in the middle of his parents' big bed, moonlight playing on his face. Mary watched him for a while until the rustling in the front bedroom quieted. Then she hurried down to the kitchen on silent feet.

_*discidium*_

There was something that man wasn't saying, and Bethel didn't like it.

She had been quietly observing the visitors all afternoon, watching their expressions and their movements, listening to Missus Mary's brother carefully, and trying to make sense of what Missus Tate was saying in her outlandish twanging accent. While they had been supping, Bethel had been sitting just on the other side of the door, left slightly ajar so that she could hear every word. If Missus Mary had noticed she hadn't done anything about it, and since Missus Mary was no fool Bethel thought that meant she wanted to know that she had someone on her side even with Mister Cullen out working.

She certainly needed someone. That woman wasn't well-bred in the least: not what Bethel thought of as well-bred. Couching criticism in innocent questions was a skill elevated to art by the matrons of the South, but Bethel thought it was mighty ill-bred in them, too. Her standard of breeding had been set by Miss Caroline, and Miss Caroline would never have asked such pointed things about Mister Gabe's schooling. She _certainly_ never would have been so crass as to remark that the dress Missus Mary was wearing was behind the fashion. But it wasn't Missus Tate who worried Bethel: the artfully rude were common as crabgrass, and Missus Mary was gracious enough to handle them on her own.

No, it was the man who made Bethel uncomfortable. Whatever it was he wasn't saying, he was thinking it all the time and it kept coming out in his words. There was a lilt in his voice whenever he called Missus Mary "sister", and his voice kept trailing off halfway through a sentence. Bethel knew that he was an abolitionist, which meant he thought the slaves ought to be freed – as if a white man who had never been a slave nor owned one nor likely ever met one before today had any right to have an opinion of the matter one way or the other – but he didn't even really realize they were people. He hadn't hardly even looked at Bethel when she had shown him up the stairs, much less thanked her; just followed her like she was a signpost on an empty road. And complaining about the noise Nate made on the stairs, carrying those heavy cases on his own so Elijah wouldn't strain… it just wasn't decent. But although he certainly was making an effort not to lecture Missus Mary about the Negroes, Bethel didn't think that a desire to do so was what Mister Tate was hiding. Mostly because he didn't have to hide it: his sister knew he must want to, Mister Cullen knew, everyone on the place except maybe the children knew.

And that was strange, too. Bethel had never heard tell of an abolitionist rabid enough to tear into a man about his slaves at his wedding visiting a house that kept them. It just didn't make sense. Why was he here, and what did he want?

The door from the dining room opened hastily and Missus Mary came in. She looked pretty and flushed: that gown suited her beautifully, whether or not New England women still wore such things. She was smiling.

"I think that went off wonderfully," she said. "The chicken was perfectly done, and Jeremiah took three helpings of the greens. And the potatoes… Bethel, they were perfect."

Bethel nodded. It worried her that Missus Mary did not seem to share her concern. She supposed it was natural enough: Mister Tate was her older brother, and she had grown up trusting him. She wouldn't very well look askance when he seemed to be trying to be on his best behavior. On the other hand, Bethel supposed, perhaps she was the one who was mistaken. Missus Mary knew her brother better than Bethel did. And yet… the way his voice changed when he called her "sister" just did not sit right.

"Did you save something nice for Cullen?" the young woman asked, coming out of her eager delight with a little frown of worry.

"Bes' taste of everything 'cept the chicken," said Bethel. "An' I gots the bes' part of what's left of her." She nodded at the covered plate perched on the warming shelf, then reached to pat Mary's hand. "You done right," she murmured. "He wan' you to be the lady of the house. It helpin' him do what he got do out there."

"I know." The words were very soft, and Missus Mary was no longer looking at Bethel, but down at the stovetop. "He's late," she said.

"Pro'ly gone to see to the stock so he don' have to go out again," Bethel reassured her. The mistress nodded and moved to pick up one of the dishcloths. "No you don'!" scolded Bethel. "Not in that dress! Anyways you promised me an' Mist' Cullen both to keep you' hands idle 'til they's gone."

Missus Mary's eyes flashed, an echo of her husband's fire, and then she made a little chagrined smile. "I did, didn't I?" she asked.

Then both women froze at the sound of a heavy boot on the stoop. Bethel waited, expecting the creak of the bench as Mister Cullen sat down to haul them off. Instead the door swung open and he appeared, half-shadowed and leaning on the post.

"I do love you in that dress," he said quietly, nodding at Missus Mary.

She blushed like a maiden and rocked her hips ever so slightly. The hoop swung and the flounces whispered.

"How was supper?" Cullen asked. "Not too awkward, I hope? Unbalanced table."

"It was lovely," said Mary. "I heard all the news from home."

"Get them boots off an' come sit down," Bethel said, pouring a cup of coffee. She had made it fresh at suppertime, and it would not be as bitter as the evening brew usually was. She was glad. That and the chicken and the soft white rolls and the tart would be such a nice treat for him.

But he made no move to take off his boots. Keeping his feet outside of the house he reached around to wet his hands in the washbasin, scooped some soap and scrubbed. His hands looked like they had been dipped in tobacco tar, and it came off in runny strings as he washed. Finally he rubbed vigorously with the old towel and blotted at his beard.

"I just come back for a bite to eat," he said. "I'm taking the first watch on the fires tonight. I don't want neither of you sitting up for me."

"The fires," murmured Missus Mary. She looked stricken, as if she had forgotten about the need to tend the tobacco kiln through the night. In the past it had been the duty of one of the elderly darkies, too aged to be of any use during the day and spared the sheriff's sale for the same reason. Since the last of the old timers had died the field hands had been taking it in turns through the night with Mister Cullen: four shifts, the first and the last dragging out an already long workday, and the middle two cruelly cleaving the night into a pair of short, snatched rests. And of course there had been no respite from the rotating roster. By the end of curing time last year, all four of them had been stumbling about the place like graveyard haunts; ashen, sunken-eyed and indifferent to everything but sleep. Bethel privately wondered whether this exhaustion had harmed Mister Cullen's chances of wrangling a good price in New Orleans.

"We're trying it differently this year," he said, as though he knew what she was thinking. "Three shifts a night, everyone gets a night off in four. Whoever has the last watch gets a pass from tending the stock to have a decent breakfast. Up here, Bethel: Meg ain't going to have time for cooking."

"I 'spects that bes'," she agreed. "An' not jus' breakfast, neither. I can fix supper for everyone, an' Meg can take it down the cabins when she done her work."

He tilted his chin in agreement, and Missus Mary nodded. It only made sense: everything but the slaves' meat and pone had been cooked in the house kitchen for weeks. Bethel took the plate off of the warmer and moved towards the table. "You come sit," she said. "Never min' them boots."

Mister Cullen shook his head. "Just put it on a tin plate: I'll take it with me," he said. "I already sent Lottie to her supper: I got to get back."

Bethel turned to do as she was told, and Missus Mary took the cup of coffee. She went to the dish dresser and plucked the lid off the sugar bowl. Mister Cullen made an abortive noise of protest before he remembered that he wanted to shelter her from the secret about the sorghum. She stirred in a spoonful of the costly white grains and offered it to him with a small smile. He saluted her with the cup and drank.

"Don't you come no closer," he said hurriedly as she moved as though to touch him. "You spoil _that _dress and I'll never forgive myself."

Bethel had the tin plate ready now. She put two rolls onto it and the rest of the pat of butter, and balanced the slice of peach tart carefully on its rim, then picked up a knife and a fork from the pile she had just finished washing. These Mister Cullen stowed in his trouser pocket: he had changed out of his oilskins already. He took the plate and shifted as though to push off the doorjamb, but his resolve crumbled and he reached with thumb and forefinger to pick up a slender hunk of richly basted dark meat. Transfixed he tore into it with his teeth, closing his eyes and chewing in slow relish. He popped the rest of the now-ragged piece into his mouth, swallowed, and then licked the grease from his blackened fingertips. He opened his eyes, saw the two women watching him wordlessly, and offered a sheepish grin.

"Can't remember when I've had chicken that good," he said cheerfully. Then he was gone.


	27. Strangers

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: Strangers**

Gabe woke up to the disappointing discovery that his parents were already up for the day. When Mama had put him down for the night in the middle of the big bed, Gabe had intended not to fall asleep until they came up to join him. He had wanted to cuddle between his mama and his pappy, warm and safe and contented after a long and anxious afternoon. But when he opened his eyes he found he was alone. Mama's side of the bed was still warm, but Pappy's had long gone cold, and there was no one else in the bedroom with him. He sat up, throwing off the covers that someone had spread smoothly over him, and crooked his knees. He thumped one foot against the mattress, listening to the crackle of packed straw beneath the ticking. It was a funny sound, and so he did it again. Then he got onto his knees and bounced down to the edge of the bed. His legs dangled down over the side, bare feet swinging. The curtains fluttered with a gentle breeze: it was not so hot today.

He hesitated before hopping down off the bed. He wasn't sure he wanted to go out into the corridor all by himself. There were strangers in the house, and Gabe was not sure he liked strangers. Mama said they were his Uncle Jeremiah and his Auntie Frances, and the girl was his Cousin Missy, but Gabe didn't care who they were: he didn't know them and they made him uncomfortable. Auntie Frances wasn't kind and smiling and sweet like Mama, and he didn't like the way that Uncle Jeremiah didn't have whiskers anywhere but on his lip. Why did they grow like that? Gabe hadn't asked, because he was wary of talking to the unfamiliar adult. He didn't often see anyone but his own folks, and on the rare occasions when there were visitors at the house they were people Gabe knew: Mr. and Mrs. Ainsley and their children, or quiet and kindly Doctor Whitehead. They didn't stay the night, either: they went home before it got dark!

Gabe knew he shouldn't be afraid, because he was a little man now and too old to be frightened. And he knew his mama wasn't afraid: she was very happy, and had smiled and smiled all afternoon as she dressed him in his slippery suit and told him to mind his manners and greeted the guests and took them into the parlor. Mama thought it was wonderful to have these strangers in the house: Gabe could see that. Still he wished his pappy didn't have to be out in the tobacco. He would have felt safer with Pappy in the house.

He slipped off the edge of the bed, his feet hitting the floor together. He padded around the edge of the bed and clung to the post of the footboard, peering around at the closed bedroom door. Working up his courage, he approached it, reached up with both arms so he could grip the handle, and pulled it open. It moved silently on the well-greased hinges, and he peered out into the hallway.

The nursery door was closed. The strange girl was sleeping in Gabe's bed. He didn't mind that so much: the treat of sleeping between Mama and Pappy more than made up for the displacement. But he didn't know if he liked the girl, and that perplexed him. Gabe had always got along well with other children: with Lottie and with Charity, Charlie, Leon and Daisy Ainsley, and even with the strange children he had met once when Mama and Pappy had gone visiting at Eastertime. It was easy to get along with children: they talked to you, or you talked to them, or if they were too little to talk sometimes they handed you a toy or tried to grab your shirt-buttons, and then you were friends. But Cousin Missy hadn't talked to him, and when he tried to talk to her she had just giggled and shushed him and watched the talking adults instead. Gabe hadn't said anything funny, and he didn't like to be laughed at. Maybe he only got along with Mississippi children.

It was morning, and Mama would be downstairs setting the table for breakfast. Gabe could smell it cooking: ham and eggs and grits biscuits and something else, too. Something sweet. Gabe smacked his lips quietly. He was hungry. He hadn't eaten much at supper, because instead of sitting at the dining room table with only Mama for company he had been put down opposite Missy, with Auntie Frances on one side and his mother on the other while Uncle Jeremiah sat in a chair by the window and puffed on a fat cigar. Gabe had been uncomfortable with all the unfamiliar eyes upon him, and the effort of trying to put on his best manners had been exhausting after a day without a nap. He had been glad when Mama suggested it was time for bed, and had carried him upstairs to the safety of her bedroom where the strangers wouldn't come. She had dressed him in his nightshirt and brushed his hair with her soft brush and sat beside the bed singing softly until he fell asleep.

He remembered that now, and it made him grin. Mama was sneaky: she had tricked him into falling asleep when he hadn't meant to. Tonight he wouldn't let her do that, and he would stay up until she and Pappy came to bed.

Gabe slipped out into the corridor and moved quietly past the nursery door. The door to the other bedroom, which stood near the head of the stairs, was closed. Beyond it he could hear sounds of slow, heavy breathing, and he knew that Uncle Jeremiah was still sleeping. Mama had said that long journeys were tiring and the guests would need their rest. Gabe didn't want to disturb them anyhow. He preferred them fast asleep.

He grabbed hold of the bannister and stepped down onto the first step, trying to be as quiet as possible. He descended to the second and was just stretching his foot towards the third when Mama appeared at the foot of the stairs. She was wearing another one of her pretty dresses over the big hoop: this one the dark blue-and-grey tartan that Pappy said made her eyes sparkle like the sea. They were certainly sparkling now as she saw him, and she came hurriedly up the stairs, bending to tug at the hem of his nightshirt, which had rucked up over his bottom when he slid out of bed.

"There, dearest, now you're decent," she said, taking his hand and turning him around to head back up the stairs. "We'll just get you dressed and then you can have some breakfast. Bethel's made a special treat."

The treat was an apple pastry, sweet and sticky and scrumptious. Gabe sat at the kitchen able and ate happily while Bethel kept breakfast warm for the grown folks. Upstairs he could hear people moving around now: Uncle Jeremiah and Auntie Frances getting ready for the day. Mama went back into the dining room to make sure that everything was ready, and Gabe was left alone with Bethel.

"When dey goin' home?" Gabe asked, licking his sticky fingers.

Bethel turned away from stirring butter into the hominy. "Wha's that, honey?" she asked.

"Dem guests. When dey goin' home?"

The loving black face crinkled into a fond smile. "Not fo' a while yet, Mist' Gabe. They's stayin' two weeks."

"Why?" he asked.

Bethel shook her head. "I don' know," she said. "Mebbe on 'count of the journey so long. Mebbe 'cause Mist' Tate miss your mama. I don' even understand why they's come in the firs' place."

"Uncle Jeremiah, he Mama's brudder," said Gabe. He frowned thoughtfully. "How come I don't got a brudder?"

The smile faltered a little and Bethel put down her wooden spoon. She came around the table and stood beside him, stroking his hair. Gabe craned his neck to look up at her. "The Lord is the one who decides when you gets a brother," she said. "Sometime he jus' don' mean for it to be."

There were voices in the next room now, and Bethel hurried back to the stove. She spooned the hominy into a china serving dish and piled the slices of ham onto a plate. Gabe returned his attention to his breakfast, chasing bits of egg with his fork. He was pleased that he didn't have to eat with the company. It was nicer in here with Bethel: it was more like things were supposed to be.

Bethel made several trips into the dining room, and on the last one Mama said something to her and she came back into the kitchen nodding. She wetted a cloth and wiped Gabe's face and hands. "I goin' upstairs to make them beds," she said. "You wan' come with me, or you wan' go sit nicely at the table like a gentleman an' keep your mama company?"

"Wid you!" Gabe declared. Then, remembering Mama's instructions to use his very best manners he added; "Please."

Bethel made the bed in Mama and Pappy's room first, and Gabe sat on the chair in the corner, swinging his legs while he watched. Bethel worked quickly and efficiently, even though she and Mama usually made the big bed together. She picked up Pappy's nightshirt where it lay crumpled by the clothes press, and smoothed and folded it before tucking it under his pillow. She straightened the rag rugs on either side of the bed, and trimmed the wick of the candle on Mama's little table. From the closet she took a willow-twig broom and made a quick sweep of the room. Later, when the breakfast dishes were washed, she would come up to change the water in the washstand and take out the chamber pot to be emptied. Those were the bedroom chores.

The same process was repeated in the guest's room, only Gabe did not go in. He hovered just outside, peeking through the door. The room was very clean and Mama's new curtains looked very pretty, but the big alien trunks and the portmanteaux, the overcoat hanging on one of the closet hooks and the unfamiliar gowns airing on the chair and the clothespress made Gabe feel uneasy. It was as if this ordinarily quiet corner of the house had been invaded, and the strangers were making it their own. They had even chased Mama's sewing machine right down the stairs!

The creak of the nursery door made him turn around. Cousin Missy was peering out into the hall just as Gabe himself had done an hour earlier. Her pale hair was tousled and her lace-trimmed nightgown was rumpled and limp-looking after the warm night. There were bright blossoms of color on her cheeks and there was something about her expression as she looked wide-eyed into the unfamiliar corridor that reminded Gabe of his mama. Suddenly he did not feel so disinclined to like her, and he smiled.

"Good mornin'," he said generously. "Is you goin' get dressed? Bet'l maked a treat for breakfast, an' she savin' you some."

Missy looked at him for a moment, then tittered. "Why do you speak like that?" she asked.

Gabe didn't understand the question. He was speaking politely, just like Mama had taught him. Maybe he shouldn't have said that part about her getting dressed? But he had heard Pappy ask Mama such things before, and Pappy was a gentleman, so it must be all right. "She maked it wid dem apples your pappy brung," he said.

"_Brought_," said Missy. "My father _brought_. And you don't say 'with them apples'; you say 'with those apples'."

"I likes apples," said Gabe, trying to keep the conversation going although what she said made very little sense. Of course her father brung them apples: hadn't he just said that? He tried not to frown, but he could not help thinking that _Lottie_ would know just what he meant. "We ain't got no trees dat grow 'em. We got peaches an' walnuts."

The girl laughed again. "You sound so _funny_!" she said.

Gabe scowled indignantly. "I don'!" he protested. "I don' soun' funny! You sounds funny!"

He felt a warm breeze as Bethel's skirts swished up behind him, and her gentle, work-roughened hand settled on the crown of his head. He shuffled closer to her, triumphant. That Yankee girl wasn't going to laugh at him now that Bethel was here: Bethel wouldn't let her.

The smile was gone from Missy's face, and she was clutching the edge of the door as she stared at the woman. Bethel smiled. "Mornin' Miss Missy," she said kindly, stepping around Gabe and drawing him with her. "You wan' me to help you get brushed an' dressed? I kin fix your hair up right pretty fo' breakfas'."

_*discidium*_

Lottie stood up hurriedly as Cullen stepped into the thick, smoky air of the tobacco kiln. The fires were glowing a lurid orange, their embers smoldering at just the right rate. The pile of wood chips and the logs with which the girl had been feeding the fires all day were dwindling, but Nate and Elijah were already out at the woodpile filling their arms with more. Cullen ducked low under the bottom row of leaves, the ravaged muscles of his back protesting miserably. The tobacco was ripening well, and there was not a spare minute in the day to rest or stretch or lie flat on the ground for a minute or two to ease the worst spasms. Even dinner was a hurried affair, bolted down so quickly that it was in danger of coming straight back up again. Cullen's hands and forearms were coated with a thick slime of tobacco juice and green pulp and mud, and his thumbs were nicked and bloodied where the small, curved knife had slipped. He was soaked right through under his oilskins, for the dew was heavy in the fall and there was no way to keep from being out in the fields in the damp. His head ached and his throat was dry, and the scratchy wood smoke was not helping either.

He put out a hand to feel the heat from the nearest fire, and checked to be sure that it was well-contained in its ring of stones. Then he moved to the second, and the third. The leaves nearest this one were flecked with ash, and he squinted in the firelight as he tried to rub it away. The vein crackled beneath his thumb and he hastily withdrew his hand.

"Had some sparks?" he asked.

"Some," Lottie agreed. Her tone and her demeanor were both very matter-of-fact. Almost man-to-man, he thought, privately amused. "They didn' catch, though: snuffed out their own selves." She frowned. "Mist' Cullen, you isn't takin' the first turn again, is you?"

He snorted softly. So Lottie had joined the conspiracy to make sure he was looking after himself, had she? "No, I ain't," he said. "It's Elijah's turn: I'll have the watch after him, and Nate will take the last one. Your ma gets a night off to rest."

"I's glad," said Lottie. She dusted off the front of her dress and looked up at the ragged curtains of hanging leaves. "They goin' cure up nice," she said. "I bet you goin' get top price."

"Not for these ones," said Cullen. "Them's only lugs. But when we get in the middle leaves… yeah, I think we're going to get top price."

The admission hung in the heavy air, and he found himself at once frightened and relieved. He had given voice to his private hope – a hope so secret that he had scarcely even allowed himself to feel it. They were well into picking now, and every day he was out there paring from plants in the perfect vigor of health. All they needed was one more good rain, and the crop would be able to mature just as it should. The soil still had life in it after all: maybe last year had been nothing but a little bad luck. But admitting to that hope was only asking to have it dashed to pieces: his short years of farming had taught him that much.

Nate came in carrying a load of wood, followed closely by Elijah. The old man set down his burden and then moved over to the crate on which Lottie had been sitting. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the smoke.

"If I ain't down here in time, you come and wake me, you hear?" Cullen said, fixing him with a stern look.

Elijah nodded. "I got to be up to work in the mornin', Massa," he said. "Believe me: I ain't goin' sit up no longer than I got to."

Cullen stepped out from under the leaves and herded Lottie towards the door with a hand between her shoulder blades. "You get a nice night's rest," he said. "You done good work today."

She beamed happily at the compliment and took the lantern Nate handed to her, then went running down the hill towards the cabin: a small dancing light in the darkness. Cullen watched her go and then turned his face to the distant glowing windows of the house. He had taken only a few steps when he realized Nate was following him.

"There something you want?" he asked, turning and picking out the other man's vague shape in the gloom.

"Your brother-in-law," said Nate.

"Mr. Tate," Cullen corrected. All through the summer Nate had been toeing the line of disrespect, and he needed to be reminded of his place.

"That him," the darkie said. "He a abolitionist?"

"He got antislavery sentiments, that's for sure," said Cullen. "If you're worried he's going to drag me out of my bed and kill me in the dooryard you can sleep easy. Jeremiah Tate couldn't strangle a cat."

There was a stony silence. Evidently Nate had not been fearing that, and Cullen was just going to have to pray he had not been hoping for it either. He might not understand what his childhood friend was thinking from day to day, but he could feel the boiling resentment in his every word and glance. It ran deeper than the disdain of his master's poverty: it had to.

"What you think 'bout that?" he asked. "'Bout a man who say slaves ought to be free, then come down here so he can eat up the food we raise an' have Bethel wait on 'im?"

"I think the world's full of contradictions," said Cullen. "And I think there ain't many plantations 'round here where a field hand could get away with asking them sort of questions."

"Ain't many plantations 'round here would welcome a abolitionist," countered Nate.

Cullen grunted. "He ain't my choice of guest, but he's family. Mrs. Mary got a right to see her people. He been on his best behavior, and I expect the same from everyone on this place. Don't you go pestering him, you hear?"

"You jus' don't want me gettin' dangerous ideas from that man." The note of challenge in Nate's voice was unmistakable.

Cullen stepped forward imperiously. Nate's shoulders tensed but he did not step back. "Seems to me," Cullen said in a low voice thick with warning; "the ideas been there for a while now."

"Mebbe they has," said Nate. "Why ain't you never listened to Missus Mary? I know she done asked you for our freedom. You give her ev'ything else she want, why not that?"

This was too much. For a moment Cullen was lost in the same indignant, white-hot rage that he had felt on that spring day so many years ago when a boyish quarrel had left one of them bruised and the other bloodied. He felt all the strength left in his tired body swooping down into his right arm, and the muscles tightened. Then the thought of Mary stopped him. He had told her once, truthfully, that he had only ever struck one slave – and that in a silly childish argument. How could he face her if he raised his hand in anger again? And there was the question of Nate's response. His respect for his master had been crumbling for months now; maybe for years. A solid right hook would destroy the last fragments; proof that Cullen Bohannon was not a man of his word.

"Because I don't see how it would do either of us a damned bit of good," he growled, pounding the offending fist against his overalls. The sound of the impact was sticky and sodden; pathetic. "I ain't got money for wages, and you wouldn't stay without 'em. You really want to leave this place and find your way in the world by yourself? Where you going to sleep? How you going to eat? What about finding work? How you gonna raise the money for your freedom papers? We both know free Negroes ain't much welcome in this county: you think it's any different in the next one? Odds are you'd be run right out of the state. And what about Meg? You going to leave her? Because I don't think she'd go, free or not, wages or not. She got a child to think about. She got a husband."

"He ain't her husband, not by law," said Nate, but his voice was wavering now. "Slaves ain't got the right to marry; it don't mean nothing."

"Does to Meg," said Cullen. "Does to Lottie. And it does to me." He turned his head and spat into the grass: a thin trail of copious spittle that did not seem to ease the scratching in his throat. "Just you think about it before you start agitating. What the hell would you do with your freedom if you got it?"

He turned and walked away, leaving a dark shape fraught with tension in the night.

With guests in the house there was no question of sparing his work pants from being soiled by his sodden and tarry drawers, so he detoured through the toolshed. He had to fight to get his boots off, and so he did not put them on again but moved barefoot through the dooryard. Tending to the stock before going in to eat meant that Bethel was all but finished her work by the time Cullen came into the kitchen. She was putting the silver into the dish dresser drawer as he stepped over the threshold. She glanced at him but said nothing, focusing intently on her work. Too tired and troubled by the exchange with Nate to notice, Cullen poured water and set about the wearisome task of scrubbing his hands.

Mary was too busy with the guests to prepare her afternoon basket, and in any case Lottie could not be spared to bring it, and without this interim nourishment he was maddeningly hungry. The smell of the food – chicken pie, from the looks of it, with a wide assortment of side dishes – sent his stomach roiling. He hoped that Bethel would not insist upon sending him into the dining room to eat it: the Tates would be in the parlor and he didn't want Jeremiah to get it into his head to keep the master of the house company while he supped. Cullen was too tired and too cross to cope well with his brother-in-law, even if Mary assured him the man was behaving circumspectly.

He finished scouring the worst of the filth from his hands and dried them on the ragged old towel before he realized that Bethel had still said nothing to him. She was pouring coffee – fresh-brewed out of consideration for the guests – and focusing intently on the dark stream of fluid. She put down the pot and took the plate off the back of the stove.

"I think mebbe you bes' eat in here," she said quietly, nodding at the table. She did not meet his eyes.

"I was thinking the same thing," said Cullen, frowning. He watched as she set down the dishes and fumbled to lay out his cutlery and napkin. Her hands were clumsy, and he realized abruptly that they were shaking. "Here, now, what's the matter?" he asked, coming up beside her and bending in an attempt to look into her eyes. She turned her head, eluding him.

"Them roasted potatoes is a Tate fam'ly favorite," Bethel said. Her voice was hoarse. "Missus Mary, she read off the receipt for me an' I make 'em jus' like she say. It good I kep' some back for you, 'cause they done eat up every scrap I put on the table."

"Never mind the potatoes. What's the matter with you? Bethel, look at me." He caught hold of her elbow with finger and thumb, gently but firmly, and she turned, raising her eyes at last. There was such a look of bewildered hurt in them that Cullen felt his throat close in sympathetic pain. "What's wrong?" he said softly.

"Mist' Cullen," she said, and her voice broke. She shook her head, casting her gaze downward again. "Mist' Cullen, I didn' mean to do it, but I scared that chile."

"Scared that… you mean Miss Missy? You scared Missy?" he asked.

Bethel nodded wretchedly. "I didn' mean to do it. I ain't never scared a chile in my whole life, not really. Put 'em straight when they was misbehavin' maybe, but… I never scared you, did I? I ain't never scared you?" She looked up again, suddenly desperate.

"Hell, no!" he said, forgetting himself in his confusion and his desire to reassure her in her distress. "You never scared me. Why you think I was such a rapscallion?"

A thin smile flickered across Bethel's lips, but she was still grappling with her confession. "Well, I scared that chile. She scream like I put a hot poker in her eye, an' she call for her mama an' she say… she say…" She shook her head from side to side so that her headscarf flapped. "She say I's an African, an' I didn' ought to touch her."

Cullen's jaw tightened. "Frances Tate said that?" he hissed.

"Nawsir! Nawsir, the chile: Miss Missy, she say that. I on'y asked if she wanted help with her clothes an' her hair, her mama bein' down at breakfas', an' when I went to put my hand on her shoulder she jumped an' she screamed." Bethel's lean and steadfast shoulders slumped miserably. "I never see'd a chile so scared, Mist' Cullen."

He was aghast. He supposed if he tried he could understand how a child brought up in Maine, where darkies were few, might be spooked by a black face. What he couldn't understand was why her parent's hadn't prepared her for the notion of being tended to by a Negro. That and the use of the word _African_ to describe Bethel, whose people had lived on American soil for generations. Where had the girl even picked up that turn of phrase? From a parent, of course: quite likely her fool of a mother. And somehow the hypocrisy of Jeremiah Tate failing to teach his daughter to behave as well around a Negro as she would around some hired Irish girl was worst of all.

Unsure quite what to do or say to comfort Bethel, he reached to take hold of her other arm as well. Her gaze followed his hand and then travelled up to his face. She straightened herself and lifted her head and settled her face into its customary expression of quiet dignity. "It jus' a shame, that all," she said steadily. "I didn' mean to scare that li'l girl."

She was burying her hurt, hiding it as she had no doubt been doing all day. Cullen respected that, but his own anger was smoldering. These people had no right to come into his home and upset his people. Nate getting seditious notions was bad enough, but to wound Bethel like this was damn near unforgivable. But if she could compose herself he could too, and so he swallowed the boiling, helpless fury and tried to smile.

"She's just a fool Yankee child," he said. "Don't you take it to heart. Gabe loves you like he loves his own mama, don't he?"

Bethel's eyes brightened, and he hoped she understood what he meant but could not quite say. "Yassir, Mist' Cullen, he love me," she said. She reached to pat his breastbone. "Now bes' you sit down an' eat. That supper goin' get cold, an' I went to a heap of trouble to keep it waitin'. Sit down, honey. They's a apple pastry lef' from breakfas', an' custard too. I had to use sheep sorrel for the flavor on 'count we don' got no lemon, but she come out right an' I don' think them white folks knowed any different."

"I'm sure they didn't," Cullen said, letting her shepherd him to the bench where he could take the weight off his weary legs at last. "Ain't no one can match you for making do with what you got."

Bethel's lips curved in a small, pleased smile and she patted his shoulder. "I think we's managing nicely," she said. "An' Missus Mary been a good help: she a clever lady. You eat up now; you mus' be hungry."

Cullen tried to keep his back straight and his elbows tucked, but after the first two mouthfuls good manners were lost to the gnawing of his empty stomach. He hurriedly polished off what he had been given and was astonished when Bethel interrupted his attempt to sop up the last of the pale chicken gravy by serving him another piece of the rich, delicious pie. There had not been a second helping of a meat dish on the Bohannon table since the beginning of the year. Shutting his mind to the knowledge that they were wasting what they could ill afford to have at all, he polished off this as well, along with generous seconds of beans, stewed beets and the creamed parsnips made to Mary's specifications. He relished the half-forgotten taste of fresh-baked apples in a flaky crust that very nearly melted on his tongue, and to Bethel's obvious delight pronounced the sheep-sorrel custard a triumph.

By the time he had finished the heat of the kitchen and the comfort of a full stomach were working their spell, and his exhaustion was catching up to him. He found himself half-drowsing where he sat, and as Bethel cleared away the dishes Cullen tried to muster himself to rise. He managed it in the end, a bit unsteadily, and clung to the table a moment longer than should have been necessary while his head swam sluggishly. Bethel left the dishpan, drying her hands on her apron, and frowned up at him.

"Is you all right, Mist' Cullen?" she asked softly. "You ain't takin' sick again, is you?"

He smiled for her. "Naw: just tired," he said. "Reckon I could sneak upstairs without drawing attention to myself? I got to be up in a couple hours to take my turn in the tobacco barn, and I'd rather not waste 'em being civil to that fool woman."

"I 'spects they be headin' upstairs soon," Bethel said. "If they isn' you jus' tell Missus Mary the horses is settled for the night, an' I'll know to come an' fetch you to take care of somethin' for me."

He grinned at this invitation to a conspiracy. "Don't trouble with that," he said. "I'll make my own excuses. You stay right here; I bet you ain't had your own supper yet."

Bethel reached and patted his cheek affectionately. "I can't never enjoy it 'til I know my boy been fed," she said. "You get 'long to bed. I'll come wake you when it time to go."

"No need for that," said Cullen. "Elijah promised to fetch me if I ain't out there prompt. Get your own sleep: you need it, too."

His shoulder began to turn towards the door, and then he hesitated. Swiftly he bent and kissed Bethel's cheek lightly. It was something he had not done in years, not since coming home from New York in delirious newlywed happiness, but something moved him tonight. She had had a hard day; a terrible day. He could do at least this little thing to make it a wee bit better.

Then he hurriedly slipped out of the kitchen so he did not need to see her shining eyes.

The dining room was dark, and he moved carefully around the table, conscious of its added length with the leaves tugged out. The light from the parlor cast an angular wedge towards the doorjamb, bright and cheerful and bothersome. Conscious of his bare feet and grubby trousers and thoroughly soaked and tobacco-stained shirt, Cullen moved with some trepidation towards it. He was about to step out into the corridor when the light flickered and dimmed, and the murmured voices in the parlor shifted with the whisper of skirts and the creak of Jeremiah Tate's shoes on the floorboards. The glow grew feebler as another lamp was snuffed, and Cullen retreated hurriedly into the gloom of the room as his brother-in-law's voice drew nearer.

"…quite recovered from the journey, after all. You must take care of your health, my dear. Go on ahead: I'll be with you presently."

The rustle of Frances's frock moved down the corridor, and light ladylike footfalls sounded on the stairs. When they had passed Jeremiah spoke again, his voice now graver and less aggravatingly adenoidal. "Do give my apologies to your husband. Does he always keep such very late hours?" he asked.

"There's a great deal of work to be done at picking time," said Mary. "Cullen is very dedicated."

Tate grunted in mild assent. "Admirable," he said. There was a brief and uncomfortable pause. "Mary Beth, about this morning…"

"I think the less said about that the better," Mary murmured.

"Nevertheless, what Frances said was unkind. If the woman's feelings are hurt I do want to make amends. What's usual in these situations?" Jeremiah hedged. He sounded extremely uncomfortable, and his foot kept shuffling against the edge of the parlor rug with a low shushing sound.

"I'm afraid I have never before been put in such a situation," said Mary, and Cullen could hear the slenderest edge of ice creeping into her tone. "Though I am certain that Bethel would accept an apology."

There was a blustering cough. "Mary, you must see that's out of the question!" Tate huffed. "Apologize to a servant, and a _Negro _atthat_? _Frances? Good Lord!"

Cullen's rage was rising again, and only the knowledge that his tired mind and overtaxed body would not leave him at his best kept him from storming into the corridor spoiling for a fight. He was glad he had refrained when Mary spoke.

"Shame on you!" she exclaimed, hushed but vehement. "You're just as thoughtless as she is. Bethel deserves an apology after the things Frances said – to say nothing of Missy! I can't quite believe…" She drew in a deep breath that must have strained against her stays. When she spoke again her voice was prim and composed, but so very cold. "I think it best that you reflect upon the matter carefully, Jeremiah. You were not at your best today."

Tate cleared his throat. "Well," he grunted. Cullen imagined his face was turning that unpleasant purplish hue. "Well. Goodnight then, Mary. I hope we shall be reconciled tomorrow. It is not how I would have chosen to spend our first day reunited."

"Nor I," said Mary, but she did not give an inch in her tone. "Goodnight."

Cullen held his breath as the man's footfalls travelled up the stairs and across to the front bedroom. He heard the distant click of the door and low, unintelligible murmuring, and he pushed himself off the sideboard and moved to lean heavily on the doorpost.

Mary was standing in the sphere of light cast by the candle sconce by the parlor door, looking in the direction her brother had gone. Her handkerchief was balled in one slender hand, and the other was pressed to the front of her basque as if she were striving not to be sick. Cullen watched her for a moment, but he could not leave her in such turmoil for long.

"What did Frances say to Bethel?" he asked quietly.

Mary startled, shoulders jerking in surprise as she turned wide-eyed towards him. He was in the shadows, but she could probably see the sketch of his features and the glint of his eyes reflecting the candlelight. She smoothed her skirt unnecessarily and made a deliberate effort to loosen the fist about her handkerchief.

"She didn't speak _to_ Bethel," she said in a mournful, tremulous voice; "except to tell her she had no right to be touching her child. But she said to me, with Bethel standing right there, that it was bad enough to have a cook—"

"Bethel ain't no cook!" Cullen snapped, louder and more emphatically than he had meant to. At Mary's anxious look he grimaced apologetically and gestured for her to continue.

"—bad enough to have her doing the upstairs maiding," said Mary. "But to let her dress the children and fix hair was p—perfectly absurd."

Once again Cullen was almost certain his temper was going to get the better of him. He could hear his pulse throbbing in his ears, and all he wanted to do was charge up those stairs, fling open the door to his grandpappy's bedroom, and give that wretched woman a piece of his mind. But Mary was watching him, her soft eyes sorrowful. She looked as if she wanted to cry, but she was restraining her undignified urges. He forced himself to do the same.

"And what did you say?" he breathed.

Mary squared her slender shoulders. "I told her that Bethel wasn't a cook, just as you said. That she was our head woman who kindly consented to cook for us because we have no other house servants. That she was my lady's maid and dressed my hair for balls, and that I would never trust anyone with my son the way I trust Bethel."

Cullen processed this slowly and asked; "You said this right then? With Bethel still standing right there?"

"Yes," said Mary. "Yes, of course I did."

"Good." He stepped out to meet her, the pounding in his head dimming a bit for the first time that evening. He stopped carefully short of her skirts, but reached to take her hands. "That's good. She ought to know we'll take up for her when guests are…"

He stopped, remembering belatedly that he was talking about his wife's family. He tried to think of a way to apologize to Mary without suggesting in any way that his obvious scorn for the Tates' behavior was unjustified, but she spared him.

"When guests are thoughtlessly cruel," she said. She shook her head. "Oh, Cullen, the look on her face! Missy was shrieking like a little hellion, and Frances started scolding, and Bethel just stood there… It was as if they'd torn out her heart. I tried to speak to her before dinner, but she just patted my arm and told me it didn't matter. It _does_ matter. Missy is young and Frances is foolish, but they have no right to hurt her like that. Not Bethel."

"No right at all," said Cullen grimly. He drew a circle across the back of Mary's hand with his thumb, callouses snagging on the silk of her skin. He looked down at her dainty hand in his coarsened one, nail beds black with tar stains and every pit and wrinkle marked as if with ink. The shallow cuts stung even under that gentle pressure. "But Bethel understands they's foolish, and she knows we don't think that of her. That's what really matters. Another twelve days and we'll be putting them on a train back North and we can all forget about this."

"I'm sorry," Mary whispered.

Cullen's eyes drifted towards the ceiling in the direction of the guest bedroom. "Can't be helped," he said. "Sounds like they've settled. Let's sneak up to bed."

They went, and were soon tucked under the light coverlet with their dreaming son between them. Despite his clawing exhaustion and his aching head Cullen scarcely seemed to sleep. He kept waking groggily, unable to find a comfortable spot on the straw mattress that crunched and rustled every time he moved. At such times his mind was full of blurred and angry thoughts and the impotent desire to do _something _not only to avenge the injury to Bethel's loyal heart but to ease his own disconsolate rage. Then he would doze again, shallowly, and wake in hot agitation. His watch lay open in the beam of moonlight that slipped between the curtains, and he found himself constantly twisting to look at it. The hour came at last for him to rise, and he got up as smoothly as he could. The straw tick jostled more than the feather bed did, and Mary's slumbering form rocked as he stood. She did not stir, but Gabe rolled from his stomach onto his side, thumb questing for his mouth but falling short. Cullen watched him, almost smiling. It looked like they were breaking him of that habit at last.

He had put on fresh drawers and an undershirt instead of his nightclothes, and so was able to dress quickly. He crept past the closed nursery door behind which the little Tate brat was sleeping. He glowered at the door to the front bedroom as though he could curse his sister-in-law with foul dreams. Then he passed down the stairs like a shadow, feeling his way through to the kitchen. Bethel had not waited to see him off after all, and he was glad, but she had left the fire-door of the stove open so that the embers cast their reddish light to show his way. She had brought in his boots, and they stood by the bench wiped and oiled and ready. Cullen wrestled them on against the grinding of his spine, and stood up again.

There was a tin cup sitting on the table and he looked at it, momentarily puzzled. It was not like Bethel to leave dishes lying about. Then he noticed that the coffee pot was still sitting on the back of the stove. He picked it up with a rag around the handle, and felt the heft of fluid within. The first cup he drank straight, black and strong. Then he poured another and dosed it liberally with sorghum, hooking the handle of the cup over his thumb. From the bowl on the table he snagged an apple, crisp and fresh and remarkably unbruised after its long journey from the orchards of Maine. Then he stepped out into the balmy autumn night and left the slumbering house behind.

Elijah was relieved with only the barest of words between the two men, and Cullen was left alone. He wrapped the old horse-blanket around his shoulders and sat down on the crate, bowed low over his lap with his forearms braced on his thighs. Despite the heat of the barn he was shivering, his body craving sleep and crying out for it with chills. He nursed his coffee and he ate the apple and he watched the fires in silence, brooding.


	28. The Indelicate Question

**Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Indelicate Question**

It was not yet noon, and already Nate had been awake for eight hours. He had rousted himself out of bed in the darkest part of the night to drag on his work clothes and trudge out to the tobacco barn to relieve the master from his watch. Neither of them had spoken as they traded off; Mister Cullen had clambered stiffly to his feet, shrugged the coarse blanket from his shoulders, and brought in a fresh load of wood before disappearing into the night. Nate had discharged his tedious duty until Lottie came just before dawn, and then headed up to the house for a good hot breakfast laid on for him by Bethel. Excused from tending the stock he had actually been able to savor it, and then he had headed down to the tobacco to meet the others just as the light grew bright enough to work. They were all accomplished at timing it perfectly by now. Meg and Elijah with their poles, Nate and Mister Cullen with their knives, they set in with silent determination.

It was another hot day for the first week in October, and Nate was sweating. There had been a heavy dew in the night: his clothes were soaked and his head was aching. But he had been at this work all of his adult life and he was used to its miseries. He worked steadily, carefully, as quickly as he could. They were keeping on top of the crop, staying just ahead of the ripening stems, but as soon as they got some rain – which they were bound to have any day now – the best leaves would hasten to the end of their growth. Those had to be taken at just the right time. He might be bitter and he might be frustrated, but Nate wasn't stupid. They all relied upon this crop just as much as the master did. More, because no one could sell Mister Cullen off if money got too short.

Nate knew that _he_ was in no danger of being sold, whatever happened. He was the most valuable slave on the place, but without him the shrunken plantation could not possibly run. Elijah worked as hard as he could, and Nate had to admit grudgingly that the master labored longer and harder than any of them, but Elijah was old and Mister Cullen inept. Meg took on the work of a man, steady and determined and uncomplaining, but there were things she couldn't do. She was just too small to hoist a tree trunk or a loaded tobacco box, or to drive a plow behind a pair of belligerent mules. Without Nate, with his strength and his skill and his dogged endurance, the farm would fail entirely. That was the real reason, he thought, that Mister Cullen wouldn't even consider manumission: he couldn't afford to do without Nate, and he had no means of coercing him to stay here as a free man.

Or so Nate had firmly believed, up until last night. Because as much as he hated to admit it even to himself, Mister Cullen was right about one thing. Nate couldn't just leave the people he cared about and go off somewhere to seek his own fortune as a freedman. How could he leave Meg here, with her girl, trying to do the work he left behind? Or old Elijah, who despite his aggravating refusal to speak ill of the master was a good man and a good friend. And Bethel, who would never abandon her white family whatever came to pass – he couldn't leave her either. What _would_ he do with his freedom if he had it, the way things were now? He wanted it. He believed he had a right to it. But what would he do with it?

This unsettling speculation had been wearing at him all day, and it was adding to the weariness born of a brutally early rising. He cut another leaf and handed it up to Meg, watching from the corner of his eye as she slipped it over the pointed end of her pole and settled it carefully. Her sun-beaten face was round and beautiful, cast off at an angle as she watched the work in the next row. She was gnawing thoughtfully at her lower lip.

"Somethin' on your mind?" Nate asked quietly.

She looked at him, surprised, and reached to take the next leaf. "Somethin' on yours?" she asked. "You been clammed up like a pickle pot all morning."

"You ever think 'bout it?" Nate muttered, keeping his voice low enough that he could not possibly be heard three plants away. "What you'd do if you was free?"

Meg laughed, but not very earnestly. She shook her head. "What you wan' go grabbin' at moonbeams for?" she asked. "We ain't free."

"Would you go off?" asked Nate. "Go North, maybe?"

"Go North?" Meg whispered. Her eyes were suddenly haunted and her hand trembled as she tugged the split stalk down. "You mean leave here? Leave Miss'ippi?"

"Would you want to? See the world, go someplace where there ain't no slaves. They got tall buildings in Chicago… maybe head out to New York an' see that Crystal Palace Missus Bohannon used to talk about?" he tried.

"That burned down," she said, lips scarcely moving. Her gaze was following the movement of the other pair of laboring bodies. "Bethel said. Why you talkin' like a fool? Min' your work."

"Mist' Tate a abolitionist," Nate whispered. "Got me to thinkin'. Missus Mary, she used to ask the massa to free us; offer us wages. Why she don' do that no more?"

"Ain't no money for wages," said Meg. "Ain't no money for food: he bought up that barrel of flour on credit. Mist' Cullen borrowing money jus' so's we don' go hungry."

"Borrowing money to put on a show for his rich relations, more like," muttered Nate.

Meg shook her head. "We's down to the end of the cornmeal," she said, very quietly. "Bethel say there enough for three-four more days, then we's all goin' be eatin' that flour. Why you think Mist' Cullen got a barrel 'stead of jus' a sack? An' she killin' a chicken to feed us tonight, 'cause the meat all but gone. When the tobacco in, maybe Mist' Cullen go hunting, but otherwise everyone goin' have to do without."

This was something Nate had not expected. He had known that some of the stores were running low, of course: the master had had to fetch salt, also on account, and the yams were gone. And meals had been short of meat and starch for a while now, fleshed out with vegetables instead. But he had not imagined they might actually run out of cornmeal. In a land of plenty this was the last and most desperate sign of poverty, and a borrowed barrel of wheat flour did not change that fact. He straightened as he moved to the next plant, looking down the field to where Mister Cullen was stooped beside Elijah. He frowned, squinting into the sunlight.

"It got that bad?" he asked.

Meg nodded. "So don' you go talkin' nonsense 'bout freedom," she said. "He got more pressin' worries than your fool notions. An' no," she added stoutly. "I wouldn' go North. I was born right here on this land: I's a Miss'ippi woman. If I was free I'd wan' live here, right here where I could be near my Peter an' the folks as loves me. Wages, they'd be nice, but I couldn' leave regar'less. Break my heart, that would. This here's home."

He looked at her, studying her face thoughtfully. "Don' you never wish for nothin' better?" he asked.

Meg squared her shoulders and reached to take the next broad paring. "Course I does," she says. "I wish this-here crop bring in good money so's Mist' Cullen can pay what he owes an' put a little bit by. Then I wish nex' year's be better still, an' maybe he able to buy up another han'. He'd buy my Peter if he could: I know he would. 'Nother strong man on the place, an' we could turn over ten more acres: more tobacco, more money, maybe more niggers. Peter 'n me, we could have a new baby. I's still young enough to have a baby. An' when I's old an' can' work no more, Mist' Gabe be the master, an' he see I's taken care of. Tha's my wish."

Nate felt his discouragement mounting. "Ain't you got no dream for a diff'rnt kinda life?" he asked helplessly.

"Them's jus' dreams," Meg said firmly, jerking her head. "This here my life: slave or free don't make no difference."

They worked in silence to the end of the row, Meg moving with her simple, comely grace and Nate following her with his knife snicking at the tobacco stems. He wanted to shout his frustration to the sky. Didn't Meg see that if they kept on dismissing freedom as a foolish dream they'd never get it? He didn't imagine it would be easy: he knew free blacks had a hard life. They couldn't move freely from place to place as white men could; they couldn't do a lot of the work white men did. If they didn't have proof of honest employment they could be arrested as vagrants and jailed. If they lost or misplaced or forgot to carry their freedom papers, renewed at a cost of half a month's wages, they could even be sold back into slavery. But it would be better, wouldn't it, to be his own man and make his own choices?

He waited until Elijah's pole was full, and he and Mister Cullen slung it between them to be carried to the grass. Then he said; "But wouldn' it be better to be free, Meg? Even if it meant doin' this same work, woudn' it be better to be free? Massa out here every day, bendin' his back same as I do, but this here be _his_ tobacco. His land. He free."

Meg stared at him for a moment in silence, and then looked down to where the stoop-backed figure of Mister Cullen was bent low over the bucket of drinking water. He drank greedily and took off his hat, drawing his befouled sleeve across his brow, and looked out over the field. He did not even seem to see them: he was looking at the sea of plants, all but a few now bereft of their lugs and creeping on to ripeness too slowly without rain. Even at this distance his pale, haggard face betrayed his weight of worry. His shoulders slumped and his head bowed, and he rammed on the tattered straw hat as he slogged wearily back to the row. Nate was watching him so intently that he did not realize Meg had turned her eyes back to him until she spoke.

"He ain't free," she said softly. Then she put out her hand for another leaf.

_*discidium*_

It was coming on again. Cullen could no longer dismiss the warnings of his sickening body. Through the morning he had just about managed to convince himself that the blistering headache was nothing more than the result of broken and inadequate sleep and his brooding about Bethel's treatment at the hands of Frances Tate. When he had found himself almost unable to eat at dinnertime he had reasoned it was just the heat of the day blunting his appetite. But in the middle of the afternoon the first wave of dizziness had struck as he moved from one plant to the next, and he had given up his attempts to deceive himself. He was taking ill again.

The dew in the tobacco took on the foul humors of the night air: that was what modern medicine taught, according to Doc Whitehead. Night air brought on all manner of evils, and surely this was one of them. The dew was heavier in the fall, and to cut the lowest leaves Cullen had to get right into the plants. Each morning he was soaked to the skin after only two or three, and when the sun climbed high and he began to perspire all hope of drying out died. By nightfall, when at last it grew too dark to tell which leaves were paling along the veins, he was shivering in his wet clothes and so wretchedly at the mercy of his throbbing head that he could hardly bear Elijah's call to the others that it was quitting time. The trips to and from the tobacco barn, carrying across each shoulder one end of a laden pole, left him quaking with weariness and dizzy enough that he almost lost his balance when stepping out of his oilskins.

In the stable he hesitated at the foot of the ladder, staring up at the hayloft and wondering whether he would reel with vertigo and fall to his death if he tried to climb up there. A blur of coarse clothes and dark limbs passed before his eyes: Elijah, scrambling up to pitch down fresh bedding for the stock. Nate was mucking out the mules' stalls, and Cullen bestirred himself to pick up the bucket to haul water for Pike and Bonnie. It scraped noisily against the bed of the long trough by the paddock doors, and he flinched at the sound. It was almost empty.

The well was not far from the stable, but stumbling to and fro carrying the heavy buckets was dreary work. Cullen made three trips before Nate finished with his business and came out to join him. It was better to fill the trough now, when there were three of them working. Tonight it was Cullen's turn to take the last watch, which meant he would be the one breakfasting late while the others did the morning chores. He didn't want to leave things half-done for Nate and Elijah to make up tomorrow. Still, by the time the trough was brimming and the horses and mules watered and fed, Cullen was so exhausted and lightheaded that he doubted his ability to reach the house unaided.

He managed it, but had to sit down on the back steps with his head in his hands until the world slowed its spinning a little. Drenched in a cold sweat and hoping that it was not obvious how badly he was shaking, he dragged himself up onto the stoop and into the house. The kitchen was empty, and instead of stopping to wash his hands he dropped straight onto the bench. He sat there for a long time, bowed low and clutching the edge of the table while cold waves of nausea broke over him. He was just beginning to master himself when Bethel came in from the dining room.

"You ain't well," she said, bluntly and almost immediately. "You gone grey."

"I'll be all right in a minute," he huffed shallowly. Bethel crossed the room and thrust her palm against his brow, sticky with tobacco sap. She clicked her tongue worriedly and bent to peer into his eyes.

"What ailin' you?" she asked.

He was too worn out and felt too ill to even attempt to prevaricate with Bethel. "I think it's the tobacco sickness again," he said. "My head feels like…" He released his right hand from its grip on the board to gesture vaguely, and then used it to shelter his eyes from the glare of the lamp.

"That no good at all," Bethel said. She poured him a glass of cool water from the pitcher on the windowsill, and set it in front of him before moving off to the dish dresser.

Cullen's arm fell to the tabletop, his fingers curling around the glass as he stared at it. Slowly, trying not to let his hand tremble, he raised it to his lips. The first sip was tentative, but it awakened a desperate thirst and he drained the vessel hastily. He was panting quietly when Bethel turned back to him, a teaspoon sprinkled with grainy powder held carefully in her left hand. She picked up the bottle of syrup and poured a little carefully over the medicine.

"Here, swallow this down," she said, holding it out.

Meekly he opened his mouth and she tipped the bitter-tasting concoction onto his tongue. With a thin cough, not quite gagging, he swallowed it and tightened his lips to rake off the last of the residue as Bethel withdrew the spoon. She looked at it, satisfied, and then fetched the pitcher to pour him another helping of water. Cullen rinsed the grit from his teeth and palate and drank.

"Good boy," said Bethel, as though she were speaking to Gabe. "That goin' help the headache. You gots to get out them wet clothes. Don' you move: I go fetch somethin' for you to cover up with."

"I can't go running around the place half-dressed," Cullen muttered. "Frances Tate would have a fit of the vapors."

"You can' sit there soaked to the skin, neither," said Bethel. "Not if you's come down sick. It the dampness cause it; you know that." Hurriedly she took the warming plate from the stove and laid it before him. "Jus' try an' eat a little, Mist' Cullen. I be back direc'ly."

"Don't say nothing to—" he began, but too late: she was gone.

The tantalizing smells of supper held little appeal. He plucked the cloth off the plate and fumbled with his fork, knowing he ought to savor his meal but unable to quite muster up any desire to do so. He scooped up some peas and chewed them slowly. They had a faint taste of boiling bacon to them and his mouth flooded with the thin saliva that seemed to be part of the affliction. The salted mackerel he had brought from Meridian had been carefully filleted and fried delicately in batter flavored with herbs, but its strong fishy taste was too much for his uneasy stomach. He turned his attention on the potatoes instead, but though they were smooth and rich with cream he found himself wishing for the familiar comfort of yams instead. With that thought came the calculation of how many weeks more before that crop would be ready – and close upon its heels the unhappy reflection that they would have to be dug and no one else was going to do it but them. He wondered how Bethel was managing with the garden, bereft of Lottie and Mary to help her. He would have to ask.

Bethel returned at last, a bundle of clean clothing in her arms. Cullen pushed away his half-full plate and tried to stand, but his arms quivered and his legs could not quite find purchase on the floor. Before he could exert a fresh effort Bethel was shooing him back onto the bench. She brought the washbasin and pitcher to the table, and then fetched some rags. While Cullen sat scrubbing his hands she wetted a cloth and bathed his face. He submitted to the ministrations, finding it easier not to argue and, though he would have been loath to admit it, taking comfort in what had been a childhood ritual. When she came to the clots of tobacco juice in his beard she withdrew her hand and sighed.

"You wan' I should fix you a bath?" she asked. "You ain' goin' get clean otherwise."

He shook his head tiredly. He had neither the will nor the energy for a bath tonight, and he didn't want her hauling water in the dark.

"I'll manage," he said, lathering his fingers with the coarse brown soap and working it into his whiskers. It was just as well that Mary had given them a trim on Saturday night; they would have been difficult to cope with otherwise.

When he was as clean as he could reasonably make himself, he turned on the bench and Bethel brought the boot jack. She helped him out of shirt and undershirt, and peeled off his foul stockings. Then she withdrew into the dining room to allow him privacy for the undignified task of wriggling out of his trousers and drawers. He struggled into the fresh undergarments and then into what he realized belatedly were his second-best day pants. It was difficult to manage the buttons without standing up straight, but although his headache was receding the giddiness persisted. He unbuttoned his suspenders from the coarse work pants and transferred them to the pair he was wearing. He was just looking at the shirt and wondering whether it was worth the contortions to his aching back to put it on, when Bethel came back into the room.

"They's still in the parlor," she said, setting down his worn slippers for him. "Look like Missus Tate done recovered from her trip; she askin' why we ain't got a piano."

"We ain't got a piano because until Mary came there weren't nobody to play one," Cullen said sourly. Once he had imagined a piano might make a suitable fifth-anniversary present for his musically gifted wife. Now he'd settle for being able to feed her through the winter.

He shoved his feet into the slippers and picked up the shirt. Bethel plucked it from his fingers and shook it out, then held it so he could ease his arms into it with as little pain as possible. He buttoned it slowly, his cut thumb catching on the finely stitched holes. "Guess I'd best go in and say good evening," he mumbled. "Can't leave Mary alone with them all the time."

"You finish you' supper firs'," said Bethel. "You ain't hardly touched that fish."

To oblige her he took a few more mouthfuls, but he could not bring himself to touch the mackerel. When Bethel offered him a piece of cake with cream and blackberries he shook his head. "Got no room for it," he said.

She frowned worriedly. "You's ill all right," she said. "Ap'tite went las' time, too. You didn' ought to be goin' out there tomorrow."

"I got to: picking can't stop," said Cullen. At her fierce look he added hastily; "Maybe Elijah could cut for a while and let me take the pole. Least I could stay dry that way." He regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth, for his pride still spoke louder than his common sense and he wanted to prove himself as untiring as Nate.

"You see he do," said Bethel; "or you ain't working tomorrow. I'll tie you to the bedpost if I has to, Mist' Cullen: we ain't goin' have you prostrate with sickness again, not like las' time. You hear me? We ain't."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. There was no arguing with Bethel when she got that look in her eye, and he believed her threat. It would be far more humiliating to be ordered to bed than to hold a tobacco rod for a morning. Slowly he got up, surprised to find that his muscles protested less vehemently than before. It seemed the anodyne powder was working its magic after all.

Bethel let him go without another word, but he could feel her eyes boring into the back of his neck as he stepped through into the dining room. Tonight he did not hesitate; at least not for very long. The meal and the comfort of dry clothes seemed to have done something to salve his spirit; he felt almost good-natured as he crossed the hallway to the inviting glow of the parlor.

Mary was sitting in on one side of the sofa, whipping a muslin collar onto Lottie's new frock. Frances was beside her, knitting lace. There were lit lamps on both the little tables, and another on the mantelpiece as well, providing ample illumination for the ladies' dainty work. Cullen's armchair was occupied by Jeremiah, who was sitting forward in it as he regaled the ladies with what was apparently meant to be an amusing story. He stopped speaking as Cullen entered, and looked up with a broad grin.

"I was starting to wonder if we'd ever see you again!" he said cheerfully. "Another day's work done?"

"Just so," said Cullen. "Can I offer you—" He stopped as he turned towards the little sideboard. The whiskey decanter was empty: evidently Tate didn't mind helping himself. "—a cigar?" he amended, moving to the secretary and opening the drawer that held his private cache of tobacco. He chose one for himself and waited for his guest's reply.

"Thank you, no: I have my own," said Jeremiah, patting the front of his topcoat. He was dressed in evening clothes, having apparently changed for supper. The placid, plump idleness of his face was suddenly tremendously irritating to Cullen. His intention to sit down for a bit of studiously pleasant conversation dissolved. There were other things he wanted to say to his brother-in-law, and his blood was running just hot enough to say them now.

He smiled silkily. "I thought I might take me a little walk," he said. "Care to join me? I'm sure the ladies would like some time to themselves."

Mary turned in her seat, casting a small surprised look at him, but before she could speak her brother got to his feet with an affable grunt. "Why not?" he asked. "I'd prefer to be shown about the place in daylight, of course, but as you're otherwise engaged during those hours this will just have to do."

The acerbic retort that he had better things to do than entertain errant Yankees did not quite make it past the floodgate of Cullen's lips. His smile strained, but he inclined his head and moved towards the door. He paused to bow to the ladies. "Good evening, Miss Frances. Mary," he said. "I trust I may have the pleasure of your company a little later on?"

Frances made the insipid obligatory reply, and Mary said; "Are you quite sure you don't want us to join you?"

"Quite sure, Mary Beth; quite sure!" said Jeremiah. "I promise we shall both be on our very best behavior!"

Cullen did not second this pledge, but ushered the other man through the entryway and out onto the veranda. The night air was warm and heavy and still. The parlor windows, open to catch any whisper of a breeze, shone golden with diffuse light behind the muslin curtains. Jeremiah moved as if to sit in Mary's rocker, and Cullen's annoyance heightened. Instead of speaking out, he shuffled down the steps onto the carefully raked drive, remembering too late that he was shod only in his slippers. Jeremiah followed him down towards the whitewashed fence, tinted blue by the glow of the waning gibbous moon. A few more steps away from the house brought them out of the aura of the lit windows, and above them the vast bowl of the sky glittered bright with stars. Cullen followed the paddock fence a little farther still and then halted, crossing his arms to lean upon it. He clamped the thin home-pressed cigar between his teeth and realized belatedly that he had neglected to bring a match.

Jeremiah came beside him, putting one foot up on the lowest rail. He dug inside of his coat as he craned his neck to look at the sky. "I always forget how many more stars there are away from the gaslights. It's pretty country out here, but the heat's another matter. How do you manage at the height of summer?"

Cullen shrugged, regretting the motion as it sent a spasm up into his neck. "We're used to it, I guess."

Tate at last produced his cigar case, choosing one with care and rolling it between thumb and forefinger before piercing it and putting it to his lips. He struck a match against the fence and the brilliant orange flame flared. He puffed, drawing the fire into the tobacco, and then handed the lit match to Cullen, who ignited his own. For a moment they were both silent, savoring the first fragrant mouthfuls of smoke. Cullen exhaled a long, thin ribbon that curled away into nothingness over the paddock.

"Tate, you been talking to my people?" he asked in a thoughtful voice.

The other man sighed. "Look, if this is about what Missy said to your woman…"

"It ain't," said Cullen. He turned to stare at the man, knowing the moonlight was catching eerily in his eyes and hoping the effect was not lost on Jeremiah. "Though since you mention it I got to say that incident don't paint you in the best light." He had a few choice words he wanted to say about Frances, too, but he would have to keep them to himself. A gentleman could criticize another gentleman, but never a lady.

"It was a misunderstanding," Jeremiah blustered. "There are so few Negroes in Maine; Missy had hardly seen one in all her life before this trip. And of course the ones we saw when we were traveling weren't the sort you want a young girl associating with: riverboat crews and railroad men. You know."

"So you told her to keep her distance," Cullen said, nodding. "Gave her to believe she weren't safe 'round them. And just happened to forget to mention we got darkies on the place deserving of a bit more basic human courtesy than she'd give a stranger at a railroad station."

A surprised guffaw burst from Tate's throat, and a shower of sparks flew from the tip of his cigar. "That's mighty fine coming from a man like you, Bohannon!" he said. "Basic human courtesy. How about that!"

Cullen's eyes narrowed. The man had been on his best behavior for two days now, and clearly that was taking its toll. He was also a little bit tipsy, from the smell of things. Cullen himself was feeling the warm courage of the anodyne powder, and his exhaustion was quickly losing ground to his indignation. The truth, now he cared to admit it, was that he had been resenting this invasion of his home since Mary had first confessed to proposing it, and he was just about ready to take his pound of flesh.

"Why don't you say what you really mean?" he goaded.

"All right, then." Jeremiah's foot slipped off the fence and he squared off towards his brother-in-law. "If you're so concerned about human dignity, how do you live with yourself, flourishing off the bondage of others?"

It was Cullen's turn to laugh, a low and bitter chuckle. By no stretch of the imagination was he _flourishing_. Still, they had come to the point at last: the blazing gulf between them that they had both been making an effort to ignore – Tate more than Cullen, maybe, but only because Cullen was out there failing to flourish right along with his slaves instead of lounging in the parlor.

"That's how you see it?" he said scornfully. "Me and Mary, living fat off the land while the downtrodden Negro suffers beneath my boot-heel?" His tongue rolled around the roof of his mouth as he fought he urge to spit. Instead he swallowed thickly and took another drag on his cigar. "Don't know what you been imagining, but it ain't like that. I treat my people well."

"It doesn't matter how you treat them; they're still your slaves," said Jeremiah. "They are deprived of their most basic right as children of God: their liberty. Can you really be so deluded that you think they're content just to serve you?"

Nate's sullen, impassive face flashed through Cullen's mind, but at once it was followed by Bethel's tender expression as she wiped tobacco juice from his eyebrow. "Most of them are," he said. Then his voice hardened. "And if they ain't that's between me and them, and no business of yours. The trouble with you Northerners is you think you got a right to tell the rest of the world how to live. We get on all right here. Times is hard, but we all do our best and we're getting by. You got no right to tell us we ain't."

He realized too late that he had given the clear admission of his poverty that he had been so anxious to keep private. It didn't matter that the man surely guessed it, with Cullen out in the fields all day and Mary wearing dresses three years behind the fashion, with no wine on the supper table and no shoes on Gabe's feet. He hadn't wanted to admit it.

But Tate had heard something else entirely. "Even if that's true," he said; "even if the slaves on _this_ plantation aren't miserable, by keeping them you're helping to prop up the corruption of a system that is the very root of evil! You cannot build a good society on the enforced labor of others."

Cullen snorted. "I lived in New York, remember? Damn near eight months. I've seen the factories and shipyards full of immigrants working fourteen hours a day for a starvation wage and going home to some filthy overcrowded tenement room at night – if they got a roof over their heads at all. I've seen women begging on the street 'cause the labor bosses don't let their husbands take home enough of their pay to feed their children. Old people sleeping in stairways 'cause there's no one to look after them. Men that can't find work no matter where they try; begging, weeping sometimes when they grovel for a job. Children like little animals, half-naked in the snow, fishing in the ash-barrels for scraps to eat. Grime and poverty and disease and hunger."

He sent out another pillar of smoke. "My people ain't free, but they're fed. They got beds to sleep in and clothes on their backs. They know if they get sick someone's here to look after them, and ain't nobody going to turn them out of their homes 'cause they can't pay rent. When they get too old to work I'll do right by them, and when they die I'll see they get a good burial in the family plot in the cemetery in Meridian. You tell me who's got the better society."

He waited, a little breathless after this speech and enjoying the euphoria that came from saying one's piece in a clear and cogent way. The tip of Jeremiah's cigar glowed red as he inhaled, and he shook his round head as the smoke poured from his lips.

"You don't understand," he said sadly. "_You _aren't society, Bohannon. Your pretty little farm isn't representative of the whole South. I'd lay a good bet it isn't even representative of the neighborhood. For every man like you, every place like this, there's another one where the slaves are wretched, frightened creatures ruled by fear and pain. What about the planters who whip a man for being too sick to work? Or sell a mother away from her children? What about the runaways who are branded and mutilated and killed?"

Cullen closed his ears to these protests, like a telegraph operator breaking the circuit to mute an irrelevant message. During his time in New York, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ had enjoyed wild popularity in the well-to-do circles his family connections had placed him in. Whenever a new acquaintance learned that in addition to the aberration of being from Mississippi he in fact _owned slaves_, he had been subjected to interrogation as to the veracity of the authoress's claims. Whipping was common practice with recalcitrant darkies, but certainly not with those too ill to work; not on decent plantations, at least. Selling a mother away from her children… well, that too was done, though it was more often the other way around and anyway not until the children were mostly grown – or so he hoped. He didn't much like to think about that, not since he'd had a boy of his own. As for runaways, they were generally given their punishment and put straight back to work.

"We got laws in this state against killing slaves anyhow," he said aloud, interrupting Tate's soliloquy with the tail end of his own. "Right to property don't go so far as wilful murder."

"I see," said Jeremiah coldly. "So you're telling me you know a white man who's beaten one of his Negroes to death and actually been convicted of murder? Or even tried for it?"

"I don't know a white man who's beaten one of his Negroes to death!" Cullen bit back. "You ain't thinking rationally about this. A slave's got value. A good strong field hand – a field hand, mind you, with no other skills – is worth eight hundred dollars or more! A man with a trade, maybe even twice that. My girl Lottie would sell for four hundred on potential alone: slaves got _value_. A man would be crazy to kill or cripple one, even a stubborn one. It'd be just as ridiculous as shooting a healthy horse!"

He wanted to bite his tongue at that. He didn't like it when anyone suggested, by word or deed, that a slave was in any way comparable to livestock. He certainly hadn't meant it like that. He had only been trying to explain how foolish the notion of killing a slave really was in terms a Yankee could understand. Runaways were rare, and when a slave did try to bolt he usually only did so once. Recidivism was dealt with by selling the offender to some other plantation, or even out of state, where he might have less temptation to run. He opened his mouth to say this.

But Tate spoke first, and once again he picked up on a point completely different from the one that Cullen regretted making. "Your girl Lottie," he said. "Worth four hundred dollars on potential alone. How old is she?"

"Coming up on eleven," Cullen said, caught off-guard and unsure what the other man was thinking. "Why?"

"What's her future like?" asked Jeremiah. "Is she going to grow up to work in the tobacco fields?"

"I want her to be a house servant," said Cullen, startled into an admission he had never before made explicit. "She's a good little maid; she looks after my boy; she can learn how to cook. As she gets older she can take some of the load off of Bethel. 'Course I need her to help with other things too, but when times is better…"

"I see. That's about as good as it gets for a Negro girl, I take it? Learn how to cook, be a good little maid, help with other things, too." There was a mocking note to Tate's voice now, and the nasal quality was rising. Cullen might have taken umbrage to that, but the question struck too deeply.

"No," he admitted quietly. "On a bigger place she could train up as a lady's maid, and never dirty her hands again. Or she could be a proper mammy, not one who's got to cook and clean and pick corn as well. But I ain't got enough people to give her that kind of life. This here's the best I can do." He did not add that he wondered whether he would even be able to do _that_, the way things were going. He took his cigar from his lips and stared at its smoldering tip, suddenly tired again and ashamed. Was this the best that he could offer his folks? Was it the best he could do in life?

"And that's what her life would be on another plantation? Maybe that big place we passed on the way here, with the cotton-pickers out in the sun?" said Jeremiah.

This question, remarkably, salved Cullen's hurting pride. It was equally possible on a larger plantation that Lottie would never have come to the attention of the family at all. Certainly Boyd and Verbena didn't have ten-year-old girls looking after their children; they had three grown nursemaids under Mammy's stern command. In a crowd of two dozen pickaninnies, Lottie's potential might have escaped notice entirely.

"Maybe, maybe not," he said, and he put his cigar back into his mouth. He smiled around it. "Harder to catch the mistress's eye on a bigger plantation."

"That's right," the other man said. "On some places it wouldn't be the mistress's eye she'd catch, would it? It'd be the master's."

For a brief and blissful moment Cullen didn't follow this tidy bit of sophistry. Then his whole body stiffened against tormented muscles and he straightened up off the fence. He bit down so hard that his teeth sheared right through the slender cigar and it fell to the ground. "Hey, I ain't never laid a finger on that child!" he snarled.

Jeremiah took a step back from the wolfish rage in the other man's eyes, but his voice remained level. "I know that," he said. "You couldn't be like that, or Mary never would have given you a second glance. You're a man of honor, for all your unfortunate upbringing. But just because it couldn't happen here doesn't mean it isn't happening elsewhere, does it? The temptation is there for the wrong kind of man: pretty young girls completely in his power. Don't say it doesn't happen: where do the yellow niggers come from?"

Cullen's throat closed. The severed end of his cigar was still in his mouth, foul and bitter-tasting, but he could not unlock his jaw to expectorate it. Monday afternoon, he remembered abruptly. On Monday afternoon he had come into the house for dinner to find Mary sewing that dress. Lottie had just had it on for a fitting and she had been standing there while Mary took in the seam, wearing nothing but her threadbare shift. He saw her now in greater detail than he had taken in then: bare, bony shoulders and angular elbows, the gaping neckline of the garment hanging low beneath her collarbone, gangly legs bare far up on the thigh, the tiny buds of her breasts beneath the thin cloth. A child on the very cusp of womanhood, sweet and trusting and eager-to-please – and utterly in the master's power. _A temptation for the wrong kind of man._

He thought of Abel Sutcliffe, with his silken tongue and his roving eye and his plantation with its bitter crop of mulatto babies. He could see them, two and three years old on the hips of girls not so much older than Lottie, or five and six trailing behind seventeen-year-olds with empty eyes. Or Hiram, the oldest one at twenty-six with a mother not yet forty. Sutcliffe would have been about a year back from university when Hiram was born.

Cullen felt sick as his mind turned to Meg, and her fierce loyalty driven almost wholly by gratitude that he was not such a monster. Meg, who could not even take her child to spend Sunday afternoons with her father because she was afraid that Lottie would catch Sutcliffe's eye. His gorge rose and with it came the ability to open his mouth again. His tongue found the cigar-end, now disintegrating into flakes of tobacco and scraps of leaf, and pushed it out over his teeth. It fell soundlessly in the long grass.

"Do you see now?" asked Jeremiah. "The institution of slavery opens itself to these abuses. It invites the very worst parts of our nature to take advantage of the weakness of others. It is contrary to the laws of God."

Reeling though he was from his thoughts, Cullen could not let this pass. "Don't bring God into your argument," he said. "Abolitionists done that before, and a lot of innocent people died. Slavery ain't perfect; nothing Man makes is. But it ain't your place to come down here and judge us. You're happy enough to buy up our cotton and take our taxes; you're happy enough to come down here and let Bethel feed you from the garden put in by slaves. You'll let your daughter call her an African and give her cause to hurt. Then you tell me I got to change the way I live my life when all I'm doing is the best I can to feed my family and my people." He shook his head and once again, for Mary's sake, restrained the urge to spit. "You ain't an abolitionist. You're a fraud."

Tate made a terse choking noise, then took the stub of his cigar from his lips and snuffed it on the top of the fence-post. "I think we've said all we have to say to one another, don't you?" he asked with the awkward air of an inept politician caught out on a controversial topic. "I hope we can agree to let the matter rest, and to be civil with one another in the presence of our wives?"

"Huh." Cullen jerked his chin belligerently. Then he thought again of Mary, so happy to see her brother and yet so riddled with remorse over bringing him down here to burden everyone else in the household. "I'll be civil," he said, his voice cold. "But you keep your distance from my people."

"As much as I can," Jeremiah said, almost timidly. "I'm going back to the house."

"Go," said Cullen. "Tell Mary I'll be in directly."

He watched the stout shape move off, but only for a moment. For the acrid scent of burning grass assailed his nostrils and a flare caught in the lower corner of his vision. As he looked down for the source, the flame sparked by his fallen cigar flashed up a stem of indiangrass and ignited the next one.

Cursing under his breath, Cullen moved instinctively to stamp out the flame. The slipper flew from his foot and his bare sole came down upon it. Hissing in pain, he nonetheless brought it down again, and then a third time, finally landing on the offending cigar and crushing it. Breathless and reeling, he fell against the fence and slid down to the ground. He probed the bottom of his foot, still stinging with the first bright pain of a surface burn. He didn't think it was going to blister. That was the only question he could address now with any certainty. He could not muddle through what had passed between him and Tate; he could not even say who had won the argument. He was too tired, too bewildered, and too small to grapple with the great questions of the age. Dazed, lightheaded, and exhausted to the core he sat there, blinking dumbly up at the moon.

Finally, as the light in the parlor windows faded by degrees to a small, flickering flame, he got to his hands and knees, groping in the dark for the cast-off slipper. He put it on and hauled himself to his feet, gripping the fence-rails like rungs of a ladder to drag his tired body upright. His headache was back, pounding and merciless, and the dizziness was worse now than it had been after the evening chores. Swaying unsteadily and limping a little he picked his way back down to the house, knowing that Mary was waiting for him with their bedtime candle.


	29. Jeremiah's Proposition

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: Jeremiah's Proposition**

From the depths of an uneasy dream clouded with billowing smoke and embers like eyes in the darkness, Cullen heard his name. It startled him, and his sore body bucked against the firmly-packed straw of the mattress, but he did not quite wake. Then he heard it again, soft as a whisper on the wind; "Cullen…"

He moaned softly and tried to burrow into the tick, but it lacked the pliability of feathers and he only succeeded in awakening the pains in his lower back. His head shifted, nose briefly pressed into the pillow, so that he could turn towards the voice.

"Hush," Mary murmured, and he felt her fingers dancing over his brow to find his cheek. "You'll wake him."

"Why you waking _me_?" he groaned, twisting onto his hip and curling his knees in towards the middle of the bed.

"There's someone tossing pebbles at the window," she whispered.

Cullen's body stiffened again and he fumbled hurriedly to find the edge of the quilt. "Shit!" he hissed, struggling to sit up. The bed rocked with his anxious movement, but he managed to disentangle his feet and slap them down on the floor and he stood. His first step brought with it an unexpected searing agony, and he remembered too late that he had burned his left sole stomping out the beginnings of a grass fire. He stumbled to the window and bent his creaking spine to thrust his head and shoulders out over the veranda roof. His head spun and he had to clutch the windowsill to keep upright, blinking frantically to clear his vision. On the drive below stood Elijah, a tin lantern held aloft to illuminate his face.

"I'll be right down," Cullen called hoarsely, as quietly as he could while still certain he could be heard. Elijah nodded to show he understood, and in a moment the light was bobbing off back towards the tobacco barn. Cullen withdrew himself back into the bedroom, breathing shallowly as the surprise of his sudden awakening left him and his head began to pound again. For a moment he stood there, unsteady and wracked with dizziness, and then he took the three unsteady steps to clutch the footboard.

There was a flurry of disturbed bedclothes as Mary got up. She straightened her nightdress and moved unerringly through the darkened room to the chair where his work-clothes were waiting. Before Cullen could follow her she was at his side, shaking out his trousers.

"Here," she murmured, kneeling down before him. "Right foot."

"Don't…" he mumbled, bewildered. "What…"

"Lift your right foot," she said, and now her voice was briskly urgent; she was taking control of the situation.

Befuddled and still half-asleep, Cullen obeyed, and she slipped the leg of his trouser up around his ankle. He didn't want her down there, on her knees on the bare floor, but he couldn't seem to find his voice to argue. The coarse cloth tugged against his leg, prickling through the thin cotton of his long drawers as she gathered up the other leg.

"Now the left."

He tried to lift that foot as he had the other, but his balance faltered and his heel came down again with a dull _thump. _His hold on the bedstead tightened and he leaned his hip against it as he tried again. Swiftly Mary slipped the bunched ring of fabric over his foot, and then when he did not immediately do so himself, took hold of the back of his heel and eased it to the floor. She tugged up the pants as far as his knees, and Cullen bent warily, conscious of his giddiness and of the cramping muscles of his back, to grab them. He pulled them up over his hips while Mary unfolded the work shirt and held it for him. He groped to find the buttons, but her fingers were faster. Nimbly they flew down the front of the garment, and then tucked in the tails while he fumbled with his trouser-buttons.

"There," Mary whispered. She reached up to put her palm upon his forehead, brushing back his hair as she did so. He closed his eyes under the soothing weight of her touch. "Are you certain you're well enough?" she asked softly.

"I'm well enough," he promised. "Just still—" He raised his fist to his mouth to try to stifle a yawn. "Just still wakin' up."

He hooked his thumb through the strap of his suspender and tugged it up onto his shoulder. The other was twisted, and as he struggled with it Mary's hands once again intervened. "I wish you had agreed to let Bethel take the watch, just this once," she said. "She would have done it gladly."

The arguments he had made five short hours ago rose again to Cullen's lips, but he was interrupted by a soft cooing from the bed. The straw crackled and creaked, and the faint silhouette of a small body sat up in the bed. There was a sound of plump hands patting at the covers to either side, and then a tremulous little voice called out; "Mama? Pappy?"

Had there been any light to exchange it by, the couple would have traded a look of chagrin. Neither of them had intended to wake the child, and they had each tried to be as quiet as haste allowed.

"Right here, son," Cullen said, seeing no sense in dissembling once he had been caught out. Instantly the boy was bounding on hands and knees to the foot of the bed, reaching out into the darkness and catching a handful of his father's shirt. Cullen arced his arm over the child's head as he settled his hand on one slim shoulder. Gabe pulled himself up onto his feet and hugged his father tightly. The pressure of his arms eased the band of aching fire around Cullen's floating ribs and he held the child to him for a brief, blissful moment. But Elijah was waiting to get back to his bed for his second short sleep, and Cullen was already late. He released his hold and tousled the sleep-dampened curls. "I got to go," he said. "You look after your mama, now: that's my boy."

"Where you goin'?" asked Gabe. He had a small child's amazing capacity to be deep in slumber one moment and perfectly alert the next. "It dark out."

"I got to watch the fires in the tobacco barn," Cullen said. He reached to detach the fierce little hands from his body and stepped out of the arc of Gabe's arms as Mary moved in. He passed off the child's wrists to his mother. "And you got to go back to sleep."

"I can come," argued Gabe. "I can watch a fire. I watch de fire in de parlor: it jump an' jump. Bet'l don' like me watchin' de stove: too hot."

Cullen looked into the darkness at the shape that was his wife's head. "Mary, I got to—" he began.

"Go," she said. "Gabe dearest, perhaps you can watch the fires some other time. Here, darling…" Then she grunted softly as the child climbed up over the footboard and onto her. Their white nightclothes were ghostly shapes in the faint moonlight, blurring together as Mary settled Gabe on her hip and rocked him from side to side. Fearful that if he lingered too long he would lose the will to see to his duty, Cullen hastened for the door.

"Your socks," Mary said, and she hurried after him to press the round knitted bundle into his hand.

Hurriedly Cullen kissed her and felt for the door handle. As he slipped into the hall he hear Gabe say sleepily; "Why Pappy gots to watch dem fires?"

What Mary's reply might be Cullen did not care to guess and could not stay to hear. He shuffled down the stairs, his shallowly scorched sole stinging against the abrasion of the runner. In the kitchen he sat, letting his spinning head find its equilibrium again as he tugged on his socks and then his heavy work boots. The stitches up the inner side of the left one squeaked, but he could not spare the strength to worry about the condition of his boots. Nor could he spare time to pour himself some of the coffee Bethel had once more left out. He stepped out into the dark, drawing the back door closed behind him, and set out hastily for the kiln.

Elijah was sitting on the crate, leaning indolently back against the wall as if he had not had to come to fetch the master from his bed. Cullen, breathless and trying very hard to keep himself upright despite the swirling dizziness behind his eyes, braced himself against the rough board wall.

"Sorry I wasn't down here on time," he said, straining his lungs to keep from panting. "I must've slept deeper than I thought."

"Good deep sleep wouldn' do you no harm," Elijah said as he got stiffly to his feet. "You sleep at all las' night?"

"Some," said Cullen. The old man moved toward the door and the younger one was able to ease himself down onto the crude seat. He leaned forward over his lap, elbows on knees, and hoped that the posture looked more pensive than desperate. "Elijah…" he breathed, then could not continue.

"You wan' me to take a turn picking," the slave said, dark eyes knowing.

Cullen nodded, conceding his defeat and feeling another small part of his spirit shrivel. "Bethel won't let me out to work otherwise," he confessed.

"Bethel a wise woman," said Elijah. "I see'd you sickening today. It only goin' get worse if you don' take some kind of rest. I guess holdin' that pole the closest you can get this time of year. We only got two more rows of lugs, then it on to the prime stuff."

He gestured up at the leaves. "These here don' need much longer to cure. I 'spect we can move them after dinner tomorrow an' give Lottie a rest: lay in the next batch. These is goin' need to sit a day or two before they's ready to pack, unless we gets rain. Crumble away in our hands otherwise, the weather been so dry."

"You think they're curing right?" asked Cullen, tilting his head to look at the eerie shadowed mass illuminated faintly from below.

"Couldn't do no better," Elijah declared. "Nawsir, even in the old days, we couldn' do no better 'n this."

Cullen could not help a low sigh as his anxiety abated, just a little. "Good. That's good. You get on to bed, now. Don't worry about the wood: I'll fetch more if I need it."

Elijah inclined his head and took his leave, and Cullen sat alone cradling his sore head in his hands and breathing the fragrant hardwood smoke and watching over the first measure of his harvest, all but ready at last.

_*discidium*_

When Mary rose to put Gabe down for his afternoon nap, Jeremiah got to his feet as well.

"I think I might take a walk," he said. "I've been sitting idle far too long, in trains and parlors and steamer cabins. Would you mind it terribly, Mary Beth?"

"Of course not," said Mary sweetly. Gabe was tugging on her hand, forcing her to bend to one side. He was tired after his early awakening: he had not fallen asleep as promptly as she had hoped. She was really rather sleepy herself, and would have happily settled down to nap with him if not for the guests. Bethel had Lottie to help her in the garden today, for Cullen and the field hands were moving out the first rods of cured tobacco and the girl was not needed to watch the fires. "There is a lovely footpath down towards the west edge of the property; if you wander too far you'll be on Ainsley land, but I know they won't mind so long as you keep to the woods and don't trouble the pickers. Or the creek bottom is lovely this time of year."

"I'll find my way, I'm sure," said Jeremiah. He chuckled. "Looks like this little man is eager for his bed."

Gabe froze, realizing he had captured the guest's attention, and then scuttled close to Mary's skirt. Mary excused herself and led her boy into the safety of the front hall. He scurried eagerly up the stairs and settled in the big bed with good-natured eagerness. He was asleep almost at once, leaving Mary with no excuse to linger. She returned to the parlor to discover that her brother had already taken his leave and she was left alone with Frances and Missy. The child was sitting on the récamier, picking a knot out of the sampler she was stitching. Frances had resumed her lacemaking. The fine needles clicked together so swiftly that their brightness was almost a blur. Mary took Lottie's dress, now wanting only its buttonholes, from her sewing basket as she sat down gracefully.

"I fear you must be so very bored here, Frances," said Mary. "Is there anything I can do to make your stay more enjoyable?"

"It does seem to be a very quiet life you lead, my dear," said the older lady. "I'm astonished you can adjust to such rural surroundings, brought up as you were at the very center of the world!"

"I am sure the good people of London and Paris would disagree with that," said Mary demurely. "New York is a wonderful city, but it can surely not make such a claim."

"Well, the center of the country, certainly," said Frances. "I have always found it to be the very heart of culture and refinement. I do wish that Jeremiah was not so set upon remaining in Bangor. It was lovely, of course, when the children were young and I wished to be near my dear mother. But now… there's much greater scope for business in New York than there is in Bangor, and Jeremiah and Samuel might accomplish so much together."

The thought of her two brothers working side-by-side made Mary smile. Jeremiah had never thought much of Samuel, and his decision to distance himself from their father's business interests had been driven in a large part by that. And, of course, by the fact that Jeremiah valued his own independence and had, as the second son, the luxury of indulging it. "I really don't think they would make much of a success of it, Frances," she said. "And after all, Jeremiah's interests are flourishing in Maine, are they not?"

"I suppose they are." Frances made a thoughtful little bud with her pale lips and tilted her head as if an idea had just occurred to her. The motion was a little too theatrical, and her tone of mild astonishment just a little too contrived. "But do _you_ never miss it, Mary darling?" she asked sweetly. "I mean you must feel positively _buried_ here, with no one to talk to and nothing to do all day! You said you are friendly with these people the Ainsleys… but Mary, you have _dozens _of friends in New York and they're all simply perishing with longing to see you. Why, when I wrote to Nell Lewis that we were coming down to visit she very nearly begged me to let her stow away in one of our trunks! If you came back to visit you would be positively doted upon, my dear!"

Mary smiled at the thought of her old companions. Nell Lewis had been a year above her in finishing school, and they had always been friendly but never intimate. But there were others, like Nancy Whitman and Ada Price, whom she missed dreadfully at times. She had such happy memories of going to fétes and parties with them, of Christmas balls and skating excursions and boating trips on the Hudson, of lying awake all three in one big bed at an overnight gala at a friend's estate on Staten Island as they giggled until dawn. She remembered, too, the wide range of reactions from her girlfriends when she told them of her engagement. Some, like Ada, were simply effervescent with delight and just a little cheerful, vicarious envy of her dashing Southern intended and the adventure of marrying such a man. Others, Nell Lewis among them, had been horrified at the notion of abandoning the glister of Manhattan's social world for the veritable Dark Continent of Misssissippi. Most had fallen somewhere between these two extremes, but all, Mary thought, had been sorry to see her go.

"It would be very pleasant," she said. "Perhaps in another year or two, when Gabe is a little older. It is such a long journey, as you no doubt have found, to stay only a week or two."

"You could stay longer than a week or two," Frances said eagerly, and once again her tone betrayed that this conversation was moving in precisely the direction she had hoped to lead it. "You could stay for a month. Or a season. Or even a year or two. Mr. Bohannon was very successful in business during your courtship, so I understand. Samuel has certainly always spoken very highly of him."

Through old family connections chiefly relating to his grandfather's association with the Mobile and Ohio railroad Cullen had gained ready entry into the world of shipping finance. Mary's father had been instrumental in giving the young man the appropriate introductions, and Cullen had both proved very adept and deported himself well. At the time only Mary had known how dissatisfied he was with the petty wrangling and the internal politics of the company with which he had been employed as a clerk. He had only stuck with it as long as he had to have an excuse to linger in New York and to frequent the Tate home as he paid court to her. It was ridiculous to think of him ever returning to such an occupation.

"Yes, I believe Cullen did please his employers, but he did not much enjoy the life," said Mary. "He is far too vital and energetic to spend his days behind a desk, working his way slowly up the hierarchy of a city corporation. He has neither the patience nor the tact that have made Jeremiah so extraordinarily successful; he would not progress quickly enough to keep himself occupied."

"He might try it at least," said Frances. "Or he could turn his hand to something else. Banking, perhaps. Or estate development. The island is fairly burgeoning with new growth, Mary: every time we visit there is some splendid building just finished, or some new endeavor started. Or he could always find a position with the railroad: you know your father would see he was well-placed."

Mary laughed. She could not imagine her spirited and impatient husband navigating the offices and boardrooms of a railroad firm. He had found the cronyism of the shipping companies too much to bear. The railroads, with their almost incestuous ties to state and local governments, their influence in Congress and their unwieldy webs of hidden power concealed behind the stockholders, would drive him mad! She tried to picture him in a stiff collar and a fine English suit, offering a back-door inducement to a Senator or showering sugary flattery upon the Governor of Illinois, and she could not help but giggle.

"Frances, don't be silly!" she said. "Cullen would be miserable in such a position. And in any case his independent spirit would hardly allow him to accept such favors from my father. It was only possible last time because he was young and inexperienced and eager to explore New York."

"He might try it for your sake," Frances argued. "He couldn't be any more unhappy there than you must be down here. And what about your sweet little boy? Do you really want him growing up in a place like this, without any proper schools or clubs or opportunities to meet the right sort of children? My goodness, Mary, it's already having an effect on him! Dear…" She leaned in conspiratorially, hiding her mouth with her hand as if Missy could not still hear every word. "Dear, he speaks just like one of the slaves!"

She said this with the mournful air of one imparting a horrifying but unavoidable truth, and Mary found her spine stiffening. It was only with an extraordinary effort that she managed to keep her voice light and her smile sweet as she thrust down this absurd accusation.

"Don't be silly, Frances," she said charmingly. "Gabe sounds just like his father."

The pale cheeks flushed and Frances looked abashed. "That's really what I meant, dear," she said crisply.

_*discidium*_

The clouds that had been hanging low in the northern sky seemed to be creeping closer. At least Cullen devoutly hoped they were. They were big, dark thunderheads, shrunken to an ethereal range of aerial hillocks by distance but growing, so he thought, to rocky buttes. Each time he and Nate came out of the south side of the barn with another pole of yellowed leaves ready for curing, he stole a glance at the sky. Yes, he was certain they were moving, though by what means he could not say. The air was very still and heavy: there was not a breath of wind to break the heat. It was thunderstorm weather, all right, and a good hard downpour would soak the roots of the tobacco plants and give them the water they needed for the last push to perfect readiness. It would also, as Elijah said, speed the resting of the first batch of lugs. When freshly cured tobacco was too brittle to handle – almost too brittle to be moved even on the rods and by the most cautious of handlers, but the Bohannon establishment had only one kiln and it was needed to smoke the rest of the crop. So for each fresh rod they brought in they had to take a finished one out, moving with mincing steps that put an ache in their hips and wore on their patience. On the drying side the rails had to be hoisted and set with exquisite care. An abrupt jostle might tear a stem right off the pole. It took a day or two for the leaves to settle so that they could be safely packed in the condition the inspectors for the New Orleans buyers demanded. A rainstorm at the right time shortened that process to hours.

Cullen had passed a long and painful morning holding the pole while Elijah picked. He had thought it would be a welcome change, standing upright instead of stooping, but the opposite proved true. Every muscle in his back, his chest and his shoulders and his neck rebelled against the sudden straightness. The slow anguish that burned in his kidneys as he bent and bowed had deepened to a grinding fire as he stood upright. His calves and hamstrings burned at the unexpected stretching, and he thought he could look forward to a harsh awakening in the throes of fearsome cramping that night. He had tried to keep his weight off his left foot, but his sole alternately stung and itched so maddeningly that he was tempted to tear off his boot to scratch. Worst of all, he knew that when he got back to picking he would have to suffer through a host of fresh miseries as his body readjusted again.

At least his headache was fading a little and he no longer felt so dizzy. He had been mortally afraid he might succumb to his nausea and the persistent malaise of the tobacco sickness, and swoon away as he had done before. Such a show of weakness would have hurt what confidence his slaves still had in him. It would have also meant being hauled back to the house filthy and debilitated and carried up to bed in full view of Jeremiah Tate. And most unbearable, it would have been a crippling blow to his self-respect. He hated this weakness even more than he hated his incompetence, and he was increasingly helpless against either of them.

It was about five o'clock when they finished rotating the poles, and the four of them gathered at the woodpile by the tobacco barn to bring in fuel to relay the fires. The work had cost them four hours of picking, but that also meant that Lottie had four hours of fresh air and sunshine, helping Bethel in the garden. Cullen wished there were more people on the place so that the child wasn't forced to be out here from dawn 'til dusk five days a week, and Saturday mornings, too. Lottie didn't complain, but Cullen knew how tedious it was to be stuck with the same task day in and day out. A little variety was better. Towards the end of the month when the leaves were all picked they would be able to spell her off, but that was still at least three weeks away. More, maybe, if those clouds didn't come any nearer.

But as he looked up again he saw that they were very near now indeed. They towered like vast young mountains over the north pastures, moving swiftly and silently through the still air high above. Their bottoms were almost black and heavy with rain, and beneath them in the distance he saw the smoky streaks that meant they were giving up their bounty to the thirsty earth. The sun was masked now behind the lead tendrils of the storm-head, and the sky to the east and west was filled with smaller clouds. These caught Cullen's eye first for their jaundiced hue, and held it because of their strange shape. They were small and perfectly round, like clay marbles spread across the dome of the heavens. He craned his neck although the joints creaked, and squinted up at the clouds.

"Elijah!" he called. The old man, who had been piling wood in Meg's arms, looked up at his master. Cullen pointed skyward. "What you make of them clouds?"

"Storm's a-brewin'," said Elijah. "Big one. Goin' be loud. We might wan' bring in the stock: them mules don' much care for thunder, an' it'll sour the cows' milk. Might even make Flora drop her calf."

"Then we're going to get rain?" Cullen asked eagerly. For the first time in recent memory his spirits were lifting.

"Oh, we goin' get rain," Elijah agreed.

Cullen grinned. "Get that wood inside then, and let's see to the stock. Meg, you good to round up the cows on your own?"

"Yassir," she said. She too was smiling. "I do it ev'ry night."

"Good. Nate, you come help with the mules: Elijah, get them fires going again. I'll send Lottie down soon as Bethel's done with her. Quick now: I'd sooner drive a dry mule than a wet one!" Cullen restrained the urge to clap his hands. The clouds were moving so quickly that he could see them at it now, and for miles behind they trailed, as far as the eye could see.

The wood was laid by hurriedly and Meg hitched up her skirts and ran off towards the pasture with more vivacity than she had any right to muster after the hard long weeks of unending toil. Cullen moved off in the opposite direction with Nate two paces behind, and as he crested the rise and moved down to the house, the first shockingly cold and deliciously welcome drops of rain fell, rolling down over his cheekbones and splashing his grubby hands and leaving dark spots on the cloth of his shirt. He found himself smiling like a child. Rain was the last boon of Providence to let them bring in the whole rich, healthy, top-price crop.

_*discidium*_

Mary sat upon the sofa with her needle motionless in her hand, watching as Jeremiah lit a cigar and tossed the match into the empty fireplace. He had come back from his walk declaring that it looked like rain, and Frances had used his arrival as a convenient excuse to retreat upstairs. She had done so under the pretext of lying down for a little rest before supper, but Mary suspected she merely wanted to distance herself from their uncomfortable afternoon. The spiteful remark about Cullen's Mississippi accent and his admittedly colloquial way of speaking had put a damper on Mary's desire to make pleasant conversation. The observation itself she would have tolerated, for Southern voices took time to grow accustomed to. But Frances had burdened the statement with such a wealth of subtext: that he was ill-bred, that he was ignorant, that he was, in fact, not merely uneducated but actually stupid, that he was coarse and low and unsuitable for Mary.

All this was unbearable enough, but she had followed it with several ill-disguised criticisms of his coarse clothing and his dirty hands and his posture. Every one of these things was a direct result of Cullen working himself half to death just to make sure they got in the tobacco and survived the winter, and it made Mary want to weep to hear him scorned for that. She was proud of him; proud of the integrity that drove him to fulfil his responsibility to his family by any means he could, proud of his courage in getting up every morning though he woke exhausted and in pain, and proud that he was able to overcome a lifetime of indoctrination in the code that a gentleman _did not_ work like a field hand. And for Frances Tate, who had never even made her own bed, to imply that he was somehow unworthy of Mary's love and devotion was too much to bear.

So they had passed the time coolly, Mary making only the necessary overtures of insignificant conversation with her sister-in-law. She had filled what might have been an awkward silence by inviting Missy to sit with her and talking to the child instead. Under the loving attention of a lady who had once, though she scarcely remembered it, been her favorite auntie, the little girl's shy primness had dissolved and soon she was talking merrily. She told Mary about her day school, about her friends in Bangor and her friends that she saw when visiting her grandparents in New York. She talked about trips to the seaside in summer, and the sleigh-rides and corn-roasts she anticipated in the winter. She gave her own lively and delighted account of the journey south; of the noise and bustle of the steamboats and the tremendous speed of the trains and the thrill of the jostling stagecoach her mother so reviled. She showed Mary her sampler, and Mary taught her how to do a tidy feather stitch. And just as they were starting to talk about horses, Jeremiah had come in. He had exchanged a quick communicative glance with his wife, and then Frances had fled, dragging a reluctant Missy with her.

Now Jeremiah came away from the hearth and sat, but he did not take Cullen's chair as he had been doing since his arrival. Instead he settled beside Mary on the sofa. He sat very near to her; almost too near even for a brother. She smiled for him and resumed her work on the buttonhole.

"Did you have a pleasant walk?" she asked as she took a neat stitch and smoothed it with the edge of her nail. "Which way did you go?"

"West a little ways, then down towards the creek," said Jeremiah. "It's a beautiful piece of land you have here, Mary Beth. A beautiful piece of land."

"Yes it is," said Mary, relieved to be once more in the presence of someone who loved her enough to find something about her life on which he could remark both honestly and favorably. "Perhaps you and I might go riding one of these days. I know the horses would be glad of the exercise; they don't get nearly enough this time of year."

"They're fine horses, too," Jeremiah said. "They seemed very levelheaded in town. Even trained city teams aren't usually so tolerant of trains: the noise and the smoke upset them."

"Pike and Bonnie are exceptionally brave," said Mary. "And Cullen could hold them steady under cannon fire."

Jeremiah's lips thinned beneath his luxuriant mustache. "Could he, now," he murmured. He exhaled slowly and studied his cigar. "Mary, I wanted to speak to you."

"You're always welcome to speak to me, Jeremiah: you know that." Mary was coming to the corner of the buttonhole and she narrowed her stitches accordingly. "What is on your mind?"

"I wasn't entirely honest when I said I wanted you to come north because I missed my baby sister," said Jeremiah.

This was a strange thing to say. Mary looked up. "Oh?" she said.

"The truth is…" Jeremiah took an abortive puff of smoke and let it out all at once. He shifted uncomfortably and looked down at the broad expanse of her skirts spread over the squashed dome of her hoop. "The truth is, Mary, that I'd hoped that once you were all in Bangor I might convince you to stay for a while."

Mary blinked slowly. "For a month," she said in a rote voice, thinking of Frances. Now she understood: Jeremiah had deliberately left them alone so that her sister-in-law could begin to broach the subject, trying to make Mary pine for home. "Or a season."

"Until Christmas at least," said Jeremiah. "By Christmas we ought to know, one way or another. I have a feeling we'll know as soon as the election's over."

"Know what?" asked Mary. She looked down at Lottie's new frock again and took three more stitches before she realized that Jeremiah was not speaking. She could feel his eyes, hot upon her neck, and when she looked up she could see the stormy tumult within them. "Know what, Jeremiah?" she whispered.

"If there's going to be a war," he said.

"A war." Mary's arms suddenly felt very heavy, and her hands fell into her lap. "You mean a war between the slave states and the free states?"

He nodded.

"But surely that wouldn't really happen," she said. "No one here wants war. They talk about the states' right to secede from the Union all the time, and how Mississippi could do it if she had to, but all that anyone really wants is to go on living their lives as they always have. It's the idea of federal interference that upsets people in the South; the idea that legislators in Washington are trying to meddle where they have no right."

"Dear Lord, you sound just like him!" Jeremiah cried. "What's he done to change you? Mary, you can't really believe this system is a just one? You haven't actually accepted this… this abomination?"

"I still believe that slavery is wrong, if that's what you're asking," said Mary, stiffening a little. "I believe it harms society and I believe it needs to end. But I've lived here almost five years now, Jeremiah. I've seen… there are good people here. Good slave owners. They aren't cruel or evil: they're simply living as their families have always lived. But they're also bright and intelligent, and they can be taught to see the world differently. Cullen says that if slavery were to be abolished gradually, and folks given a chance to get used to the idea it might work. But if Washington tries to force immediate action of course people won't stand for it; any more than people in New York would stand to have Congress telling them what they could and could not do."

"But Mary, it's contrary to Nature," her brother protested. "For one person to own another… it's obscene."

"Grandfather Howard owned slaves," Mary said quietly. "They worked in his shipyard and at the house and livery stables in Newark. He didn't have them snatched away suddenly: the new generation was freed when they'd served their apprenticeships. It gave him an opportunity to lay by money to hire workers, to alter the way he did business, to ready himself."

Jeremiah ground his jaw audibly. The cigar was burning away over his knee. He looked down at it and then got up, snuffing it out against the inner wall of the fireplace. He studied the half-smoked stub and then tossed it down after the match. "I'm not opposed to a gradual change," he said. "If that's what the state of Mississippi intends to do, at least it's a worthwhile endeavor. But I've got to say that I think Northern politicians are going to keep pushing for a quicker end, and just as you say the slave states won't like that."

"No," said Mary. She picked up her sewing again, moving the needle very swiftly. "They won't like that."

"They wouldn't even accept the duly nominated Democratic candidate," said Jeremiah. "They broke the party in two and put forward their own. Did you know that?"

"Cullen mentioned it, yes," said Mary.

"Well, what do you think these wild irrational fools will do when we elect a president they don't like? They'll break away from the country and elect their own!"

Mary thought of Boyd and Verbena's party. Almost all of the suppertime talk had circled around states' rights and property rights and the right of Mississippians to decide the destiny of their own people. A distant growling sound touched her ears and detachedly her mind registered it as the sound of far-off thunder. "Yes," she said. "I think that is very possible."

"And what do you imagine will happen then?" asked Jeremiah. "Do you think the United States are just going to smile and wave them farewell and let them go? They'll send in federal troops, Mary. They'll fortify federal garrisons. They'll try to keep the South in the Union. What do you think the South will say to that? What do you think your stubborn, independent-minded, hot-blooded Mississippi husband will say to that?

She stared at the buttonhole. The stitches seemed to vanish into the cloth and she could not see where to lay the next one. "I have to admit," she murmured; "that they certainly would not just accept it."

"No. No, they won't. They'll raise a militia and try to drive out the federal soldiers, and Washington won't order them to withdraw." Jeremiah rubbed at his temple with the side of his thumb. His eyes were dark with anguish. "There'll be war, Mary Beth. Civil war. And I'll be in Bangor, and Father and Mother will be in New York, and you'll be down here. Down here, in a _foreign country_, surrounded by people who aren't _your_ people, while there's fighting in the port cities and the border states. You'll be trapped here, don't you see that?"

"Surely it won't come to that," Mary said plaintively. She did not want to believe it. It sounded so ghastly, so unthinkable. Americans fighting Americans? Killing Americans? It would be like the Kansas uprisings all over again. She shivered at the memory of those awful days: the rumors and the fear that John Brown and his men might take their crusade across the entire South. She had had nightmares, such awful vivid nightmares, of mobs assailing their home in the night, dragging Cullen out of bed and beating him, hauling him down to the dooryard and herding her after him, her baby in her arms, to watch while they murdered him for owning five slaves…

There was a rumble of thunder so near at hand that Mary felt in in her breastbone.

"It could," said Jeremiah. "I truly believe that it could. That's why I wanted you to come North, Mary: so that you and your family could be safe away from here until after the election. Until after we know for certain whether the country can hold together. Don't you see?"

"I see," she said. "We couldn't do it: we couldn't leave the far—plantation. You've seen how Cullen works: he's out there before dawn and doesn't come in until dark. We couldn't possibly have come to visit for two whole months, whatever the reason."

"You could come back with us," Jeremiah said. "All three of you. I've bought fares as far as Philadelphia, and then if you didn't want to go to Maine you could go to New York. Mother and Father would be glad to have you. Father could arrange for a job for your husband so you'd have money of your own coming in. We could all have Christmas together and then… then if something did happen you'd be home and you'd be safe."

Mary shook her head and forced herself to look at him. He looked terrible: haggard and anxious. His skin, until a minute ago pale, was now a ghastly, almost greenish color. Even the whites of his eyes seemed to have a greenish cast. Outside the open windows she could hear the rain pattering on the roof of the veranda, but although she had been listening for rain for a fortnight she hardly heard it now.

"We can't," she said. "We couldn't leave our people; we couldn't leave the land. The tobacco has to be picked and cured and sold; the yams brought in; the winter wheat planted. The garden… the stock… it's impossible. Cullen couldn't leave, and even if he could I'm not sure that he would."

"Then come without him!" Jeremiah said breathlessly. "You and Gabe: come and spend Christmas in New York. He can't deny you the right to visit your family, and he can't argue that he won't have you traveling alone if you come with us. Mary, you can't stay here: not if there's even a chance Mississippi might secede! Anything could happen to you: anything at all!"

Mary gazed into his tormented eyes, and she saw the big brother she had idolized as a girl. She saw the gangling teenage boy, furious because one of the Howard cousins had tugged at her curls and made her cry. She saw the young, newly-married man glowering menacingly at every boy who asked for a dance at her debutante ball. She saw her dignified, grown-up brother blotting away a tear as she sailed up the aisle towards her waiting husband-to-be. And she saw now the same irrational, possessive love he had always shown for her. He had been her girlhood champion, and he was still tilting at windmills in his battered armor. She smiled gently and reached to take his quaking hand in both her own.

"You mustn't fret so much," she said. "Even if Mississippi did secede, even if there were a war, nothing would happen to me. The care and consideration of ladies is sacred to the Southern heart, whether they're wealthy ladies or poor ladies or Southern ladies or Yankee ladies. I'll be safe here: I'll be taken care of. I told you, Jeremiah; these are good people. I have nothing to fear from them."

She patted the back of his hand and he gripped her fingers tightly. Somewhere upstairs there was a queer clattering sound. Frances must have dropped something. "And I couldn't leave Cullen, not even for a short visit. He's driving himself so hard, and all he thinks about is the tobacco. He doesn't think to take care of himself as he ought. I can't leave him like that. He needs me."

Jeremiah hung his head. "Mary Beth…"

"I know that you love me," Mary soothed; "and I love you. But I'm a married woman now, Jeremiah. My place is with my husband. This is my home now: I belong here, and so does Gabe. You mustn't—"

She stopped. There it was again: a hollow, clicking noise that came in a short burst and then was silent. Only this time it had not come distantly from above, but from the open window. Again, a rattling impact and two smaller echoes. Again. Mary twisted, her knee coming up towards Jeremiah's and her arm slipping onto the back of the sofa. She looked at the window. She realized all at once that the green tint on Jeremiah's face was not a sign of distress: the whole room was filled with greenish light, and the world outside the window was as well. Beyond the edge of the veranda roof the rain was falling heavily now, and as she watched a streak of white shot through it, and something small and pale bounced in the trimmed grass of the lawn. The queer sound came again, this time three or four echoes at once, and off the edge of the roof one of the white things came flying.

"What on earth…" Mary murmured, rising from the sofa without realizing she was standing on one foot with her knee on the cushion in a horrifically unladylike pose. Her hoop bent and billowed awkwardly, but she did not notice. She was staring dumbfounded at the window as the small white orbs pelted the ground and rang off the roof in a near-constant cacophony of sharp staccato bursts. So loud was their noise that when the next thunderclap sounded it could scarcely be heard. Jeremiah was standing now, too, and his hand moved hypnotically to settle between her shoulder blades in a gesture at once dismayed and consoling.

"Hailstones," he said in hoarse astonishment. "Mary, they're hailstones."


	30. The Storm Breaks

**Chapter Thirty: The Storm Breaks**

The mules brayed in discordant protest as Cullen and Nate drove them into the barn. The rain was falling more heavily by the second, and the men had to squint to keep their eyes from filling with it. While Nate looped halters over long, stubborn ears Cullen went out into the paddock again and whistled.

"Here, Pike! Here, Bonnie!" he called, and the two Morgans came trotting towards him. He scarcely even had to put a hand on their necks; they seemed to know just what was wanted and moved calmly into the shelter of the stable. Cullen led them into their stalls and closed the gates. Nate was still trying to get Snort to follow him. "I'm going to go fetch Lottie," Cullen said, raising his voice to be heard over the drumming of rain on the high roof. Nate nodded and kept on.

The feel of the water on his face and in his hair was a wonderful thing. It was colder than he had expected of such a still, hot day, and driving almost straight downward. Cullen moved with long, sure strides as if the budding storm were washing away his weariness as he walked. He had hoped so desperately for rain, and here it was! He felt like laughing aloud. Was this how people could find pleasure in farming? Moments like this, when after months of struggle and worry something finally went right?

He found Lottie in the dooryard, lugging a basket heavy with carrots towards the back door. He caught hold of its edge as he came up beside her, and she grinned as she shifted her hands to the opposite side so they could carry it between them. "Goin' have plenty to give the horses, Mist' Cullen," she said. "An' plenty to lay down in the cellar."

They put the basket on the back stoop under the shelter of the low-sloping roof. The door stood open, and Bethel was looking out. As she saw them approach she shifted her body to block them from the view of the little boy sitting at the worktable eating a piece of bread and butter. Cullen grinned. She didn't want Gabe running out into the rain to see his pappy, and for once he agreed with her. The rain was heavy and it was cold enough to chill him already, though he wasn't even wet through to the skin yet. It was no weather for a small boy to be abroad in. "Ain't she beautiful?" he asked in a carefully hushed voice, gesturing broadly as he set down the basket.

Bethel shook her head fondly, smiling at him, and then withdrew and closed the door. Cullen turned away from the house and jerked his head towards the tobacco barn. "Elijah's starting the fires up again," he said. "Rain or not we got to get back out in that field; you up to getting back to the watch?"

"Yassir," said Lottie cheerfully. "It be dry in there, too."

They strode off together and had just left the dooryard behind them when something stung Cullen's bare forearm. He brushed at it, expecting a yellowjacket, but his hand found nothing. Puzzled, he looked down and saw nothing either. Then he felt an impact on his shoulder, and another on the crown of his head: quick, sharp little blows that faded to a ghostly sensation almost at once. Lottie had stopped in her tracks, palms outstretched and eyes cast skyward. She flinched as a small pale orb fell into her hand, bouncing off the base of her thumb. Cullen's arm shot out and his fingers closed on it: a little round globe of ice that burned against his skin as it melted to a shrinking grey shard.

His stomach withered within him and his throat closed tight. The hailstones were falling faster now, pelting his head and shoulders and the curl of his stooped back. They were larger, too: one the size of a pea struck his wrist, leaving a sharp smarting pain behind. Cullen could not think beyond the problem of the moment, and that was that he had to get the child out of the storm before the hail got large enough to really hurt her. He swooped to catch hold of her arm and broke into a trot, Lottie's skinny bare legs hurrying to keep up with him. In a moment of greater clarity he would have turned and taken her back to the house, but his mind was whirling in a haze of confused horrors and all he could do was press forward. He felt the bite of another larger stone upon his skull, and then there was a _crack _across the ridge of his left cheek followed by the warm trickle of blood.

Flinging Lottie's hand into the grip of his left instead, he wrapped his right arm around her back, elbow against her shoulder and palm spreading protectively over her head. He pulled her close, trying to shelter her with his body as they scrambled up the hill and into the lee of the tobacco barn. Elijah was standing in the doorway, dark eyes cast heavenward and lips moving as if in silent prayer. Cullen sent Lottie to him with a firm push, and the child scuttled into the shelter of the stout roof.

"I got to see if Meg's brought in the cows," Cullen said, shouting to be heard over the rattle of hail against the barn and the dull, wet hissing noise it made as it struck the long grass.

Elijah's gaze found him slowly, and in the brief moment when their gazes locked Cullen felt a fear he could scarcely have imagined. The old man looked stricken, shaken to his very core. Hastily, unable to spare a thought for that now, Cullen turned and ran off around the stand of pines that sheltered the building from the north winds. He emerged in the pasture and cast about for signs of the cows on their picket-lines, all the while running down towards their shed. His face and hands were struck again and again, and he felt the horrible crawling sensation of a hailstone slipping through his hair and catching between his neck and collar. It burned there, a small pinion of deep cold, and he slapped at his back in an attempt to dislodge it. He came down towards the low log structure and was relieved to see Meg in the shelter of its broad door. She had her apron gathered in her hands, the coarse cloth twisted around her fingers as she watched the sky.

Another hailstone, this one as broad across as a half-dime, struck Cullen's face and blinded him in a momentary blaze of pain. Hurriedly he stumbled against the doorpost and fell in beside Meg.

"You all right?" he hollered. He had to do so, for the battering of the hail on the roof sent up such a cacophony that even at the top of his voice he could hardly hear himself.

Meg shook her head quickly, like a sleepwalker awakening unexpectedly in the middle of her journey. She looked at him with wide, startled eyes, and then seemed to recognize him. "Lottie?" she asked. He could not hear the name, but he could see the movement of her lips.

"With Elijah!" he shouted. He glanced over his shoulder to reassure himself that all three cows were safely in. They were huddled against their feed trough, trembling and lowing inaudibly beneath the roar of the hail. He turned to Meg, lips parting to say something calming, something encouraging as befitted the master. He could not think of one word to offer.

Then suddenly a shadow came chasing across the ground: a broad line of darkness intruding on the sickly green light. The day fell into a deeper gloom and the whistle of the rain picked up as the clatter died away. There were a few final _ping_s against the wooden roof, and the last spitting hailstones fell among their fellows in the grass, and there was only the rain driving cold and steady and harmless against the bruised land. The rain, thought Cullen bitterly, that he had welcomed so eagerly only a few minutes before.

They stood in silence, watching as thin rivulets danced down the slope of the pasture and melted the smallest of the bright beads of ice. Meg was hugging her crumpled apron to her belly, her eyes enormous and mournful. Cullen could scarcely breathe. There was a low rumble building to a deafening clap of thunder, and Flora bellowed in terror. This set off the other two, and the noise of the cows drowned the answering thunderclap. Cullen's shoulders twitched as a third one sounded, rending the air and bringing with it a minute's hard deluge. But he could only stare at the grass, and the larger stones still showing bright amid its autumn gold.

Beside him Meg made a sound that was neither a sigh nor a sob. She unclenched one set of fingers from its death-grip on her apron and pulled her handkerchief from her pocket. She shook it out and held it up to him. "You's bleedin', Mist' Cullen," she said with the hoarse strain of one trying her utmost not to weep.

He took the little square of well-worn cloth and dabbed at his cheek. The cotton came away stained with a bright blossom of red, but he hardly felt the sting of his split cheek or the new bruise forming on his jaw where the other large stone had struck him. He wanted to run out into the rain and up to the top field, to see what the damage was – but he was afraid. He knew that knowing would be better than wondering, however bad it was, but somehow he could not quite overcome his dread enough to make his leaden legs move. There was a brilliant flash of lightening that seemed to fill the whole sky, followed almost immediately with a crash so deep and so impossibly loud that for a moment he heard nothing but the ringing of his ears. When he could once again pick out the moaning of the cows and the thudding of the rain, Meg was speaking.

"—horses out of it?" she asked.

"Yeah, them horses got a heap of sense," said Cullen hollowly. Then he grimaced. "Dammit, I forgot about the hogs!"

"They'll take shelter their own selves," Meg reassured him. "They ain't as smart as Pike and Bonnie, but they got sense enough for that."

He was grateful to her for trying to allay his worries, but the hogs were the least of them. They could get by with a little bruised livestock, but the tobacco was something else. "I got to know," he said, his voice cracking. "I got to know."

He took a step, but Meg caught his arm before he could leave the shelter of the overhanging roof. "You ain't goin' be able to tell nothin' until the rain let up a little. No sense soakin' youself to the skin an' takin' a chill jus' to look at what you can't change now."

"But—" His protest was lost in another sundering clap of thunder and the rain roared loudly as it rose. His shirt was already drenched and sticking to his body, and he realized he was shivering. Meg was right, and he knew it. But standing here helpless and ignorant was worse than any soaking. Shaking his head he pushed himself off the post and strode doggedly out into the storm.

_*discidium*_

The hail itself persisted no longer than ten minutes, swept off southward by the same high atmospheric gales that had brought the clouds without bestirring the air upon the ground. But the rain hammered hard for nearly an hour, thunder rattling the dish dresser and sending Gabe's hands flying to cover his ears every time. Bethel was trying to keep on with fixing supper, but her motions were clumsy and distracted and she kept glancing anxiously at the door as if expecting some terrible apparition to burst through it at any moment. Gabe wanted her to hold him in her strong, lean arms; to pet him with her dark and gentle hands and to rock him in her lap and to tell him there was nothing to be afraid of. It was just a storm, that's all, she would say. He tried to convince himself, but he could not quite do it and another flash of lightning sent him tumbling off the back of the bench. His tailbone cracked against the smooth bone-pale wood of the floor, and a thin, frightened wail bubbled up in his throat only to be lost in the earth-shattering hammer of the thunderclap.

Bethel turned from the stove, dropping the wooden spoon coated thickly with a creamy sauce, and in a moment she was kneeling beside the little boy. She gathered him into her lap and hugged him tightly, and Gabe clung to her and trembled. "It loud!" he whimpered. "Why it so loud?"

He would have run to find his mother long ago, but he was too afraid to do it. Just after the hail had started, hammering so loudly on the roof that he could not even hear Bethel telling him not to be scared, there had been a scream from upstairs and the sound of thundering feet. Gabe didn't know who had screamed, or why, but that sound had terrified him even more than the thunder. If his mama was hurt or in trouble he knew he should run to help her. Pappy had told him he should look after her. But he was only a little boy and he was frightened, and he was safer here with Bethel where at least he knew what was happening.

The thought of his pappy made Gabe's frightened sobs redouble. Pappy was out there in that storm somewhere: out in the fields or the pasture. What if the lightning and thunder hurt Pappy? And even if it didn't he would get dreadful wet in that rain, and Bethel was always saying a body could catch his death of dampness. Gabe clutched at Bethel's sleeve, longing to articulate this terror in the hope that she might ease it, but he could not find the words.

"Hush there, honey. It just' old Mist' Thunder playin' his big drum in the sky," Bethel said. "You got no cause to be scared: you got a good roof over you' head an' that ol' thunder can' get you in here."

She hefted him up so that he was braced against her shoulder, and got to her feet with a low grunt of effort. Gabe hooked his leg around her hip and put his arm behind her neck. She carried him with her to the stove and resumed her work one-handed, swaying as she did so to rock him gently against her. "It all right, honey. Ev'ything all right," she soothed. "We goin' manage somehow; don' you fret. Hush now. Hush now."

He thought maybe the words were not all meant for him – or at least not only for him. But Bethel began to hum softly and he bowed his head against her collarbone so that he could feel the thrum of her throat against his brow. He hiccoughed softly and his tears began to slow to a trickle. "Bet'l?" he asked very quietly.

Just then another thunderbolt struck, but it was not as loud this time: only long and rumbly. When the sound died away Bethel tilted her head to press her cheek against his hair. "What is it, Mist' Gabe honey?" she asked.

"Is Pappy goin' get sick in dat rain?"

She raised her head and thrust it back upon her neck to look at him. "Where you get that idea?" she asked.

"You don' let me play in de rain 'cause you say I goin' ketch my deff," he whispered. "Is dat what goin' happen to Pappy?"

"No, honey, no," Bethel said. The words were consoling and melodious, almost like a song themselves. "You' pappy the toughes' white man I ever knowed. Take more than a li'l rain to blow him away."

"What 'bout de t'under?" he ventured.

Bethel clicked her tongue in a gently chiding way. "Now Mist' Gabe, you _know_ that thunder ain' never hurt nobody. It ain't nothin' but a big noise in the sky. When you makes a noise, it hurt anybody?"

"No," Gabe admitted.

"Well, then!" said Bethel triumphantly. "Don' you worry 'bout no thunder. An' don' you worry 'bout your pappy, neither. What he gots to carry he been given the strength to carry, even if he don' know it. This here ain' gonna whup him. It ain'."

Once again she didn't really seem to be speaking to Gabe, but he took comfort in her words anyhow. Bethel was always right. Next to his pappy Bethel was the cleverest person he knew. He nuzzled against her, breathing in her clean sunshiny scent, and he felt his fears abating.

_*discidium*_

Mary stood in the door of the spare bedroom, staring at the broken window. The glass had not shattered, but three panes were webbed with deep cracks from the wildly flying hail. Thankfully the nursery had escaped unscathed, but there was a broken pane in her bedroom as well, and that one _had _shattered, spreading its shards across the trunk and the floor and the rag rug on Cullen's side of the bed. When her horrified transfixion had been broken by Frances's shriek Mary had been afraid that the roof had fallen in. They had had loose shingles twice that year, and although Cullen had patched the weak places it meant the whole roof was coming to the end of its usefulness. They might get on another two years, or three, or even five doing piecemeal repairs, but sooner or later the whole thing would need to be replaced. Still, she had not expected such costly damage as that now before her. Cedar shingles and tarred felt were cheaper by far than glass, and the windows would have to be fixed before winter came. It made Mary feel sick to look at them, like eyes blighted with cataracts beside the unscathed panes.

She twisted her handkerchief until the lace edging began to dig into the soft flesh of her palm. She was fighting the urge to cry. It wasn't the windows, not really. Windows could be replaced, or patched over with scraped and dried rawhide like the poor backwoods trappers did. But if the hail had fallen hard enough and large enough to crack glass, what had it done to the tobacco?

Only the knowledge that it would cause Cullen more distress than he must already be grappling with had kept her from running out to the fields the minute the rain had eased to an ordinary soaking downpour. The presence of her brother and Frances would not have stopped her. The fact that she was wearing her third and last good day-dress and her Sunday shoes would not have stopped her. Bethel's admonitions would not have stopped her. But the thought of Cullen worrying for her when he must already be in an agony of anxieties and despair was something she could not face. She would wait patiently, like a good planter's wife, for word to come from the fields. She hoped everyone had found shelter in time. The horses were gone from their paddock, so someone at least had reached the barn. And they had been working out at the kiln instead of in the fields: that was a mercy. Hailstones could be cruel: Mary had heard tell of a man actually struck by one so large and heavy that it fractured his skull. These had not been big enough to do that, surely… and yet they had broken the window.

Footsteps on the stairs behind her made her fight to compose herself. She did not want Jeremiah to see her trying not to weep. He was worried enough already by imagined demons. If he suspected the might and proximity of the real ones it was possible that he would do something rash. He might try to take her with him by force, or even to express his fears to Cullen. If he did that, she knew, he would never present them in the muddled and earnest way he had to her. He would paint a picture of desolation and play upon Cullen's desperate wish to see her happy and cared-for, and in the wake of this disaster Jeremiah might actually talk Cullen 'round.

"Mary?"

Her eyes grew wide. It was not Jeremiah, but Frances. She did not turn, but struggled to set her face into its most pleasantly placid expression. For the first time in her life she wished she had been brought up to the Southern artifice that Verbena Ainsley's mother had taught her so well. Mary had always valued forthrightness, and she knew that was what had drawn Cullen to her in the first place, but just now she would have given anything to be able to hide her feelings beneath a flawless mask of serenity.

A small, spindly hand settled on the small of her back: a shockingly intimate and unexpectedly tender gesture. Mary turned a little to the left as Frances came up beside her and settled the rest of her arm about her waist. With her free hand she reached to touch the one clinging to the handkerchief. "It's such a pity about the windows," Frances said softly. "Will they be terribly difficult to repair?"

"There's a glazier in Meridian," said Mary, not quite hearing her own words. "He can make them to size and Cullen can replace the broken panes."

"It's a blessing you have no wheat in the ground," said Frances. "Nothing ruins wheat as surely as a hailstorm."

"In Mississippi we plant our wheat in the winter." This too was hollow but courteous, covering neatly the chasm of her worry.

"Will it… will the storm have hurt your tobacco?" Frances sounded very small and oddly unhappy. Mary looked at her and saw something in her pale eyes: something that looked precisely like genuine sorrow.

"Quite likely a little," said Mary, softening. "I hope not much."

There was a hush between them. At last Frances spoke. "Mary, you know I have never been fond of Mr. Bohannon."

The breath that left Mary's lips was equal parts laugh and sob. "You've never made a secret of that."

"I thought he was selfish to take you away from us; away from your family and your friends and your whole world just to adorn some horrible plantation populated by unwilling chattel," said Frances. "I thought that any man who would ask you to sacrifice so much for love of him must be selfish, and wicked, and—"

"Please don't say any more," Mary whispered. "We've come near enough to quarrelling today. I can't… can't bear any more."

"But I was wrong," said Frances. "Last night, when he came in… his hands, Mary. They were…"

She looked down at her own white fingers cradling Mary's smooth, palely blushed ones. "He's working so hard for you. He's working like one of your niggers, isn't he? Out in the fields like one of the slaves. He didn't even come in out of the storm: he's still out there, working. Isn't he?"

Mary closed her eyes. "Don't tell Jeremiah. Cullen doesn't want him to know. He's proud. He thinks… he thinks the family will see it as a come-down for me. But it isn't. I'm happy here. Even when the work is hard, even when all we do is scrimp and scrounge and worry, I'm happy here. I want to grow old with Cullen; I want to see our children grow up and love this land and work this land and make it flourish again. I want to see the day when we can afford to give our people wages, and pay for their freedom papers, and – and buy up Meg's husband from Abel Sutcliffe and free him, too. And… and those are the things I want, Frances, and I believe we can have them. I hoped we might even make a start this year, but now I don't see how we can. Maybe next year will be better. That's what farmers say, isn't it? 'Maybe next year will be better.'"

"I understand," said Frances. "I mean I understand why you married him. I don't understand how you can possibly be contented here, but I do believe that you are. So I wanted to say that I'm sorry, Mary. Those things I said today; I'm sorry for them."

Mary nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak. She put her other hand over that of her sister-in-law, and she stared straight ahead at the window with its cracks: lines of weakness laid bare to the eye and awaiting only the slightest tap to make them give way entirely.

_*discidium*_

When the rain slowed from a raging torrent to a steady downpour Nate left the shelter of the barn. The thunder still rolled, but it was not so fearsome now and the gap between the flash and the bang was longer. He was glad to be out of the stable, which stank now of fear and fresh mule piss. The animals hadn't taken kindly to the din of the hail or the thunderclaps that had seemed to shake the very timbers of the barn. Even Bonnie, usually so fearless, had pawed restlessly and shifted in her stall, even letting out a shrill, anxious whinny after one particularly savage clap. Poor patient Pike remained quiet, but when Nate went to check on him he was trembling. Nate had tried to calm him, but he didn't have Mister Cullen's knack for soothing horses and there was nothing much he could do but wait for the worst of the storm to pass.

Now he stepped out into the rain and slogged through the mud already over the toes of his boots even in the hard-packed dooryard. The rain trickled into his eyes and down the back of his collar, but he had taken off his hat to move the loaded poles and had forgotten it entirely in the eager preparations for rain. He could not even recall what that had felt like now: all he felt was a grim horror at the cruel vicissitudes of the weather and a dread of what he might find over the rise.

There was no question of going anywhere but out to the tobacco. Melting hailstones crunched beneath his boots and the cold rain soaked through his faded old shirt and began to seep into the cloth of his trousers. Nate was both alarmed and a little astonished at the fear that chased him up the swell of the land. After twenty years of bitterness he had thought he had severed his heart from the Bohannon interests, but it seemed he still had the capacity to care. Just as he had been unable to turn away from Mister Cullen when he was weak and sick and scarcely able to stand, he could not turn away from this calamity – however great or small it proved in the end. The prosperity of the plantation was one thing, but this was a question of the survival of the family, black and white alike. And it startled Nate to realize that he truly did care about the survival of the white folks, too.

As he crested the hill he stopped. A bowed figure was sitting in the wet indiangrass, knees bent and legs planted wide to keep him from sliding down into the tilled muck. The forearms were braced across the knees, limp hands dangling, and the head was hanging so low that dripping hair trailed in a draggled curtain over a face pale beneath the brown summer weathering. His drenched clothes and the stoop of his shoulders completed the picture of perfect dejection.

So ghastly was the mere reflection of the desolation of the field that for an interminable span of time Nate could not even look towards the rows. At last he tore his eyes away and forced himself to do so. The plants that had spread so broad with promise that morning looked limp and tired now. There were fallen leaves shredded and pounded into the mud, and more still hung on broken stems. Moving closer, Nate could see that the top leaves of all the near plants were pocked with holes, and one or two of the stalks had actually broken so that whole plants toppled in fractured ugliness. He stepped to the very edge of the sod and crouched to make a closer examination of the nearest specimen still upright. Some of the middle leaves were not so badly harmed with only their tips tattered, but their veins still strong and their stems still whole. But the lowest remaining leaves, the ones that were to have been picked next, the first taking of the prime harvest, were drooping and splattered with mud. He plucked one up by thumb and forefinger, trying to right it, but although the stem was unbroken the weight of the muck dragged it down again.

"It ain't all los'," he said. "They's leaves worth saving. An' the other fields might have come out better: storm was blowin' south-southeast. Comin' up it look to me like Wes' Willows goin' get the worst of it."

He waited for the master to say something, but no answer came. Nate stood up, wiping his grimy hand on the seat of his pants. Then he realized he was afraid to turn around. Losing the best of the crop was a blow. Without top price for the whole fifty acres he didn't see how they'd manage to pay what was owed and still get through the year. Still, he knew they'd manage it somehow: they always seemed to scrape by. But if this was the blow that finally broke Mister Cullen, they were all doomed. He wasn't much of a farmer, brought up by a capable planter though he had been, but his willfulness and his intelligence and his stubborn refusal to lie down and let life lick him were what held this place together. If that went, everything else would go with it. The land would be lost, its people scattered, Nate probably sold upriver by some banker eager to get a quick return, Meg and Lottie most likely separated. Bethel would go with the master, of course: even if she had to starve with him she wouldn't leave him. And Elijah? What would become of Elijah if the plantation finally failed? He was too old to have any value at auction, however tirelessly he worked.

A vista of terrors opened suddenly before Nate and he felt his hands trembling. For months he had known how the weary struggle for subsistence and the tedium of the field labor was dragging on his master, and he had cast his eyes away and closed his heart to the misery of one who had once been his friend. He had thought, in his bitter foolishness, that Mister Cullen's trials had nothing to do with him. Now he knew differently. If this latest misfortune finally crushed the master's obdurate and heretofore indomitable spirit, there was nothing left for any of them.

Gathering his courage and telling himself the truth could be no worse than this unthinkable imagining, Nate squared his broad shoulders and turned. Mister Cullen was still sitting in the same awful pose, a sodden statue of wretchedness. Nate stared at him, not daring to speak and trying with all his might not to think of the skinny white boy who had kept right on trying until he could outrun, outclimb and outswim his black companion. He tried not to remember other storms on other long-ago autumn days when the two of them would run out barefoot among the cotton rows or the tobacco plants, picking up worms to fill a rusted-out cake pan, their clothes soaked and their feet squelching and their hair clinging to their skulls as they laughed and shouted to one another. He tried not to recall summer nights lying on the big flat boulders in the top meadow, staring up at the stars and sharing the secrets a thirteen-year-old boy could only confide in his closest friend. He filled his mind instead with the long-hated image of a nattily dressed and buoyantly happy bridegroom lifting his new wife down from the buggy in her costly wool travelling gown and jade-green bonnet, triumphant and happy and oblivious to the tribulations of others. And somehow, inexplicably, that was worse.

"Ain' so bad," he croaked, his throat so tight that he could scarcely form the words.

"Bad enough," muttered Mister Cullen. His head bowed lower and his back stretched excruciatingly into the same stiffness that plagued Nate's own spine. Then he looked up, and his eyes were hard as flint and his face was set in grim lines that told Nate what he would look like a decade from now, if his cares did not age him prematurely. There was a dark wound on his cheekbone and thin blood running in the rain that streamed down his face, but his lips were steady in their thin line and there was a knot of determination in his jaw. "Can't be helped. Nothing to do but salvage what we can. Leaves off the stems are a loss, but we might be able to dry out some of the broke ones. Let's you and me check the rest of it: I thought she was blowing south-southeast, too."

Nate found that he could breathe again. He felt no joy: there was nothing in this situation to feel joyful about. But there was a hot wave of relief to warm him despite the chilling rain still soaking into his clothes, and there was gratitude also. Mister Cullen might have been dealt a bitter defeat in his war against the land, but he wasn't licked. If he still had the will to keep going they'd be all right somehow. They had to be.

He held out his hand to the man who had played with him as a child, who had gone off to university and left him in the muck, who owned his body by the law of the land. Mister Cullen looked wordlessly at the dark wrist and then clasped it, and Nate helped to haul his weary body up onto his feet again.


	31. Being Neighborly

**Chapter Thirty-One: Being Neighborly**

They were all looking to him.

Cullen could feel their eyes upon him constantly, even when he knew they must be watching their work. They were looking to him to see what to do, how to react, what to feel, and whether to despair. They were gauging his response to decide upon their own. From his countenance and behavior they would determine whether this was indeed the end of their dreams of a decent harvest and security through the winter. They would decide whether to keep trying, to keep fighting, or to lie down and give up. It was his words, his actions and his every minute expression that would allow them the comfort of hope, or condemn them to anxious misery and sleepless nights fraught with fear.

He was the master. He did not have the luxury of giving in to his own discouragement, to the shock and exhaustion and misery that wanted to devour him. He was not free simply to throw up his hands and walk away, as he longed to. He could not shout or rail or roar against the summary injustice of this last cruel barb of fate. He could not even leave his eyes unguarded, lest his anguished desolation show through. He had to keep his jaw set and his shoulders squared, and to give firm and tangible orders as he set an example of unshaken dedication to the toil ahead and the salvaging of the crop.

And there was something worth salvaging, at least. They had a third of the harvest in already, hanging on poles in the tobacco barn. Because the hail had fallen all but straight, very little had even come through the slats of the drying side, and only a few of the leaves nearest the walls were nicked. Everything in the curing kiln was unscathed. It was true that this represented the poorest part of the harvest, but it was nonetheless some consolation to know that they had a little income guaranteed. As for the tobacco still left on the plants, the damage varied hugely. The top field had borne the brunt of the storm, and they were going to lose some of it entirely. What was left was bruised and torn, and even Elijah could not say if there was any hope of it ripening more than it had done already. Of those twelve acres Cullen thought they might get perhaps half of what they had hoped to. But the damage decreased as it moved eastward up the rows, and in the next and largest field it was considerably less. There only the top leaves and the very edges of some of the middle ones were pocked and ragged. The chief trouble was the mud, splattered by the hail and by the battering rain so that it coated the lowest of the remaining leaves. They would have to be harvested immediately, ready or not, and laid in the sun to dry as soon as the rain stopped.

Providence had had mercy upon the bottom field: it was all but untouched. Where that morning they had had fifty acres of top-quality tobacco undamaged and unravaged, now there were fifteen. When he thought of it that way Cullen almost believed his sanity would forsake him entirely. But when he told himself that those uninjured plants represented almost three hogsheads' worth of prime produce and another of seconds it did not seem quite so dire. He could not even guess what they might glean from the top field in terms of quality: those calculations would occupy his nights for weeks to come. But the bottom field still had at least two hundred and twenty-five dollars standing in it; perhaps a little more. He had to cling to that piece of hasty figuring, because if he didn't he knew he would never find the strength to carry him through to nightfall.

After some deliberation between the three men, they had finally decided to attack the top field first. The rain was still driving cold and steady, and Elijah pointed out that with a little luck it would wash down the mud-caked plants in the second field. The leaves with broken stems, however, had to be cut at once. Many were not even worth saving, but if they were not pruned promptly they would sap the strength of their plants and ruin the other leaves that still had some small hope of completing their growth. There was no time to spare in stringing these on poles: the men picked into the big willow corn-baskets. There was one for leaves that could be salvaged and another for those that could not. Into this latter Meg was piling armloads of shredded mulch: leaves that had been sheared right off and pounded into the mud. She worked between the rows with a hoe, gathering this trash into heaps before carrying it to the basket. They could not simply leave them lie: they were an invitation to rot and disease, and the very last thing they needed now was for the remaining plants to sicken.

It was awful work. They might as well have been slithering in the mud on their bellies, for within minutes they were coated in it from toe to hip and fingertip to shoulder. It was entirely impossible to keep the rain out of their eyes, but somehow they could not help trying; soon faces were smeared and hair tangled with muck. As the grey daylight dimmed the air grew colder and the rain almost painfully chilled. Cullen had been soaked long before they began, after sitting numbly in the deluge while the thunder clamored above, and soon enough the others were in an equally wretched state. They were all shivering, and after a time their noses began to run. Slippery hands could not adequately grip the knives, and again and again one of the men would hiss in pain as the blade slid and bit into the flesh of thumb or palm. Meg's basque was smeared with clumps of mud and plastered with scraps of tobacco leaves, and after a while she just picked up the front of her skirt and filled it with the rubbish. Her petticoat was black to the knees.

Added to these were the usual miseries of picking: sore backs and burning shoulders, elbows that ached so that a man was tempted to drive his knife right into the joint, and the sickening agony in the kidneys. Cullen's headache had returned seeking vengeance, and he could not be sure whether it was a result of the cold and the strain, or if he had not yet recovered from the nascent tobacco sickness of yesterday. As the sooty clouds on the western horizon began to take on an orange cast he found he was almost nauseated with hunger. As his worries should have left him no quarter to think of food he imagined the others must be twice as famished as he.

They had cleared eight rows of the deadfall when Meg straightened swiftly from emptying her skirt into the basket of waste. Cullen's eyes were drawn by the sudden movement and his head tilted painfully to look up at her from his stooped position.

"What is it?" he asked, his voice creaking hoarsely. With water a misery all around him he had neglected to think of pausing for a drink.

"Rider," she said, pointing. "Look."

He could not look without straightening, and so he finished cutting the broken stems. The leaves that looked worth saving he laid carefully in the gleaning basket, and flung the rest after Meg's load. Then he stood, his palm flying to the small of his back as an excruciating cramp rippled across his spine. Blinking the rain from his eyelashes he squinted at the dark shape galloping along the rise from the direction of the road. The horse was tall and thickly muscled: a hunting Thoroughbred that Cullen did not immediately recognize. Slogging through the mud in a mortifyingly ungainly fashion, he clambered up onto the wet sod as the beast drew near. The rider was wearing a dark greatcoat that flapped behind him with the wind of his passage, and he swung from the saddle almost before the horse was reined to a halt. Water dripped from the brim of his hat and rolled over the thick wool on his slender shoulders. It was Boyd Ainsley.

"I thought I'd find you out here," he said. "Is it bad? I came as quickly as I could get awa—Dear God."

He was looking at Cullen, taking in his mud-streaked pallor and his matted hair, the thickly plastered and sodden clothing and doubtless the shivering that he could not quite hide. Unable to face his friend's pity, Cullen chose to misunderstand. "Ain't as bad as it looks," he said. "Once we clean out the broken plants and the fallen leaves it'll be all right. The bottom field didn't get more than a good soaking."

He did not add that a good soaking was all the crop had needed; everything he had hoped for; and that he had been fool enough to rejoice at the sight of the thunderheads.

Boyd's lips tightened and his eyes were mournful, but he nodded. "Always looks worst right after the storm," he said with obvious effort. "Our east field looks like it was trampled by a hundred head of stampeding cattle."

"You going to lose much?" asked Cullen, realizing suddenly that perhaps his own yield was not the only one abruptly decimated today. Full-grown cotton plants were not as vulnerable as tobacco to hail, but the ripe boles themselves were easily dislodged even by a moderate rain.

"About fifty acres," said Boyd, dismissing an area equal to Cullen's whole crop with a waft of his hand. "Not bad. Of course the rest of it will have to wait to be picked until the rain stops and it dries out, but I'm going to need most of the field hands to clean up the mess anyhow, so that's not really time lost."

From the pocket of his coat he took a silver flask and held it out to Cullen. He moved as if to reach for it and then saw his befouled hands and gestured helplessly. Boyd shook his head. "Don't matter," he said. "Go on: it'll warm you."

Cullen took the vessel and pulled out the stopper, tipping it to his lips. It was the very finest Scotch whiskey, and its convivial amber fire trickled down his scratchy throat and suffused his chest with a memory of wellbeing. He closed his eyes, savoring it, and then took another little nip. He handed it hurriedly back to Boyd before he could cave to the temptation to drain the whole thing. "I appreciate it: thanks," he said.

Boyd took a drink himself, and gave his head a little shake. He looked out over the field, and Cullen followed his gaze. He did not linger on the long rows of destruction – so many, many rows, and how could the four of them possibly clear them all before rot set in and ruined what was left? – but looked instead to where the others were still working. Elijah was stooping, and Nate just rising to move down to the next plant. Meg was far down the row, working cautiously but quickly with the hoe. Every one of them was just as cold and miserable and discouraged as he was.

He turned back to Boyd, a question on his lips, and then hesitated. It was unthinkable to ask another man to share his best liquor with a slave; almost obscene to the Southern mind for white and black to drink from the same vessel. Cullen tried to dismiss the ridiculous thought, but found himself dismissing convention instead. He might well offend Boyd, and brand himself forever as a nigger-lover, but he had to do it. They were his people, and he owed them whatever he could do to alleviate their suffering. It was little enough.

He gestured at the flask. "Boyd, do you mind?" he croaked. "It's… could… may... my people. They could all do with a mouthful."

As he had expected the other man's jaw slackened, but remarkably Boyd held out the flask. Startled, Cullen took it, fumbled with the stopper, and then paused to consider. Asking for such a favor was audacious enough: allowing his Negroes to drink from another man's flask was too much. Nodding his head in a curt gesture of thanks, he went over to the drinking pail and took out the dipper, emptying it and shaking it off. With the rain still falling there was no hope of getting it dry, but that didn't matter. A little water didn't hurt whiskey any. He tipped a measure of the golden liquor into the dipper: enough for each of his slaves to have a mouthful. Then he shuffled to the edge of the field.

"Nate!" he called, holding out the ladle. The black man straightened, frowning, and his eyes grew wide as he saw the flask and the outstretched vessel. He scrambled through the mud, and Cullen handed him the dipper. "Share this 'round," he instructed. "Compliments of Mr. Ainsley."

Nate stared down into the bowl as if he did not quite believe what he was seeing. "Thankee," he mumbled. Then he raised the dipper carefully in salute and called to Boyd; "Thankee, Massa: it be mighty kind of you."

"You're welcome, son," said Boyd with admirable good-nature. "Enjoy it."

Cullen hurried back to return the flask to its owner as Nate moved down the row to give Meg the first taste. Replacing the stopper, Cullen handed it back to Boyd. "Thank you," he said, suddenly abashed. "It's just… they're cold, too."

Boyd waved a hand to show he understood. He studied his friend's face, brow furrowed. "Is there anything else I can do to help?" he asked. "By way of being neighborly?"

A polite denial hovered on the tip of Cullen's tongue, and then melted on the rain. The truth was that there _was_ something Boyd could do, if he was willing, and if Cullen was not too proud to ask. Even if the four of them worked all night by the light of pine knots, they'd never clear the damage before the detritus began to decay, and they had to start cutting the muddied leaves in the next field as soon as possible, too. Swallowing his yearning to prove himself self-sufficient, he nodded.

"What would you charge to hire a couple of your field hands for a day or two?" he asked. "Just to help clean this mess up."

"You can have them," Boyd said immediately. "Free of charge. I'll send over three of my best boys first thing tomorrow: you just feed them dinner and supper, and don't put them to work doing anything too dangerous, all right?"

Cullen shook his head. "No. I'll pay you what they're worth. Fifty cents each a day? Is that still the usual rate?"

"Take them," said Boyd. "I won't have a use for everyone until the cotton dries out. They'd only sit idle otherwise."

Cullen did not believe this for a minute, but he could hardly call his friend a liar. "I'm still going to pay you," he muttered.

"I won't accept it," Boyd warned. "I know you'd do the same for me."

There might have been some truth in this, if it was even possible that their positions should ever be reversed. And if he paid out a fair hire on two days' help from three men, Cullen would be left with less than ten dollars in cash – not counting what little he had keeping his good standing with the bank. Closing his eyes against the irrational feeling of shame he nodded again. "I thank you," he said. "You're a good neighbor."

"It don't cost me nothing," said Boyd. He clapped Cullen companionably on the shoulder, raising an unpleasant squelching sound from the mud-soaked cloth of his shirt. "Maybe when you get all this laid by you'll send me a dozen of them cigars of yours?"

A hoarse laugh surprised Cullen. "Four dozen," he promised. "More if I wind up with some odd tonnage." The mere fact that he had just used the word _tonnage_ with respect to his crop seemed to comfort him a little. He managed a shaky smile. "Thank you, Boyd. I mean it."

"I know you do," said the taller man, grinning. He raised his flask and quaffed, then handed it to Cullen again. Hesitating only an instant he drank, and gave it back to its owner.

"I got to get back," said Boyd. "It occurs to me that my men might take kindly to a drop or two of liquor, too. Not this stuff, of course—" He gestured with the little silver bottle. "—but I got some good Kentucky brew that ought to answer. I thank you for the idea: it'll keep 'em working happier." He tilted his eyes skyward, sending a shower of water off the back of his hat. As he did so, he tucked the flask into his pocket, tactful enough not to wipe the mud from it first. "Wonder when she'll blow on."

Cullen tilted his head in an approximation of the shrug his sore shoulders could not endure. "I'll expect your men tomorrow. With a bit of luck I'll only need them the one day."

"You can have 'em as long as you need," said Boyd. He got his foot into the stirrup and paused. "Verbena keeps asking when we can invite you and Mary to supper. I told her it ain't convenient this month; is that right?"

"Don't have time for supper at home," said Cullen, hoping he did not sound too truthful. "But Mary was thinking of dropping in some afternoon next week. Her brother and his family are down from Maine: their little girl's a year younger than Miss Charity."

"She'd be welcome. They all are," said Boyd. "Why don't you try to spare an evening and dine with us? We'd be proud to entertain your company."

"We'll see," Cullen said noncommittally. It was quite impossible: he wouldn't have time to sleep, recovering from this calamity, much less go calling. "Good day to you, then."

"Good day," said Boyd as he swung into the saddle. He paused, casting Cullen one last unmistakably anxious look, and then wheeled the horse around and cantered away. Cullen watched for a few polite seconds, and then fixed his face with a look of firm determination. He turned and dragged himself back down into the mud.

_*discidium*_

Frances was setting the dining room table while Mary stood in the kitchen, mashing the potatoes with a generous measure of cream. The promise to sit idle could not be upheld under such grave circumstances as these. When she heard the fall of Bethel's shoes on the stoop her heart leaped to her throat. Bethel had gone to pick some parsley and to check on the damage to the garden. Mary did not know if she would dare to wander as far as the tobacco, but she did not think so: Bethel's presence would be almost as upsetting as her own, and they both shared a fervent wish to spare Cullen what distress they could.

The old woman came in out of the rain, shaking off her shawl and wiping her shoes with care. She had the sprig of herbs in her hand, but it was droopy and rather sorry-looking. Her face was unreadable and her eyes were grave.

"Well?" Mary said breathlessly.

"Nobody don't hardly need to mow down the corn stalks," said Bethel. "They's toppled and torn an' broke in half. Leave 'em dry an' then burn 'em; tha's all. No great loss without some gain."

"And the garden?" asked Mary.

Bethel shrugged. "It ain' pretty, but it could be worse. The greens is tore up bad, an' some of the tomatoes is burst. The rest goin' be bruised: we got to pick 'em quick an' lay in preserves before they rot. The pumpkins an' the squash don' look so bad: the leaves took the worst of it. The herbs is raggedy but mos'ly all right."

"The peas?" asked Mary. "The beans?" The long rows of vines had been carefully watered and tended all summer, waiting for the pods to mature and dry: they were relying on them to supplement what might well be a lean winter diet. If they had to purchase stores to replace them…

"Los' a few, but they's mos'ly still young an' green," said Bethel. "I think we goin' get a good harvest. An' all the roots goin' be jus' fine: yams, potatoes, onions, turnips, what lef' of the carrots an' parsnips, all."

Mary breathed a little easier. It might have been so much worse. Certainly she had been imagining worse.

Bethel rinsed the parsley and began to chop it. "Checked the trees, too," she said. "Peach trees los' a lot of leaves, but they'll heal up by spring. An' the walnuts is falling in heaps. They's ready, though: skins split. In the mornin' I'll set out in the barn to watch them fires, an' Lottie can gather up the nuts. All that stoopin' would do my back in sure. See, Missus Mary? That goin' spare us climbing the ladder to shake 'em down, at least the firs' batch. 'Nother li'l blessing."

These seemed such very small blessings, but Mary tried to smile. "And… is there any other damage?"

"Whitewash is spoilt, but the fences needed redoin' anyhow," said Bethel. "An' there be a hole in the henhouse roof. I stuck a piece of oilcloth over it to keep out the rain for now. I didn' go farther than the well," she said in response to Mary's unanswered question. "We's goin' have to wait an' see what Mist' Cullen think 'bout the tobacco."

Mary nodded, pounding the last of the lumps from the potatoes. "Would you hand me the pepper-pot, please?" she asked.

From the dining room the clatter of silverware suddenly resumed, and Mary realized belatedly that her sister-in-law had overheard their entire conversation. She was torn between feeling touched that Frances cared enough to listen, and anxious lest they had said something uncircumspect. She did not think that they had, and the account of the damage to the garden was surely harmless enough. Frances's unexpected show of empathy and genuine compassion had left Mary bewildered but comforted, and her offer to help lay on supper was all the kinder for her lack of experience with domestic chores.

Still the meal was quiet and uneasy, and the sunset hour in the parlor a long and miserable one for Mary. She tried to make courteous conversation, but all the while she was listening for the sound of the kitchen door. Bethel had brought in water while the white folks ate, so that she could have a hot bath waiting when Cullen finally came in. But night fell and time crawled on and still there was no noise from the kitchen to indicate he had done so. Finally Frances excused herself and went upstairs to prepare for bed. Bethel had mixed up a batch of flour paste and affixed squares of brown paper to the broken panes of glass lest they should crack further and fall. The hole left in the bedroom window by the shattered glass was covered with a scrap of tarpaper as a temporary measure. Cullen would have to decide what he wanted to do. They could not afford new glass now, and might not be able to meet that expense even after the tobacco was sold – if there was any tobacco left to sell. Mary tried to put that fear from her mind and to focus on what Jeremiah was saying about the sinking of a steamer on Lake Michigan.

When she heard the distant _thud _of the back door, she was on her feet and out of the room almost before she could make her apology. She was dimly aware of Jeremiah looking bewilderedly after her, but she had only one desire at that moment. She sped through the dining room, her hoop catching on one of the chairs and dragging it out of place, and flung herself into the kitchen, closing the door swiftly behind her.

Cullen was already well into the room, sitting in Bethel's chair which had been drawn from its usual corner right up to the stove. He was huddled close by the hot iron surface, his lean body bundled into an old quilt. Bethel was standing just behind him, carefully pouring something that looked like coffee out of a saucepan into a china cup. As the vapor from the steaming liquid filled the air Mary could smell cloves and what was likely almost the last of the cinnamon. The brandy-bottle was on the table, and Bethel added a generous measure to the cup, stirring vigorously. She offered it to her master, who worked one filthy hand out of the blanket and curled his fingers around the hot china with an almost inaudible sigh. His eyes were vacant and his hair, dripping and clotted thickly with mud, straggled down to obscure his face. It too was dirty, streaked with grime and tobacco juice. He lifted the cup close under his chin and breathed in the scent.

"It too hot to drink," Bethel warned. "You goin' burn your tongue. Jus' hol' it an' get the warmth of it. Do you good."

Cullen nodded unsteadily and shifted in the chair so that he was still nearer the stove. He was shivering and his lips were pale: he looked wretchedly cold. Mary realized abruptly that his feet and legs were bare, and all of his arm that she could see from where it emerged from the quilt. He must have stripped off his clothes outside to keep from tracking mud into the house. She came further into the room, skirting the waiting tub.

Bethel brought down the rusted old dishpan that was no longer used for its intended purpose, and set it before her master. She emptied half a bucket of well water into it, and followed this with the contents of the copper kettle bubbling on the stove. She stirred the fluid with her hand, testing its temperature, and then pushed it closer to Cullen. "Put your feet in there," she instructed. "You goin' eat b'fore you wash."

"Yes ma'am," Cullen mumbled. He was staring into the toddy, its dark surface rippling as he shivered. He did not seem to have registered his wife's presence at all. He lifted his right foot slowly, struggling to keep himself covered with only one hand to grip the blanket. Bethel nodded approvingly as he lowered his heel into the water and then shifted the other foot.

Mary took another tentative step forward, and the older woman looked at her. Mary raised an eyebrow in a silent question. Bethel, understanding perfectly, shook her head. She had not yet asked about the damage to the tobacco.

Cullen lifted the cup to his lips and sipped cautiously, then closed his eyes and took a longer draught.

"We should take some of that down to the cabins," Mary said. "I'm sure the others would take some good from it, too."

"I already sen' some with the supper," said Bethel in an unmistakably approving tone.

At the sound of Mary's voice Cullen looked up, and his grip on the blanket tightened. She mustered her gentlest smile. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Dog tired," he said, and drank again. He blinked slowly as though to clear a fog from his mind. "Did Boyd stop by the house?"

"Boyd Ainsley?" asked Mary. "No. Why would he?"

Cullen jerked his head noncommittally. "He rode out to the field to check on our damage," he said. "Thoughtful of him."

"They get it bad over Wes' Willows way?" asked Bethel.

"Sounds like it: they lost fifty acres of cotton, and the rest is soaked. Boyd seems to be taking it in stride, and why not? He's got six hundred more waiting to pick: they won't be hurting too badly." Cullen grimaced and added softly; "He's sending over three men to help us for the next day or two."

Mary debated whether to speak. He might come out with the news on his own, but addled as he no doubt was with fatigue and shock he might not. He might even keep it from her willfully under a misguided attempt to spare her worry. Quietly she said; "Is it serious, then?"

He looked up from the basin at his feet, eyes stricken for a moment before they hardened. "It's serious, but it could be worse. The top field's ruined: what isn't lost is damaged enough to harm the price. But the big field isn't so bad and the bottom one's pretty much untouched. We'll still have a harvest. It ain't what we hoped for, and it ain't what we've earned, but it's something."

A band she had not even noticed suddenly loosened from around her ribs and Mary drew a deep breath that strained against her corset. "Thank God," she breathed: an earnest prayer as much as an exhortation of relief.

Cullen's lip quirked upward just shy of the right corner. "Thank God?" he echoed. "Who d'you think makes the hail, anyway?" Then he glanced sidelong at Bethel and sighed guiltily. "I'll allow that it could have been worse," he said repentantly. "We could have lost everything."

He was occupied in taking another swallow of his toddy, and so did not see Bethel's expression. Far from being one of pious indignation, it was a look of pained sorrow. It was almost as if she was thinking that perhaps it might have been kinder if they _had _lost everything. Mary repented that thought as quickly as she could, but not before reflecting that at least then the toil would be over and there would be no more drowning in freezing cold mud to try to save what was left.

"What about some supper?" Mary asked. She looked around the room. "We could pull a corner of the table nearer."

Bethel's face lit up in a surprised smile. "Tha's jus' what we'll do, Missus Mary!" she said. "I was thinkin' we gots to move him."

"I can walk to the table," Cullen groused, shifting in his seat. Mary stepped forward and planted a hand on his shoulder. She could feel the lingering chill of his skin even through the blanket.

"We know you can, but you don't need to. Drink up: your color is better already."

She seized one side of the table and Bethel the adjoining one, and they lifted two legs so that the heavy piece of furniture could pivot with greater ease. The other two legs squalled against the floor, and Cullen flinched reflexively. Mary's worry deepened. His head was still plaguing him: he wasn't well. He ought to have spent the day holding a pole and stringing leaves as he had promised he would. Instead he had wound up right back where he had fallen ill: stooping in the wet tobacco. Was rain water any better or worse than dew to work in? From a physician's perspective Mary did not know, but from her husband's haggard look she knew that to the tobacco worker there was no difference at all.

Bethel brought the warmed plate and utensils, then took the lid off the big boiling pot and ladled up a bowl full of chicken broth. "This ain't as flavorful as it goin' be tomorrow," she said regretfully; "but it'll warm you through an' soothe your ches'."

"There ain't a thing wrong with my chest," Cullen told her, and Mary thought – hoped – that she saw a spark of irritation in his cloudy eyes.

"An' that how I aim to keep it," said Bethel stoutly. She was always more than a match for his belligerent moods. She took the cloth off the plate and began cutting the slices of ham into manageable pieces.

"I can cut my own meat, too," grumbled Cullen, and this time he was clearly annoyed.

"How you goin' work a fork an' a knife an' hide your nekkidness with only two hands?" Bethel demanded frankly. Cullen's mouth dropped open in momentary surprise at her brazenness and then clamped shut. Had he not been so grey, Mary thought, his color would have risen.

He drained the last of his toddy and set to work on his meal, shifting awkwardly in the chair so that he could reach the dishes with greater ease. He was no longer shivering, and even his hands did not shake too badly as he used the fork. What tremor there was became more evident when he tried to lift a spoonful of broth and spilled most of it onto the quilt. With a disgusted sigh he picked up the bowl and drank from it instead.

Bethel emptied the copper kettle twice into the bath water, and by the time Cullen pushed his plate – about two-thirds empty – away it was steaming enticingly. Bethel laid out the soap and nailbrush and some clean rags on the floor, and moved the towels close to the stove to warm.

"I'll go and fetch you some underthings and your smoking jacket," Mary said, moving to the door. Cullen preferred privacy while he bathed, and on most occasions she did her best to respect it.

"Nightshirt," corrected Bethel. "Tonight be his night to res': he done sat watch three in a row now."

Cullen shook his head. "Meg needs it more'n me," he said. "I told her to stay in bed."

"Well, I's goin' out t' untell her!" Bethel exclaimed, hands flying to her hips. "It your turn to sleep, an' you needs it, an' you's goin' take it. What would you say if one of them others wanted to give up their night off so you could sleep? Huh? You'd set 'em straight quicker'n a cockroach runnin' fo' cover! An' you'd scold 'em for fools, too."

"This is different," said Cullen. "Today's a special case."

"Yes it is!" said Bethel. "Today you done promised you was goin' hold the pole an' keep out the pickin'. If you got that fi'thy holdin' a pole the mud mus' be six foot deep. That mud out there six foot deep?"

"Will be by morning," said Cullen grimly. The rain was still falling in a firm, steady rhythm that drummed almost soothingly upon the roof. How happy such a rain would have made them all twenty-four hours ago!

"If you's forgot you's sickenin', I ain't!" Bethel scolded. She was well in her stride now and Mary let her own protests melt from her mind. There was no need for them, and Bethel's spirited lecture would be far more effective than her quiet reasoning could hope to be. "You is goin' up to that good warm bed with you' wife an' you' li'l boy, an' you is goin' sleep 'til breakfas' time. Or if you don' sleep," she added, seeing his lips part for a protest; "then you is goin' lie there dry an' comf'table while you's frettin' an' figurin'. But if that body of yours got the sense God gave Mist' Gabe's kitten you's goin' sleep whether you wants to or not!"

She stamped her foot to punctuate this, and for a moment the Bohannons were both startled into speechlessness. Then Cullen's sagging shoulders twitched in grudging assent and he looked at Mary with something almost like a wry smile just skimming his lips. "I guess that's settled, then."

Bethel nodded, chin outthrust with an obstinacy that her longtime charge could not hope to equal. She strode to the back door and put her shawl over her head. "Likely I kin catch Meg 'fore she goes to bed," she said. "I's goin' stay a while an' help with her washin' up, an' maybe set a piece if she don' min', an' you is goin' have a good hot bath. That water cool down, you warm her from the kettle. An' wash that hair, or you's goin' grow turnips in it."

So saying she swept out into the rainy night and closed the door forcefully behind her.

"She's right," said Mary quietly.

"I know she's right," Cullen growled. He chafed his hand against his beard and scowled. "I don't need tobacco sickness right now," he muttered. "Why's it got to strike at the worst possible time?"

She went to him and cradled the crown of her head in his hand, careless of the gritty feel of the half-dried mud matted deep within it. "I don't know," she murmured. "You do seem to get more than your share of misfortunes."

He chuckled despondently and shook his head. "I'm glad you weren't down there to see it. The top field's a ruin, Mary. We'll be able to salvage something, but it's…" Again his hand raked across his jaw, leaving grimy smudges in his beard. "It's like watchin' them plants burn."

"It's disheartening," said Mary.

"Disheartening," he agreed. He gathered a fistful of the quilt with his right hand and adjusted the hold that his left had lower down. "I got to get a start on that bath," he said. "If Bethel comes back and I ain't clean she's liable to try 'n scrub me herself."

Mary laughed for him, and was rewarded with a smile that was, for a tiny moment, almost unhaunted.

_*discidium*_

Boyd was as good as his word. Just before dawn three broad-shouldered field hands came up the drive, meeting Nate and Cullen as they came out of the stables. They introduced themselves respectfully as Jim, David and Levi, and each carried a bucket of water out to the tobacco. They were inexperienced in the crop, of course, and so Cullen set them to gathering up the tatters between the rows and uprooting those plants with broken stalks. He and his men continued cutting the leaves with torn stems, while Meg strung those among them worth saving. The day was cool and overcast, but the rain had stopped at some point during the night. The mud was horrendous: the field seemed quite without a bottom, and more than once someone lost a boot when trying to take a step and had to hop back sock-footed to haul it out. The Ainsley slaves, initially daunted by Cullen's presence and taken aback by the unfamiliar spectacle of a master stooping like a nigger, soon found themselves relaxed enough to sing. David led a series of boisterous call-and-response working songs, and after the first two first Elijah and then Nate joined in. Meg continued working quietly, doubtless weary from her broken night, and Cullen had neither the liberty nor the heart to participate. He kept his eyes on his work and his mind as far removed from his frantic figuring as he could.

It was heartbreaking to cut these leaves, which until yesterday had been the bright hope of the harvest. They were limp and ragged now, fouled with mud and torn by hail. There was not much chance of drying them quickly enough to prevent molding entirely, and that would hurt the price even more than the pits and tears and split veins. They would never be able to brush off all the mud, either, try though they might. It was almost easier to cast the worst ones away than it was to hand the others to Meg to be strung on the pole as he had hoped by now to be doing with the best part of the crop. Try as he might to think of something else Cullen kept running through imagined negotiations with his buyers in New Orleans, trying to point out color and breadth and weight and to distract from rips and patchiness and dirt. Even in fantasy it was demeaning, scraping almost but not quite dishonestly for an extra half-cent a pound.

At least the work was progressing quickly. Three extra bodies made a tremendous difference, and Boyd's men were well-behaved and hard-working. He really had sent the best of his crew, and Cullen was grateful. He did not know how he could possibly repay this kindness; a whole gross of cigars would not answer it, and there was little chance of Boyd ever asking a similar favor. He would have to think of that later: what was left of his pride would not bear it now.

The broken windows were another worry, for they would have to be replaced. Mary had suggested scraped rawhide, but although Cullen might have settled for that at least as a temporary measure he knew that Bethel would rather starve than see the house in which she took such pride sealed up like a trapper's hovel. For her sake glass had to be bought, but four panes were beyond the reach of his pocketbook and would likely stretch past what he could spare out of the much-reduced prospect for tobacco money. Nor was a glazier likely to extend credit: they did that only on building contracts, and even then only to the wealthiest clients. Glass was a luxury, and a costly one. He might raise a loan at the bank, but Madsen would want security and he did not know if he was willing to risk his stock or a piece of his land just for windows.

At least the damage to the garden was only moderate. It would have been much worse earlier in the year, but with the root vegetables almost grown and the peas and beans still supple and half-ripe almost everything would survive. Bethel would put in a late crop of collards to replace what they had lost, and the turnip greens were still edible. The yams and the potatoes would be fine: not as large, maybe, as they might have been, but plentiful and edible and unscathed.

They had been at it for nearly five hours, and the time was drawing on to dinner when the thunder of wet hooves on the grass caught Cullen's ear. Thinking it was Boyd, come by to see how his slaves were behaving, he looked almost eagerly southwestward. But he saw nothing and the hooves drew nearer, and it was with more dread than he could stand to acknowledge that he turned towards the nearer edge of the field. Every tormented muscle in his body stiffened and his back was suddenly straight as a ramrod despite the agony of the motion, for Napoleon was cantering towards him with Abel Sutcliffe proud and immaculate in the saddle.

Cullen tried his utmost to stride with dignity to the edge of the field, but the sucking earth hampered his every step and he slipped twice where it was nearer to slurry. Still he kept his head high. He was soaked to the skin from the wet plants, and smeared head to toe in the gluey Mississippi muck, and he stood amid the ragged ruins of a year's desperate hope, but he was damned if he was going to let himself appear downtrodden and dejected. His pride buoyed him, but it was his anger that really gave him the will to stand tall. What the hell did the bastard want, today of all days?

"I thought I made it clear you ain't welcome on my land," he said as the wealthy planter reined his steed to a halt.

"That's not a very convivial greeting, Bohannon," Sutcliffe said with an insincere smile. "And when I came all this way to see that you survived yesterday's tempest!"

"That's why you came, is it?" Cullen said sarcastically. He wasn't fool enough to believe that. If Sutcliffe had really been concerned for his welfare he would have come over yesterday, as good old Boyd had done, the minute he got the chance. But yesterday it had been raining: too cold and inclement for the well-dressed man to venture out just to revel in the misery of others.

"Just trying to be neighborly," he cooed, nodding sagely. "I hear tell you got hail. Happily we were spared that misfortune, though the cotton is wet and we'll have to lose a day's picking. Such a shame." He surveyed the battered field with a critical eye. "I'm sorry to see you've lost a good deal more than that. Can you scavenge anything at all?"

Cullen certainly did not owe this man an account of his prospects, and the obvious glee he was taking in the ruin before him was galling. "Why don't you just get off my land before things get ugly?" he asked in a deliberately conversational tone.

Sutcliffe's eyes raked disdainfully over his mud-choked clothing, and he sneered. "From the look of it things are already ugly," he said. Then his nose jerked upward like a hound catching a scent on a shifting wind. He did another sweep of the field, this time with a calculating look in his eye. "Why, Bohannon!" he exclaimed delightedly. "Did it rain hailstones or eagles? Your slaves have multiplied!"

"Remarkable, ain't it?" said Cullen impudently. "I bought me some hen's teeth and sowed my fallow land, and they just growed."

The patrician smile faded and the cruel eyes narrowed. "Did they." It was not a question. Sutcliffe crooked two gloved fingers and beckoned to the nearest Negro. "You. Boy. Come here."

"Stay there," Cullen said, gesturing firmly behind him without turning to see who the man had addressed. He frowned up at the other planter. "Don't you go disrupting my workers," he warned. "There's laws in this state against stopping work on another man's plantation."

Now Sutcliffe looked angry. "Are you threatening me with the sheriff, Bohannon?" he seethed softly.

"Do I need to?" asked Cullen.

"I only wanted to ask a simple question," hedged Sutcliffe. He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle.

"Then ask it. From here." It was an insult to force a man to shout to a Negro, implying he lacked the authority to make the slave approach. In this case, however, Sutcliffe _did_ lack the authority, and Cullen intended to make him feel it.

He looked as if he wanted to reconsider, but he could scarcely back down now. "Boy!" he called. "Where did you come from?"

"Sou' Carolina, Massa," came the respectful and perfectly honest reply. Cullen almost laughed. Of the five men in the field, Sutcliffe had managed to choose Elijah.

"Mr. Bohannon bought you from South Carolina?" the planter said incredulously.

"Yassir, he did that," said Elijah soberly. "Wanted him a good tobacco hand, an' I's the best. Still is."

Sutcliffe cast a sidelong look at Cullen and frowned. "_When_ did he buy you?"

"Well, Massa, I don' 'xac'ly recall," said Elijah. "Mus' be… oh, nigh on forty years now. It were ol' Mist' Bohannon, of course."

Sutcliffe rose up in the stirrup, his riding crop twitching. Napoleon shifted his hooves uneasily. "Why you impudent—"

"Hey, hey!" Cullen cautioned, stepping in front of the stallion and shaking his head. "He ain't been disrespectful: he's speaking the truth. Ain't his fault you can't tell one darky from another. Lay a hand on my man and I _will_ put the sheriff on you."

"For striking a slave?" Sutcliffe said scornfully. "Brannan would never take me to task for that."

"For manhandling my property he'd have to," said Cullen. "You might keep him awful close, but I got friends too and he ain't running unopposed for reelection. Folks 'round here don't take kindly to a sheriff looks the other way when a trespasser starts damaging slaves."

For a moment Sutcliffe's face worked horribly beneath the thin mask of gentility. Then he mastered himself and grinned. "You borrowed them, didn't you?" he said. "The other men. Boyd Ainsley, I take it. He always did have a soft spot for the lame and the destitute. I recall the time he paid the fine for that vagrant. Even gave her rail fare back to Natchez. Tenderhearted young fool." He shook his head regretfully at generosity far beyond his comprehension. Then he blinked as though newly awakened and curled his lip at Cullen. "I came to see how you were managing after the storm and to see whether you'd changed your mind in light of certain…" He gestured broadly at the drooping tobacco. "…acts of God."

Cullen's eyes narrowed, suspicious but uncomprehending. "Changed my mind about what?"

"My offer," said Sutcliffe. "Twenty-five hundred dollars for five hundred acres of land. I considered suggesting a lower price, seeing as it's hail-damaged now… but I'm a good neighbor and I don't take advantage of another man's misfortune. I'm willing to honor to the original offer."

That the east pastures and the woods were not hail-damaged at all seemed irrelevant. Cullen's blood was boiling now and he had to clamp his jaw over the urge to tell this smug son of a bitch just where he could take his offer. Instead he shook his head. "I ain't selling," he said. "Not to you. I wouldn't sell five hundred acres to nobody, not at a hundred dollars an acre. Land ain't for sale."

"Are you sure?" asked Sutcliffe sweetly. "You might want to take stock of what's left to you and reconsider. It can get awful hungry in February if a man doesn't have money for flour."

Cullen's face burned like a brand beneath the streaks of mud. He didn't know how Sutcliffe had found out about the flour bought on credit, but obviously he had. Perhaps the grocer had gossiped; perhaps it had been someone else in the shop that day. It didn't really matter: it was just more indignity for the man to taunt him with. "My land is not for sale," he said coldly, speaking very slowly and clearly as though to an imbecile.

Sutcliffe opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. His eyes were drawn up over Cullen's head to the far side of the field. "Well, now, what have we here? Must be dinner time for the field hands. Run along, Bohannon: cold corn pone and beans taste mighty fine on an empty stomach."

Cullen snorted disdainfully, but only out of habit. He had hardly heard the insult, for he was watching Sutcliffe's face. He too seemed only to be going through the motions. His eyes were fixed on something distant, and his expression was changing. It softened strangely, in a way that made him look at once gentler and far uglier. His lips pursed into an unsettlingly ripe pucker, and between the lapels of his costly overcoat the white silk cravat rippled as his breath caught in his throat. The small hairs at the back of Cullen's neck rose inexplicably.

"So that's my foreman's little bastard, is it?" Sutcliffe breathed. "Skinny little thing, isn't she?"

And suddenly, awfully, Cullen understood. His hot indignant rage was swept away in a creeping chill. Before he could stop himself he turned, following the other man's gaze to the far end of the field. Ordinarily Cullen and the others brought their dinners down with them in the morning, but with the Ainsley men to feed as well it had been decided to serve up a more abundant meal than usual in earnest repayment of Boyd's one condition on the loan. Cullen had expected Bethel to bring it down herself, but for some reason she had not. Instead it was Lottie who stopped on the level place at the foot of the rise and set down the big basket with care. She had a gallon jug on her hip, and bent at the waist to place it carefully in the grass. She was wearing her blue frock, now her work dress because Mary had completed the new one for best wear, and as she bowed the too-short skirt rose high along her bare, spindly legs, painfully revealing her want of petticoat. And Abel Sutcliffe was staring at her.

"She looks a likely wench," he said. "Handy in the kitchen? A pity she isn't mine: I can always do with a good, obedient girl."

Suddenly Cullen wanted to seize the man by the front of his coat and fling him down into the mud. He could almost feel the pressure in his fingers and the webs of his hands as he closed them on the thin, wattled throat. The viciousness of the image should have startled and appalled him, but somehow it did not. Hanging was too good for Abel Sutcliffe.

Somehow, incredibly, early training prevailed over animal fury, and he pivoted on the heel of his heavy work-boot. "Well, she ain't," he said. "Pickaninnies belong to the mother's owner, not the father's. And she ain't for sale neither, so don't even ask. Now turn this animal around and get off my land. I've had my fill of you, and you're still trespassing. Get on out of here."

Sutcliffe looked at him with a sneer and a biting comment waiting, but he quailed before the quicksilver fire in the younger man's eyes. He drew himself up with what dignity he could muster and clicked his tongue to the horse. "Come on, Napoleon," he said crisply. Then he twitched one boot so the spur jangled and curled his lip unpleasantly. "You'd best not threaten me with the law, Bohannon," he said. "You'll find I don't take kindly to men who spurn my friendship."

"If this here is friendship I'd hate to see what you deal out to folks you only know in passing," said Cullen. He jerked his head eastward. "I ain't going to tell you again."

The spur dug into the horse's flank and the reins drew back. Napoleon wheeled and went careening for home, a sleek dark bullet against the grey sky and yellowing grasses. Cullen watched until he vanished, seething and sickened all at once.

A circumspect cough brought him back to the present, and he turned to find Elijah standing respectfully at the edge of the mud, his hat in his hand out of concern for his master's image before the neighbor's Negroes. "Mist' Cullen, Lottie done brung us sumthin' from the house," he said, careful but pointedly. It wasn't his place to suggest that they break: not in front of others.

Cullen nodded. "So she has, Elijah: thank you." He cleared his throat, clogged with loathing, and cupped his hand to his mouth. "_Dinnertime!_" he bellowed, and his voice echoed back dimly from the bruised land.


	32. The Christmas Barrel

**Chapter Thirty-Two: The Christmas Barrel**

Nate and Elijah brought the chairs from their cabins, and Meg dragged the table into the middle of the room before spreading her good gingham tablecloth over it. The men from West Willows were outside with the washbasin, trying to scrub the tobacco stains from their skin. Meg brought out the crockery and laid plates and bowls at each place while Elijah fetched the tin cups and Nate started unpacking the hamper that Bethel had prepared. There was a generous haunch of the last ham, which Bethel had roasted yesterday, and boiled potatoes with butter. There was a big dish of okra cooked with a small piece of salt pork for flavor and seasoned with fresh herbs from the garden. Instead of collards there were turnip greens, more tattered than usual but fresh and perfectly blanched, and there was a bowl of stewed tomatoes as well. Succotash and a pot of chicken soup thick with carrots and onion and parsnips and the last of the barley rounded out the meal. Most sumptuous of all were the biscuits: golden and light and still warm to the touch. The use of wheat for the slaves' bread was an act of necessity, for the cornmeal was gone, but these biscuits were still a treat.

Meg laid on the butter, which they had in abundance, and the pepper, which was dwindling. Elijah started filling the soup bowls and Nate quickly carved the ham. It was a splendid meal after a hard and miserable day's work, and Meg knew that Bethel had laid out more than the family could reasonably spare. Mister Ainsley had lent the use of his men free of charge, and his only stipulation was that they were to be fed by Mister Cullen. The whole household was anxious to meet this condition as richly as they possibly could.

The extra hands had proved almost beyond value. With seven working, they had cleared the last of the deadfall from the top field by the middle of the afternoon. More knives were fetched from the house, and Elijah showed the borrowed laborers how to cut the broken stems neatly. Then he stood over them holding a drying pole and dictating which leaves should be saved and which discarded. Meg had been surprised and very much relieved to discover that the men, cotton workers though they were, seemed to catch on quickly and did well under Elijah's direction. She had stayed with Nate and Mister Cullen, holding their pole while they cut, and when the light faded and they could no longer see they had halted only three rows short of the end of the field. Behind them stretched plants liberated of their broken leaves, the remaining foliage damaged but hopefully worth saving. They did not know yet whether the remaining leaves would grow any larger: they would have to wait for that. Meg desperately hoped they would; the poor ragged seconds at the top of the plants were still only ten or eleven inches long, and what would have been the prime tobacco before it had been battered and torn was not quite ripe enough to cure well. If they took it as it was it would have a greenish discoloration, and that would further harm the price.

Lottie came into the cabin, toiling under the weight of two laden buckets. Meg hurried to relieve her daughter, who smelled strongly of wood smoke from her afternoon in the curing barn, and filled the two pitchers with cold well water. One was a sturdy earthenware thing that had been a fixture of this house for as long as Meg could remember: even back when it had been home to Nate's parents. The other was of porcelain painted with a green willow pattern. It was too chipped and discolored for use in the house, but Meg was very fond of it. The exotic pattern of trees and bridges and birds with sweeping tails, the boats and the strange Oriental houses and the running Chinamen had always captured her imagination. She set it proudly at the head of the table and nodded approvingly at the result.

"Please call the men in, Nate," she said, moving to stand in her usual place. They would be somewhat cramped, with seven people in a space that usually held no more than four, but as the neighbor's slaves came in and sat down, comparing tobacco stains and wondering laughingly if they would ever come off, she found she was glad of the throng. It reminded her of the old days when the quarters had teemed with life and noise. Sometimes the quiet yard and the empty cabins slowly slipping into dereliction filled Meg with a wistful melancholy. She wondered what had become of the others, her friends, the ones who had been taken by the bank to pay old Mister Bohannon's debts almost a decade before. She hoped they were contented, or at least free from suffering. There was no way to know.

"This here's one fine feas'," said David, smacking his lips eagerly as Meg piled his plate high with a sampling of each dish. She was glad that Bethel had taken over the cooking until the harvest was over: she was a passable cook herself, but she had nothing close to Bethel's skill or culinary imagination. "You folks eat like this ev'y day? Over yonder it been whispered you's pretty near starved out!"

"You didn' ought to listen to ev'ything you hear," said Nate, bristling a little. "We gets on all right."

Meg passed the plate of biscuits and Lottie grabbed one in wide-eyed delight. She broke the top off and inhaled deeply of the sweet scent, then set about smearing it liberally with butter. Levi took the plate next and whistled. "Flour biscuits!" he said with relish. "You' massa might work you all like pit mules, but at leas' you's fed well."

Nate cast a look down the table at Meg, and she saw the anxiety in his eyes. He knew this particular offering was a sign not of plenty but of utter destitution: the household had eaten the last of the bread bought and paid for, and all that was left was a barrel of flour that still belonged to the grocer in Meridian. Living on account was only one small step up from living on charity. For the slaves it was nothing but a source of fear, for there was not a Negro in the world too proud to eat what was offered. For Mister Cullen, Meg knew, the anxiety was made many times worse by the wretched humiliation of scraping for credit just to feed his people.

Meg feared for her master, worn down as he was by work and worry. Yesterday as they had sheltered together in the cowshed she had seen the awful, vacant look in his eyes as he had watched the hail hammer down upon the land. When he had gone out into the storm with nothing more than the hoarse exhortation that he had to know what had happened, she had been visited by the terrible thought that perhaps he had lost his mind. But when the rain slowed enough for her to venture out after him she had come upon the desolated field to find Mister Cullen standing shoulder to shoulder with Nate in the mud, hauling out a broken plant by the roots with the same unyielding determination with which he had been working all year. He had defied mud and mules, exhaustion and misery and sickness and shame, and now he was defying the hail as well. And just when it had seemed there was no hope of saving what was left of the crop from rotting in the muck, he had found a way to do that, too.

"He a strange one, you' massa," said Jim between mouthfuls of okra. "What he doin' out there in the mud, anyhow? Why don' he jus' ask Mist' Boyd for 'nother nigger? We coulda brung Tommy or 'Zekiel."

"Or both," agreed David. "Get them plants stripped in no time with a few more men. Ain't but fifty acres out there."

"Tobacco don' work that way," said Elijah calmly. Meg's pride was pricked by the other darky's offhand dismissal of the crop they had all toiled so ceaselessly to raise, and Nate was glowering, but the old man just smiled indulgently as he explained. "You got to take the leaves three-four at a time jus' when they's ready. Them broke ones we been taken woulda been ready in a few more days, but the res' ain't quite. We ain't leavin' them on 'count we gots too few men: we leavin' them 'cause they ain't done growin'."

"Oh, yeah?" said David, looking genuinely interested. "You think they's goin' keep growin' aft' the poundin' they took?"

"They gots to," said Nate. "We need them leaves full-sized even if they is ragged. We don' make twenty hogsheads we's goin' have trouble."

"How bad was the damage out your way?" Meg asked suddenly and rather too loudly. She didn't want these men taking stories of the Bohannon poverty back to West Willows to be spread to every slave in the county, and she knew Mister Cullen wouldn't want it either. She might be able to distract them by inviting them to talk about themselves instead. "Them clouds was blowin' straight for you."

"Got 'bout twenty acres flattened right to the groun'," said Levi as he demolished a potato with the back of his fork and stirred it in liberally with the hominy. Bethel had sent a little dish of ham gravy, and he poured some over the mixture. "'Nother thirty with the boles beat clean like they been picked by a man knew what he was doin'. Got cotton all wadded up in the mud like somebody tore up th' inside of a quilt an' stamped it into the dirt. Some the other plants ain't in such good shape, but Mist' Boyd say we's goin' pick them firs' jus' the minute they's dry."

"Shoulda see'd them li'l ones playin' in the storm," said David. "My boy wen' out while it was still pourin' an' got him a milk-pan full of hailstones. Big as cherries, some of 'em was. Shame he didn' fill a bucket: might have had us some ice cream!"

The good cheer with which these men talked of the storm that had left the prospects of her own plantation in ruins shocked Meg. She had been just as startled when they had fallen to singing. Didn't they understand what a disaster it was? But of course they did not, for it was not a disaster for them. They were not living one more failed crop from destitution.

"What he got wrong with him?" asked Jim thoughtfully. For a moment the others all looked confused: they had been talking about hail in the cotton, and the question made very little sense. "Your massa. He workin' like a nigger, but he getting' uppity with quality folks. Don' make sense.

Meg stiffened. "Mist' Sutcliffe ain' quality folks," she said vehemently. "He trash. He migh' ride a cos'ly horse an' wear fine clothes an' own him a hundred slaves, but he trash. Gentleman what puts trash in their place ain' gettin' uppity: he jus' doin' what right."

She had been too far away to hear what had passed between her master and Peter's, but from their bearing it had been obvious that the conversation was not congenial. Thinking back on it now, however, Meg remembered nothing but the awful moment when the wealthy man's eyes had strayed across the field to where her daughter had stood. Meg's blood had run cold with fear that was surely irrational, for the tobacco separated them and in any case Mister Cullen was standing right there and would never allow the man to touch her girl, but very real. And the way he had stiffened in the saddle at the sight of her… Meg felt sick just thinking about it and looked anxiously down towards her child where she sat snugly wedged between Nate and Elijah on the overcrowded bench. She was eating contentedly, her fingers stained green from gathering walnuts that morning while Bethel took her place in the kiln. She was happy and innocent and did not even look especially tired after her day's work. She was safe here.

When the meal was eaten the Ainsley men departed almost at once. No one had the energy to sit up talking long into the night, despite the treat of mixing with people from other plantations. The day had been a long one full of filthy and miserable work, and tomorrow would be more of the same. The three field hands struck out from the quarters due west, carrying a lantern that David had brought with him. This morning they had come politely by road, so as to approach from the drive, but Mister Cullen had told them they were welcome to cut across his meadows instead. It saved them almost three-quarters of a mile in their journey home. It was just like Mister Cullen to think of something like that: most white men wouldn't.

Elijah swept the floor and Nate wiped off the chairs and benches, which were smeared with mud from the slaves' dirty clothes. The stock had already been seen to, and very quickly with the extra hands to help, so the two men were now free to go to their beds. It was Nate's turn to take the second watch, so he had to be up in a couple of hours to go and relieve Mister Cullen. The middle watch of the night was the worst, as far as Meg could see. She didn't mind working a longer day if she had to: out in the tobacco from can-see to can't-see and then sitting up for three hours in the barn, or else sitting up before she went to the fields. But getting out of a warm bed to go out into the coldest and darkest part of the night, and then stumbling back to snatch another short rest before waking again in the predawn gloom was a misery. She hated it, and last night when Mister Cullen had offered to take her place she had been so tired and addled and discouraged after the miserable afternoon in the rain and the ruined crop that she had unthinkingly accepted.

Bethel had set her straight, and Meg was glad. She hadn't realized that Mister Cullen was coming down with the tobacco sickness again, but she should have. He'd been pale and quiet for days, and today, watching for it, she had seen how his hands shook and his knees trembled and wondered how she could have missed it. She had noticed how slowly he straightened and how carefully he slogged through the mud from plant to plant, fighting dizziness. And she had seen the dreadful drawn look on his face as the afternoon wore on: the look of a man in terrible pain. They were all hurting this time of year, and the chill of the day had made it worse, but this was something more. Meg was almost certain he was suffering from a misery in the head; she was prone to them herself after a long stretch in the wet tobacco, and she knew the torment they could be.

She poured hot water over the cold and stirred the contents of the dishpan while Lottie cleared the table. Meg washed and her daughter dried, setting the dishes carefully in the old cabinet. They worked quietly for a while, until finally Lottie spoke.

"Ma?" she said. "Who be that man on the big horse?"

"Hmm?" said Meg. She had been half-dozing while she worked, and the question had caught her unawares.

"When I brung down dinner. There was a man on a horse talkin' to Mist' Cullen," said Lottie. "Who he be?"

Meg's chest tightened and she swallowed painfully. "That Mist' Sutcliffe what owns your pa," she said. "Don' you remember him?"

Lottie shook her head. It had been over a year since she had last been to Hartwood to visit her father, and Sutcliffe generally gave the slave quarters a wide berth. You'd certainly never catch him on his knees on a cabin floor fixing an old man's table leg the way Mister Cullen had done for Elijah last month, that was certain. "Why was Mist' Cullen so angry with him?"

From across the field, so it seemed, the master's rage had been tangible. Meg could not bring herself to speak the whole truth, so she settled for a plausible fragment. "Mist' Sutcliffe been tryin' to buy up some of the massa's land," she said. "Massa don' wan' sell, 'cause if he sell a little he won' get a fair price an' if he sell a lot we ain' goin' be a plantation no more: Mist' Sutcliffe tryin' to push him out. You know Mist' Cullen don' take kin'ly to bein' pushed."

"But if he selled some land, maybe it wouldn' matter that the tobacco goin' fail," Lottie said in a small voice.

Meg looked sharply at her daughter and saw that Lottie's eyes were brimming with unshed tears. She put down the dishrag and wiped her hands on her apron, then reached to grip each of Lottie's thin shoulders. "Now you listen to me, my girl," she said. "That tobacco ain't goin' fail. We's los' some, sure, an' some of it ain't goin' fetch top price, but that crop ain't goin' fail. We's all out there workin' hard as we can to see that it don'. Elijah, he say we got a good chance of gettin' a fair harves', an' them plants in the bottom field is jus' as healthy as they was las' week. We goin' get the tobacco in, an' Massa goin' get us the bes' price possible, but we gots to keep workin' an' we gots to keep believin', you hear me? That mean you, too: you gots to believe the crop goin' be all right, or you goin' get scatterbrained an' careless when you watchin' them fires. Then the crop really _will_ fail, 'cause it won' be able to cure right; or they'll be a fire 'cause your mind is wanderin'. You wan' that?"

"No'm," said Lottie, shaking her head somberly.

"Then don' you talk 'bout the tobacco failin'!" said Meg. "That the trick to a good crop: you gots to _believe_."

"Mist' Cullen don' believe," Lottie murmured. "He got sadness in his eyes. He think the crop goin' fail."

"That's jus' foolishness," said Meg stoutly. "Mist' Cullen believe this crop worth savin': ain't he out there breakin' his back an' workin' when he poorly jus' to save it? His eyes is sad on 'count he tired an' he ain't well an' he don' get 'nough meat, but he believe in that crop jus' like we gots to. Even if mebbe he don' know it, he believe."

She sighed and cupped her daughter's cheek with one stained, work-roughened hand. She smiled wearily. "You hop 'long into bed an' get some sleep," she said. "I's goin' finish this here an' have a wash. That mud get into ev'ythin'."

Lottie scurried across the room and pulled off her dress. She smoothed the front of her shift and climbed into the bunk they shared. She flopped down on the pillow and pulled the covers over her head, and then abruptly sat upright again.

"Ma?" she asked. "Is the bottom field really jus' as healthy as las' week?"

"Yes!" Meg said, grateful that she could be entirely truthful at least about this. "Yes it is. Elijah say so, an' he been workin' tobacco pretty near sixty years. An' Mist' Cullen say so, too. We goin' get top price from that field, sure we is."

Lottie nodded and lay back down. Within minutes the coverlet was rising and falling slowly with the rhythm of her slumber. As Meg filled the old wooden tub with warm water and stripped off her wet and grubby clothes, she watched her child in quiet thankfulness.

_*discidium*_

Gabe was lying on his tummy under the sideboard in the dining room, playing quietly with Stewpot. The kitten was getting bigger and bigger, and as he grew he also got faster. The game of wrestling over a bit of knotted twine was now a tremendously exciting affair, and in his present position Gabe also ran the very thrilling risk of getting his nose scratched by Stewpot's batting claws. This had happened once, a few days ago, and though it had stung Gabe had felt very brave, like an explorer wounded in a battle with a mighty tiger. Bethel, of course, had been horrified, and had declared that cats did not belong in the house and weren't a fit companion for any child and that Stewpot ought to be out in the barn with his brothers and sisters where he couldn't hurt anybody. Gabe had been genuinely worried that he might lose his pet, but Mama had stepped in on Stewpot's behalf. She had pointed out that it was a tiny scratch, more pink than red, and that Gabe was not in the least bit distressed. And she had reminded Bethel that Pappy had agreed the kitten was an appropriate pet, and that Bethel had consented. And Bethel had had to allow that this was true, and Stewpot had remained in the house.

Gabe was glad, because with Lottie in the tobacco barn all day there were very few people for him to play with. Bethel never had time to play, not even at other times: she was more the sort to talk with him and listen to him and give him ideas about how to entertain himself while she worked. Mama loved to play with him, but with company in the house she could only play very quiet games that involved him sitting on her lap while she divided her attention between him and the guests. Anyway Gabe didn't like that sort of playing, because it put him right in front of the strangers and he still did not much trust them. Uncle Jeremiah said loud and cheerful things to him that did not make much sense, and Auntie Frances talked like he was a baby who couldn't understand her. And silly old Missy was useless. So mostly Gabe tried to stay out of the way and played with Stewpot.

It was Saturday afternoon, and that meant that everyone was supposed to be resting. That was the rule, anyway, but a long, long time ago in the spring Pappy had given up on taking the half-day off and usually spent it hard at work mending something or other. Gabe had been looking forward to this particular Saturday ever since the storm, because he had expected Pappy to spend it in the house fixing the broken windows. Instead, so he had heard Bethel say angrily to Mama just before dinner, Pappy and Nate and Elijah were working on in the tobacco, and Meg was relieving Lottie from her watch in the barn. Lottie was in the garden instead, digging onions, and there was still nobody to play with Gabe.

He didn't think Pappy ought to be working, he thought crossly as Stewpot made another successful lunge at the string and tugged energetically with clasped paws. Pappy had been sick in the night. Gabe had awakened to the noise of retching and the flare of a match as Mama hurriedly got out of bed. Pappy had been in the corner of the room, bent low over the washbasin as the sharp smell of vomit filled the air. Gabe had watched, peeking over the edge of the coverlet, as Mama put her arms 'round him and held his hair back from his face and murmured sweet, comforting things. In the end Pappy had rinsed his mouth and Mama had helped him back to bed before carrying the basin away. Gabe had closed his eyes tightly and tried to look like he was asleep while Pappy lay flat on his back beside him, trembling and taking shallow breaths and clutching a fistful of the bedsheet.

Gabe had wanted to cuddle close to him, because he liked to be held when _he_ was sick, but he hadn't dared. To see his pappy, his strong and brave and wonderful pappy, so weak and helpless, had been scarier than almost anything Gabe could imagine. Even after the shaking grew less and Mama came back to bed and they both fell asleep again Gabe had lain awake between them, frightened and wide-eyed in the darkness, now and then letting his small hand creep up to touch Pappy's arm while he slept. He had only just started to drowse when his father stirred, and instantly Gabe was alert again. This time, too, his parents had not seemed to notice, for Pappy was dressing doggedly in the dark while Mama protested in an anxious whisper. But in the end Pappy had gone out to the tobacco barn and Mama had come back to bed, and when she realized Gabe was awake and hugged him to her he had felt wetness on her cheeks.

Now Mama was sitting at the dining room table, peeling tomatoes while she talked pleasantly with Auntie Frances. The kitchen and the dining room were overrun with tomatoes, for Bethel had spent the last two days bringing in the entire crop. Many were ripe, and most nearly-ripe, but even the tiniest green ones had been brought off the vine because the hail had bruised them and they would spoil if left out. There had been green tomatoes at every meal since Thursday dinner, fried in the last little bit of cornmeal Bethel had kept back for that purpose. It was a wonderful treat and Gabe munched happily on the crisp, savory slices. Even Missy, who protested that she didn't like Mississippi food, ate them eagerly. There were stewed tomatoes and fresh tomatoes, too, and now Bethel was making tomato preserves to save the rest of the crop. They would have sweet preserves and savory preserves and spiced preserves laid by in the cellar, so that all winter they could enjoy the taste of garden tomatoes with their biscuits and their hominy and yams. Bethel said she might even make some green tomato pickles if they started to soften before they could blush or be eaten.

Two small, shiny buttoned shoes appeared at the edge of the sideboard and Gabe sighed expansively. Cousin Missy. In a moment she was down on her knees, voluminous frilly skirts spread like petals around her. She put her hands on the floor and leaned down, head tilted far to one side as she looked under the heavy piece of furniture at him.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Gabe flicked the string for Stew Pot and said nothing. It was obvious what he was doing: he was playing with his cat.

"That's a pretty little kitten," said Missy with practiced politeness. "What's her name?"

"Ain't a her, it a he!" said Gabe indignantly. He took hold of Stewpot and flipped him over, lifting his tail and pointing between his haunches at the tiny little bulge that Lottie had shown him when he had chosen the kitten. It was larger now than it had been then, but still tricky to spot amid the fur. "Dem's his bits. Dat mean he a boy cat."

Missy blushed crimson and closed her eyes. "You shouldn't talk about such things," she said primly.

Gabe snorted in what he thought was a good impression of his pappy. Yankee girls were silly creatures. Then he felt immediately ashamed of such a generalization, for of course Mama had once been a Yankee girl and she wasn't silly at all. Mama was clever and she was sensible and everything else that Missy wasn't.

"Well, you shouldn' call my kitten a girl!" he declared. "He ain't."

"Don't say 'ain't'," Missy instructed. "It's 'isn't'."

"I goin' say what I want!" argued Gabe. "You's jus' a silly girl."

"Girls aren't silly!" protested Missy hotly. "That isn't fair!"

"_'Ottie _ain't silly," said Gabe. "You is. Now go 'way: me an' Stewpot is busy."

Missy giggled. "Why do you call him Stewpot?" she asked, her indignation giving way to amusement.

Gabe frowned, puzzled. "B'cause dat his name," he said.

"But why did you _name _him Stewpot?" Missy pressed.

He didn't have an answer for this. Stewpot was named Stewpot because he was Stewpot. Nobody else had ever asked Gabe to justify this, and it seemed both foolish and oddly necessary to do so now. "He look like a Stewpot," he said uncertainly.

"Because of his color?" asked Missy. She lay down on her stomach, her skirts billowing over her bottom, and reached under the sideboard to rub a coppery patch behind the kitten's ear. "He _is_ kind of a stewpot color, except for the white patches."

Gabe was warming to this notion. "Yes. It his color," he said. "He like to chase my ball. An' to catch de string. Does you wan' try?" He held out the twine generously.

Missy took it between finger and thumb and dangled it in front of the kitten's nose. Stewpot crouched down into a hunting pose and sprang, batting happily at the knot. Missy startled and the string jumped, which only made Stewpot caper more eagerly. He lost his balance on the polished wood floor and fell onto his side. Gabe turned him over on his back and scratched his belly with two fingers. The kitten, who had been arcing inward in an attempt to right himself, suddenly stretched flat upon the ground and purred luxuriantly. Missy laughed and reached in to join in the petting.

"How soft he is!" she breathed. "I wish I could have a kitten." Then her hand withdrew suddenly as she sneezed. Stewpot craned his neck to look up at her, and Missy reached into her pocket for a lace-trimmed handkerchief. She wiped her nose delicately. "It must be dusty under here."

"It ain't," said Gabe indignantly. Mama and Bethel had cleaned every inch of the house just last week: there was no dust anywhere to be found. But Missy was smiling as she resumed stroking Stewpot's tummy and Gabe relented. "Maybe it a li'l bit dusty," he said generously.

Stewpot got up on his side and wriggled his head under Missy's hand. She started scratching behind his ears. "Where's the little black girl?" she asked. "Mama says you have a little black girl."

"I don'," said Gabe, bewildered. He pointed at Stewpot. "I gots a kitten."

"Mama said…" Missy murmured. She pulled back so that most of her face disappeared above the bottom of the sideboard. "Auntie Mary, don't you have a little black girl?"

Gabe heard Auntie Frances make a croaking sound, but Mama said; "That's Lottie, Missy. Perhaps you will meet her later. She's helping in the garden now."

Gabe frowned. Lottie wasn't little: Lottie was big. She was almost grown up. Missy didn't know what she was talking about. She sneezed again and then brought her head back down to his level. Stewpot mewed eagerly, and the two children fell back to petting him. At least they could agree on that, thought Gabe. Maybe Missy wasn't so bad after all, even if she was a little stupid.

_*discidium*_

After chores on Sunday morning Cullen retreated upstairs and got back into bed. He was unsteady on his feet and wracked with almost unbearable dizziness, and it was such sweet relief to lie down again so that the earth would stop spinning beneath him. He had struggled through yesterday in a fog of utter wretchedness, now and then staggering to the end of the row to vomit up bile and water – all that he could manage to force down – into the grass. But he had managed to keep from swooning uselessly away, and he had outlasted the sun. They had finished clearing the muddied leaves from the middle field on Friday, and were now finally picking from the plants that had escaped storm damage. Had he not been so overcome with the horrible all-consuming misery of tobacco sickness he might have savored the small victory of cutting leaves in the full glory of readiness, whole and undamaged and perfectly saleable.

They never would have managed even that little triumph without Boyd's kindness. They would still be out there trying to put right the damage from the storm while the leaves in the bottom field grew overripe and lost their value. There would not even have been a question of taking their much-needed day of rest, either: if not for Boyd and his three obedient field hands, Cullen would be out there now, fighting mud and illness and despair instead of huddling on the straw tick in his bedroom and subsisting quietly on the edge of consciousness.

He dozed through the day. Mary brought him a biscuit and some warm milk a little after dinnertime, and sat with him while he tried to eat. Then Bethel came and dosed him with anodyne powder for his throbbing head, and after that he slept for three hours before the need to relieve his bladder woke him. He managed to get to the chamber pot and back without losing either his balance or the contents of his stomach, and was forced to account that a victory. He crawled back beneath the blankets, shivering more violently than the cool but clement October weather warranted. His stretches of perspiring discomfort were punctuated by periods of unbearable chills when his teeth would clatter and his aching muscles jump and twitch in a fruitless effort to warm him.

He should have been out in the tobacco barn. Lottie was excused from her perpetual vigil on Sunday, and each of the three field hands and Cullen were meant to take shifts during the day. But it was obvious even to Cullen himself that he was in no fit state to keep watch over the fires, and Bethel had stepped in to take his place. She had done so on Saturday night as well, awaking long before dawn to sit the last shift and serving up breakfast late because of it. Tonight was once again his night to rest, and he was pathetically grateful. Perhaps after a day in bed and a good, long sleep he would be able to get back to work on Monday. He wouldn't be able to pick, but he could hold a pole – or hoped he could. Lying abed on a Sunday was one thing, but if he had to be immured here while the others were working, with the crop so tenuous and time so pressing, he thought he would just about perish with frustration and shame.

It was late afternoon when Mary came up again, slipping quietly into the dimmed room as if she expected to find him sleeping. Cullen, curled on his side with his legs drawn up to relieve the worst of the aching in his back, tried to smile for her. He feared he did not manage more than a thin rictus, but her expression brightened nonetheless.

"How do you feel?" she asked softly, coming to sit on her side of the bed so that she could reach to brush damp hair from his cheek.

"I'm good," he said, lying baldly. "Much better. Be back on my feet in no time."

"Are you feeling well enough to come downstairs for a little while?" queried Mary. "Jeremiah suggested we might open the Christmas barrel."

"Don't we want to save it for Christmas?" he asked groggily.

"We could," said Mary thoughtfully; "but Jeremiah seems to think it would be better right away. And that way he could report back to Mother and Father what everyone thought of their gifts. If you aren't feeling well enough we can leave it until next Sunday."

Cullen wanted to tell her to go ahead and open it without him, if Jeremiah was so all-fired anxious to do so, but he couldn't. He had just told her he was feeling much better, and now he had to prove it. So it was that he found himself dressed in his best day shirt and trousers and his silk waistcoat, shod in the worn old slippers, and propped up in his armchair in the parlor while the barrel was rolled onto the hearthrug. Bethel had brought the prybar and mallet from the toolshed, and she gave them to Jeremiah before retreating to a post by the door. There she took up the innocuous posture that was a remnant of her early training: the pose that fine house servants assumed to rendered themselves all but invisible until needed.

The children were very excited, and that alone was almost complete recompense for Cullen's efforts to dress and the lingering unease he felt at the thought of a barrel full of largesse from his wealthy in-laws. As Jeremiah tapped the prybar to drive it in under the barrel head, Gabe bounced on the balls of his feet, clapping eagerly, while Missy watched with clasped hands and shining eyes. On the sofa Mary sat looking cool and serene in her beautiful lavender frock, and despite the pounding in his head Cullen felt almost at peace in his skin.

The top of the barrel came off, and with it a shower of straw. Jeremiah tried to scoop up as many of the stray pieces as he could, and then removed fistfuls from the barrel. He dropped them carelessly on the floor and then stepped aside and beckoned to his sister. "Come on, now," he said eagerly. "What's the sense in me unpacking it? Come on: see what's inside."

He looked almost like a boy – a florid-faced, stout, mustached boy – and Cullen's habitual dislike of his brother-in-law eased a little. Mary got to her feet, laughing effervescently, and dug into the straw. Her expression altered as her hands struck something, and she drew out a dark bottle of wine. She studied the label. "Oh, Jeremiah, it's too much!" she breathed.

"That's from Father," he said. "There's two more in there, providing they've survived the journey, and three of the Yquem as well. Only the best for his darling baby, Mary Beth: you know that."

"Cullen, look!" said Mary, handing him the bottle. He smiled for her and turned it in his hands. Château Margaux, Leonidas Tate's personal favorite and one of the most expensive wines to be had. His inclination to rebel against such a costly gift was tempered by the knowledge that it was an eminently suitable present for a man to send his married daughter, and a luxury that Mary sorely missed.

"Very fine," he said quietly, and set the bottle with care on the small table next to him. Mary was bringing out the others while Jeremiah continued corralling the straw that surrounded them. All six bottles had indeed survived, and were soon sitting in a row on the mantelpiece, joined by the one Cullen had set down.

"And this must be for Cullen!" Mary exclaimed delightedly, pulling out another bottle. The enticing clarity of the amber liquid within was unmistakably: best Scotch whiskey. "Here, Gabe, take this to Pappy."

Cullen shook his head. "Put it on the sideboard, son. Nice and gentle." He watched as the child, puffed-out with self-importance at being entrusted with such a sacred charge, carefully deposited the heavy bottle beside the empty decanter. That too was only an appropriate, even customary gift.

Mary scooped the last handful of straw out of the barrel, and pulled out a thick tartan shawl that had been packed underneath.

"That's just for makeweight," Jeremiah explained, but Mary was brushing the fragments of straw from it and smoothing the rich woolen fringe with care. She looked up at Cullen with a question in her eyes, and he nodded.

"It can only be for Bethel," Mary said happily. She moved towards the door to give it to her. "Your old one is worn thin, and this will be wonderfully warm."

The dark eyes shone and the wizened hand closed on the fabric. "Thankee, Missus Mary," Bethel breathed, rapt with delight in being included so publically in the giving of the family gifts. Cullen watched Frances out of the corner of his eye, looking to see what she'd think of Mary hastening to share her gifts the "African" who shouldn't be touching children. She was smiling placidly, her expression studiously unreadable.

Mary went back to the barrel and reached in again. She came out with a little blue coat with bright brass buttons that was almost exactly the right size for Gabe.

"It was Julian's the year he was four," Frances explained. "For autumn wear, of course. I didn't think there was much use in packing his winter things."

"No, this is perfect for a Mississippi winter," said Mary. She looked around her to find her son, who was leaning against the arm of the couch. "Would you like to try it on, Gabe?"

"No," he said. Then, catching a look from Bethel, amended; "No, t'ank you."

Mary laughed and set the garment over the back of the sofa. Next she took out several little Holland shirts with fine ruffles, two pairs of sturdy but fashionable boy's trousers, and a waistcoat.

"Dat jus' like Pappy's!" Gabe exclaimed eagerly when this last garment was lifted. He pounded from one foot to the other thrice in rapid succession. "May I put it on, Mama? May I?"

Mary made a fine ceremony of helping him into the vest and doing up the shiny jet buttons. Gabe was then made to step out onto the hearthrug and turn around to display his manly dignity to everyone in the room. He cut a comical little figure with his Sunday clothes and his bare feet and the small silk waistcoat. Frances made much of him and Jeremiah applauded, and even Missy said pertly; "You look very dapper, Cousin." Then Gabe turned to Cullen, fairly bursting with pride.

Cullen nodded somber approval. "You're a gentleman now, son," he said. "You'll be riding in the hunt and squiring your mama to balls in no time."

Gabe giggled and climbed into his father's lap, and despite the wave of aching dizziness that tore through Cullen's head at the unexpected jostling he found there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to hold his son. He settled Gabe on one knee and fell to quietly admiring the buttons and the cloth and the tiny watch-pocket while Mary resumed the unpacking of the barrel.

Next came lengths of cloth, taken off their wooden bolts to save space but carefully folded and rolled to travel neatly. There were dress lengths: one of polished cotton in a becoming shade of blue, and one of dark green delaine printed with a pattern of oak leaves and acorns. There was a piece of cotton sateen and another of wool gabardine, both in deep shades of grey. Then Mary brought out papers of buttons: brass buttons cast as acorns to match the delaine, ceramic ones painted to look like strawberries, and a card of black trouser buttons. It seemed the family was going to be clothed for the year by the generosity of the Tates. Cullen did not so much mind the dresses for Mary, who needed them so badly and had not had a pretty new frock in two years, or even the handed-down clothes for Gabe, but he eyed the sateen and the gabardine with unease. He didn't much want pants he couldn't buy for himself.

Mary's breathless exclamation made him look up. She had just brought a pair of shoes out of the barrel. They were of dark-brown leather, polished to a high gloss but still unmistakably scuffed by eager little feet. And they had bright copper toes. "I think they're just his size!" she cried delightedly. She ran the three steps to Cullen's chair and dropped down on her knees, loosening the shoestring of the left one as she went. "Gabe dearest, give me your foot and let me try it on," she said.

Gabe obeyed, pushing his foot energetically down into the boot. It too had doubtless belonged to Julian four or five years ago, and Cullen had to bite his tongue before he told his wife to take them right off again. It was foolish to feel that way, he knew. Passing down clothes from brother to brother or cousin to cousin was common practice, and it only made sense. Children outgrew clothing before they could possibly wear it out, and it was economical and practical and sound to hand garments down to littler ones. But Cullen had had neither brothers nor close cousins, and he wasn't accustomed to the practice. And although he knew it was foolish he also thought he would have been less uncomfortable with this gift if he had possessed the means to buy shoes for his own son. It seemed different to accept them when he couldn't provide them that it would have been to accept them if he could but no longer had to. It wasn't logical, but it was very much how he felt.

The shoes were a half-size too large, and Mary was absolutely rapturous with joy. "They're so handsome, darling!" she exclaimed to her son. And to Frances and Jeremiah; "How ever did you know?"

"Just a lucky guess, Mary Beth," Jeremiah said. "One not-quite-four-year-old is much the same as another, at least in the feet."

After this disruption Mary went back to unpacking the barrel. She was getting quite far down in it now and had to bend at the waist to reach. She brought out a card of hairpins and a little carved box to put them in, as well as a bundle of half-a-dozen silk handkerchiefs embroidered with roses. There was a pound of tea in a prettily painted tin, and a net bag full of brightly-colored Christmas candy. Then out came a quart sack stitched closed at both ends. It rustled under Mary's grasp, and a scent of lilac filled the air. "Emily sent that especially," said Jeremiah. "She knows it's your favorite and she read somewhere that they don't grow down here."

"They don't," said Mary, holding the bag under her nose and drinking in the scent of the dried petals that she used in her sachet. "I do miss them in the spring, and my cache was getting low. I shall have to write and thank her: what a kind thought!"

Now that was a gift Cullen could feel at ease about: dried flowers, inexpensive for Mary's sister to purchase but almost unobtainable in Mississippi; a sweet little reminder of home for a transplanted Northerner, and a simple, feminine treasure. There was nothing to hurt his pride in that. He might have made himself into a more successful man who could furnish his wife and child with clothes and shoes, and put wine on the table, and buy hairpins as needed, but he would never be able to make a lilac tree grow in Mississippi.

Next Mary brought out a small box with brass hinges and a latch. "That's for Gabe from Grandmother," said Jeremiah.

Mary's smile was positively radiant. "Dearest, would you like to open it?" she asked.

Gabe nodded and Mary put the box in his hands. Cullen put his palm under it to support its weight while Gabe worked out how to open the latch. He lifted the lid and whooped in delight. Inside was a set of tin soldiers: two little armies in divided compartments, their uniforms red and blue. Each had a little cannon with an attendant cannoneer, and small generals mounted on painted horses with tin plumes sculpted on their tin hats. There were tin lieutenants and two little tin captains, and each side had a dozen tin privates with rifles on their shoulders. Gabe was almost mute with excitement as he tried to stuff three of the blue soldiers into his vest pocket and filled his hands with the others. Cullen, yet again faced with a perfectly acceptable gift, looked up from enjoying the detail of the toys to see that Mary and Jeremiah were exchanging a small, uneasy look.

"That's just about everything, I think," said Mary, and she leaned to draw out a spread piece of newsprint. Then her face lighted up again. "Not quite!"

"I'll bring those out: they're a little heavy," said Jeremiah. Mary stepped back and he lifted out two bundles of magazines bound in thick twine: back issues that the Tates had read and saved. There was a year's worth of _Godey's Lady's Book _for Mary, and eighteen editions of _Harper's Monthly_. This was followed by a small stack of recent New York papers. "Don't know whether you're interested or not," Tate said to Cullen. "But I bought these up before we left. I always like reading about other folks' politics."

"Thank you," Cullen said, almost earnestly. It was a good thought, and the sort of thing one man did for another, but he didn't have time for reading. Mary was kneeling again, already unknotting the bundle of _Godey's Lady's Book. _She gave a tiny, happy cry when she lifted the first issue.

Beneath it was a picture book, printed in four colors. Mary called Gabe down to look at it, and he slipped off of Cullen's knee, fists still burgeoning with captured troops. Cullen set the box of soldiers on the table and shifted to try to find a more comfortable position for his sore body. Mary took Gabe onto her lap and began to turn the pages for him.

"I picked it out," said Missy. She hurried to sit on the edge of Mary's skirt, leaning in to look. "I picked it out for Gabe, Auntie Mary. I like the animals. That's a lion," she informed her cousin, pointing. "See his mane?"

Gabe growled ferociously, bouncing happily against his mother. Missy opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a shallow little cough. Smiling sheepishly she murmured, "Pardon me." Then she went back to narrating the image for the younger child.

Jeremiah scooped up the fallen straw into the barrel and tilted it on its edge so that he could roll it out into the corridor. Bethel held the door for him. When he returned to sit beside Frances, Bethel started to gather up the lengths of fabric. The guests were all satisfied, and Mary was poring delightedly over the picture book while Gabe watched enraptured. It was a moment of genuine ease and happiness in a hard year, and Cullen should have been able to enjoy it with his family. But he was ill and he was weary, and tomorrow's toils were already dragging on him, and once again he wondered helplessly how his life had come to this. Looking at his beautiful wife and his contented child, he could feel only dread for the weeks and months to come. How would he provide for them? How could he give them what they deserved in life? And what was amiss within him that he could not savor one quiet evening at home?


	33. Uneasy Partings

**Chapter Thirty-Three: Uneasy Partings**

It was the middle of the morning on Monday, but Cullen was neither soaked to the skin nor smeared with mud. Nor was he stooping in tight-lipped misery among the tobacco. He was seated on the milking stool in the sunshine, with a hundredweight crate next to each boot. In front of him, strung between two forked branches driven into the ground, was the pole of lugs he was sorting. He cut the stem of each leaf where it was split to admit the rail, examined it quickly and placed it into the appropriate box. Several feet away Elijah was engaged in the same careful process. He sorted more quickly than Cullen did, for he could tell at a glance whether the lug was of good or indifferent quality. The younger man had to make a careful inspection, looking for discoloration or cracking, mold or grime or damage that might alter the worth of the leaf. It was a customary sharp practice among tobacco farmers just to put in the first few layers, top and bottom, in good leaf and fill the rest with poor or unsorted stuff, but Cullen insisted that they shun such dubious behavior. Questions of honor aside, he had a reputation for straight dealing with his buyers in New Orleans, and that was a valuable thing. It saved time in the inspections and stood him in good stead during the haggling. The extra work was worth it, particularly today.

At first he had been taken aback by the aged foreman's insistence that they had to pack the first batch today. He had suspected, naturally enough, that Elijah had been enlisted by Bethel in a conspiracy to keep him out of the fields for one more day. But upon examining the overcrowded barn he had been obliged to concede that they could wait no longer: if they did, there would be nowhere to put the poles that Meg and Nate were filling right now. So Cullen found himself sitting with the sun on his back, his eyes shaded by the dilapidated remains of his straw hat, his lightheadedness almost gone and his headache faded to a steady but tolerable thrum. The lugs, dried and cured and rested, were feathery between his fingers, and he was sorting more of them into the good crate than the poor one. He could almost forget that this was not the first wave of the bountiful and healthy crop for which he had been toiling all year.

"We's goin' need more boxes," said Elijah. "Ain't got but fifty."

Cullen looked up as he laid another long, fluted leaf amid the others. "How many you figure we'll need?" he asked.

Elijah shook his head. "I was hopin' for three hundred this year, but it don' look like we's goin' come close to that now. Mebbe a gross in all. Won' know 'til we sees how them bruised plants is growin'."

"Is there really a chance they'll ripen up?" asked Cullen. "Or is like Bethel's tomatoes, and you're just trying to give me false hope."

"I don' trade in no false hope, Massa," said Elijah. "You trus' me to tell you the truth as I knows it, an' that what I does. There still a chance they might. An' if they don't we can jus' chop 'em off at the stalk and hang 'em whole to dry; save the trouble of primin'."

Cullen frowned. The practice of taking the plant all at once instead of picking the leaves as they ripened was a trait of the smallest farms; places where some poor Cracker and his malarial offspring struggled to scrape out a living from a few acres of swamp. On plantations the more labor-intensive priming process was almost universal, because it produced a range of tobacco that could aspire to include the very best. It would be just another sign of failure if they had to resort to such backwoods measures.

"I'll pick up some boards next week when I drop the Tates at the station," he said, trying to focus on what he could control instead of the vast web of imponderables holding what was left of his crop to ransom. His credit with the lumber yard was good: he had set up an account last autumn and paid it off promptly upon his return from the disheartening trip to New Orleans. He didn't know if he'd be able to meet that obligation this year, but without the crates they had no means to ship the tobacco. It was an unavoidable risk. "We'll have to make them ourselves: I can't pay a carpenter."

"Sure, we can do that," said Elijah. "We saw 'em all down to size an' we can knock 'em together while we's watchin' the fires. Make the nights go faster if we have somethin' to do."

Looking up again, mildly surprised that he had not thought of this himself, Cullen nodded. "That's just what we'll do," he said. "Might just have the lumber yard do the sawing, too, though it'll mean another trip into Meridian. We're mighty short on time and hands."

"Shame Mist' Ainsley wouldn' let you have them boys longer 'n three days," said Elijah. "Could do a lot with three more men."

"No. We had 'em as long as we needed 'em to clear them rows and save what's left," said Cullen. "I couldn't impose any longer than that. Mr. Ainsley needs his people now: the cotton ought to be dry enough for picking again."

"Cotton hands," Elijah snorted in good-natured scorn. "Cain't work when it's wet, don't know what it is to go down the same row six-seven times in one harvest. They's sof'."

"Sounds to me like you's jealous," Cullen ribbed. "You ever wish I'd just give up and plant cotton?"

Elijah shook his head. "Tobacco's what I know," he said. "You plant cotton, what use you got for this old nigger?"

"It might be easier," he murmured.

"It ain't," declared Elijah. "Ain't nothin' but a diff'rent kind of hard. Plantin' is plantin', Mist' Cullen, an' when you's down at dirt level it wearisome work. Ain't so much, mebbe, if you jus' the one givin' orders an' watching other folks work, but down here where we's at it always goin' be hard."

"How do you stand it?" The question was out before Cullen could catch it. Sometimes he forgot that he was the master; sometimes it was as if he was still the idle heir of the household, shambling across his father's acres and probing for insight into the world around him.

Elijah shrugged his shoulders. "Wha's a body to do but stand it?" he asked. "Ain't no way out but starvin', an' I never did take well to that."

He laughed, and Cullen grinned thinly. It didn't seem funny to him; not in the least. Exhausted and ill though he had been last night he had lain awake for over an hour fretting, adding up columns of figures in his head and trying to figure out whether the expected return on the crop would cover the projected expense of stores and seed for the coming year. He hadn't managed to cobble together even one coherent estimate, for his aching head had proved unequal to the task. He had the first watch tonight: he would bring down his ledgers and the almanac and try to work through the calculations on paper while he watched.

He was coming near to the end of the pole now. The box of good lugs was three-quarters full, and the box of poorer stuff about a third. It wasn't a bad ratio, not at all. He might have found it within himself to be contented with it, had his mind not been so much occupied with worrying about the rest of the crop.

_*discidium*_

By Wednesday Cullen appeared to be on the mend, his appetite recovered and his complexion restored to its healthy weathered brown. Thus Mary felt comfortable enough to leave the plantation for a few hours to go calling on Verbena Ainsley.

Frances was remarkably excited by the prospect. It seemed she had harbored secret dreams of visiting a sumptuous plantation house of the kind so often described in Northern periodicals. Doubtless the modest Bohannon home had been a disappointment to her. She spent the entire morning dressing her hair and choosing her gown and making sure that Missy was turned out in her most becoming finery. Mary, far less in awe of the neighbors, simply put on her lavender frock and made certain her coiffure was neat and smooth, and then got Gabe into his good suit.

Julian's outgrown boots completed the boy's outfit perfectly. Mary had not realized how much the want of shoes for her child had weighed upon her mind until the worry was lifted. Intellectually she had known that there was no great urgency: days in Mississippi did not even turn cold until the end of November. But raised as she had been in a land where a substantial snowfall might be expected before election time, the knowledge that Gabe had been unshod into October had distressed her. She wondered privately whether that had not been Jeremiah's chief reason for wanting the barrel opened right away, too. If it had been, she was grateful that he had said nothing about it. Mary had been left with the distinct impression that some of the gifts – and this one in particular – did not sit well with Cullen. She thought perhaps it hurt his pride to accept such things, even if they did come from her family. He had grown up with so few relations that he did not really understand: had the Bohannons resided in New York or New England, where they would have had regular contact with the Tates, they would have been given such articles for their child as soon as Julian grew out of them – or at the very least as soon as Gabe grew into them.

Whatever his private feelings Cullen had said nothing against accepting the shoes, nor indeed any of the other gifts, but Mary had noticed that he hadn't yet opened his bottle of whiskey. Even ill as he had been she would have expected him to show an interest in sampling that. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but she was reluctant to do it. She knew that Cullen was unquiet in his mind, and she thought perhaps he wanted to keep his thoughts to himself; at least until Jeremiah and Frances were gone and he could enjoy the sanctuary of his home again.

But the guests were not departing until Monday morning, and Mary had to keep Frances entertained. So that afternoon Jeremiah hitched Pike and Bonnie to the buggy, and the two women crowded their hoopskirts into it. With Gabe between them, almost buried in flounced skirts and sweeping sleeves, and Missy on the driver's board beside her father, they set out for the Ainsley plantation.

They were unannounced, but Mary knew they would be graciously and enthusiastically welcomed. Cullen had Boyd's assurances of that, of course, but he did not really need them. It was something Mary had learned very quickly after coming to Mississippi: Southern hospitality was extravagant and unquestioning and always at the ready. The county ladies did not even have designated "at home" days like the women of Manhattan, when they were prepared to accept visitors. Every day was a visiting day in Lauderdale County. Ladies would pick up on a whim and drive out to a neighbor's for tea or even for supper; if the neighbor happened to be absent there were always courteous house servants to provide a little refreshment and insight into where their mistress might be found. Then the visitor would simply move on to the next plantation. The men were at still greater liberty to drop in on one another. Even the young bachelors, who in New York would never have been welcomed without adequate warning, might pop in to call on their belles with perfect spontaneity – though if the girl was at home unchaperoned they risked being sent on their way at once by an indignant mammy. The planter class had both the leisure and the means to entertain guests elegantly and at a moment's notice.

So it was that Mary soon found herself sitting in the sunny comfort of the back parlor of West Willows, dandling eight-month-old Lucy Ainsley on her lap while Verbena poured the tea. Charity and Missy were up in the nursery, presumably inspecting Charity's dolls. Charlie, Gabe, and Leon were in the vestibule, engaged in some sort of game that involved charging up and down the broad staircase at such a speed that little Daisy, who was not yet two and was exceedingly anxious to be included, could not possibly keep pace with them. The boys' eager whoops and uproarious laughter came through the open parlor door, punctuated now and then by the lisping protests of the tiny girl.

"They do raise such a ruckus at that age," Frances said as she accepted her teacup and stirred in a spoonful of sugar. "I don't know how you manage with five, my dear: it was all I could do to bring up my three!"

Verbena was always at her loveliest when discussing her children. "Little darlings," she said. "I hope I shall have a dozen. I'm very blessed: Boyd don't mind the noise at all. Though so far none of the children have shown any sign of inheriting their father's quiet nature."

Lucy burbled as if in agreement and reached for Mary's earbobs. Mary tossed her head to make them dance, but kept the baby a safe distance away. Lucy was a plump and rosy-cheeked child: the perfect portrait of a healthy infant. In her lace cap and elaborately ruffled gown she looked positively scrumptious. Mary let her close a wee fist around each of her thumbs and bounced one knee playfully. Her hoop bobbed and the baby crowed with delight.

Mary smiled, widening her eyes so that the baby would do the same. "_Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross to see what Lucy can buy!" _she chanted. "_A penny white loaf, a penny white cake, and a tuppenny apple pie!_"

As she reached the end of the verse she jiggled her leg more quickly, until Lucy was laughing almost uncontrollably. Mary lifted her into the air, stretching as far as propriety allowed, and then swooped the baby back down into her lap. Lucy dug both plump legs against Mary's skirts and bounced happily.

Mary flushed a little as she realized that the other two women were watching her. She smiled, half-apologetic.

"You're so good with her, Mary," Verbena said. Her eyes were shining happily with the pride of a loving mother.

"You ought to have another one of your own!" Frances declared. "Gabe needs a little brother or sister. Doesn't Mr. Bohannon want more?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, of course," Mary said reflexively, keeping the smile on her face. Suddenly she did not feel so carefree and ebullient. She had had so little time in these last two months to think about the little one she had lost, but suddenly the anguish of the dashed dreams returned to her in full force. She looked down at little Lucy, so pretty and perfect in her arms, and her ribs grew tight beneath her corset. If she had not miscarried she would be four months along now: starting to lace loosely and just about ready to give up any sort of public appearance until the close of her confinement. At four months, she had first felt Gabe quicken.

Realizing that she had allowed the conversation to lapse and that Verbena was now studying her curiously, she brightened her smile. "Has she shown any sign of cutting her first tooth yet, Verbena?" she asked pleasantly.

"Not yet," the lady replied, easily diverted to the topic she loved best. "Mind you, Leon didn't get his until he was almost a year old. I'm not in any hurry." She smiled conspiratorially. "Charity was a biter," she said, blushing a little.

"Oh, poor dear!" exclaimed Frances. Then she frowned bemusedly. "Or do you… well…" She glanced around the room, but of course the three matrons were alone. "_Do _you nurse her? Or do you have a darky wetnurse? I've heard such things are done."

Mary could have pinched Frances for her lack of tact. She had earnestly hoped to get through the visit without touching on the issue of slavery. She didn't know what Jeremiah and Boyd were talking about, but as they had retreated to the library she devoutly hoped it was Boyd's collection of curios. She had not thought to worry about Frances.

But Verbena, the perfect paragon of Southern womanhood, merely smiled graciously as if the question were neither obtuse nor impolite. "Oh, yes, it's done," she said sweetly. "What else are ladies who are unable to provide their own milk to do, poor lambs? A good Negro nurse is worth her weight in gold. But that really is a matter of necessity, Frances. What mother wouldn't tend to her own baby if she could? Besides," she added gently; "Mammy brought up Boyd and his sisters: she's beyond all that now."

"How peculiar," said Frances. "I cannot imagine keeping a nursemaid engaged over two generations. We dismissed ours as soon as Missy turned six!"

"My nanny was engaged to look after Samuel's children," Mary pointed out to her sister-in-law. For Verbena's benefit she added; "Samuel is my eldest brother."

"Well, yes, but that's only natural!" said Frances. "It's so difficult to find trustworthy servants, and of course the woman must have been glad to keep with the same fine family."

"That's just how it is with mammies," said Mary. "I don't think Bethel would even consider not looking after Cullen's children; she loves him so."

"Yes, but dear, she couldn't leave even if she wanted to," Frances said reprovingly. "She has no choice."

Mary's burst of shame was suddenly aborted by an unsettling realization. Had her own nanny had any more choice than a slave? An unwed, uneducated middle-aged woman who had escaped life in a Brooklyn slum by entering domestic service, who had lived subordinate in other people's homes from the age of fourteen… what freedom did she have to pick a different life? She might seek employment with some other family, of course, but always as a servant. She tried to remember whether her nanny had even known how to write her own name, but she could not. Certainly she had not had the same bonds of love and perfect trust with Mary's parents that Bethel had with Cullen.

"What happened to her after she was dismissed?" asked Verbena.

"Hmm?" said Frances vacantly.

"Your nursemaid. What happened to her after you turned her out of your home?" Verbena's expression was one of mild curiosity, but there was a glimmer in her eyes that almost seemed like dismay.

"To Rosie? Oh, I don't know," said Frances airily. "Found work with another family, I suppose. I did give her a reference. Not a really first-class one, of course, for she did tend to fall asleep in the afternoons while the children were napping, but it was certainly serviceable."

For a brief moment Verbena's carefully cultivated mask of serenity cracked, and Mary saw that she truly was horrified. Frances did sound so calloused and oblivious. There were days when Mary very nearly dozed off while Gabe was napping, and she had only the one child, and Lottie and Bethel to help her keep pace with him. Suddenly she found herself pitying the poor Maine nursemaid.

Verbena's expression was placid again, and she said calmly; "I'm sure I should always wonder how she was getting on. Bringing up the children does make one part of the family."

Before Frances could say anything else unbecoming, there was a deafening ululation of victory and the boys came careening into the parlor. Charlie was in the lead, brandishing a wooden sword. Gabe, close on his heels, had one as well. Leon, who had evidently been obliged to surrender his weapon to his guest, had a huge bedraggled ostrich plume instead. They wove between the sofas, crawled under Boyd's vacant armchair and then presented arms across the hearth.

"Well, now, what's this?" asked Verbena. "Is Camelot in danger again? Or are we under attack from the Indians?"

Charlie shook his head vehemently. "Redcoats!" he announced. "Gabe says they're hiding all 'round the woods!"

"We goin' fin' dem, Mama: don' worry," Gabe reassured Mary solemnly.

"Redcoats," agreed Leon.

"Where did Daisy go?" said Verbena.

Charlie wrinkled his nose disdainfully. "She's with the girls," he said in obvious exasperation. "Looking at doll petticoats, I guess."

"Ah." Verbena nodded solemnly. She shot a mischievous glance at Mary. "I think you three ought to patrol down to the kitchen to make sure the Redcoats haven't captured our supplies," she said. "And if they haven't perhaps Cookie can give you some rations to keep you fed on your march."

"Yes, ma'am!" Charlie said, saluting her crisply.

Gabe leaned forward out of rank to study his friend's posture, and looked at his own hand as he moved his fingers into position and raised them to his brow. "Yes, ma'am!" he echoed.

Leon was tickling his chin with the feather and did not seem to feel the need to contribute his thoughts.

"Ready, men?" asked Charlie. Then he threw back his head towards the ceiling. "_Chaaarge!_" he bellowed, and bolted from the room with his saber held high. The other two ran after him, taking up the call.

"The Mississippi Militia, defending the helpless ladies of Lauderdale County from the cruel invaders," Verbena said fondly. "How big your boy is growing, Mary. He looks more like his father every time I see him."

"Yes," Mary said proudly. "My handsome little gentleman."

The conversation meandered thereafter to horticulture, needlepoint and the weather, until the time came for Mary to remark that they needed to be getting home. Verbena asked if they would stay to supper, but Mary declined, saying that Bethel would be expecting them. The Ainsely butler fetched Jeremiah and one of the housemaids collected the children while the carriage boy hitched up Pike and Bonnie and brought the buggy around. Boyd and Verbena offered a most courteous farewell, and Mary and the Tates thanked them. Then they piled into the buggy and set off for home, Missy chattering happily about Charity Ainsley and Gabe cuddling drowsily against Mary. On the whole it had been a pleasant afternoon.

_*discidium*_

Monday morning dawned bright and cool upon a house that had been abuzz with activity for an hour already. The trunks were packed and loaded into the back of the wagon, and the Tates were dressed in their sedate travel clothing. The two families, Cullen included, sat down for one last pleasant breakfast together, and then it was time for Mary to say her goodbyes.

"Thank you for taking such good care of us, dear," Frances said, kissing her sister-in-law on the cheek. "I know it can't have been the best of times to be afflicted with company."

"We were proud to have you," said Mary. "I have so missed everyone: it was lovely to get a little taste of home."

"You must be sure to write as often as you can," declared the older lady. "And do think about coming to visit when your harvest is in."

Mary smiled but did not remark upon this. Frances turned and lowered herself almost to Gabe's level. "Goodbye, Gabriel dear," she said. "You'll be a little man before I see you again, I think."

"Yup," Gabe agreed, nodding his head. Over the last week he had seemed to grow accustomed to the unfamiliar adults in his home, but he had not really warmed to them. "I's a li'l man. G'bye, Auntie F'ances." He took a little step backward, tightening his grip on his kitten so that Stewpot had to wriggle to get enough ease to breathe.

"Aren't you going to kiss me goodbye?" asked Frances in a tone of playful indignation.

"Don' t'ink so," said Gabe, looking sidelong at his mother. Mary smiled reassuringly at him, and he relented a little. "I guess you may hug me."

Frances laughed and did so, then stepped back. "Say goodbye to Auntie Mary, Missy."

Missy stepped forward, and her arms moved uncertainly. Mary understood, and bent to embrace her. "Goodbye, Auntie Mary," Missy said, sounding rather hoarse as though she wanted to cry. "I know I shall miss you."

"I'll miss you too, darling," Mary said. "Have a safe journey home. I'll be sure to send you letters."

"I will, too!" said Missy happily, her melancholy face brightening at this prospect. "I'll write every week!"

She turned next to Gabe, and before he could react bent and kissed him. "Goodbye," she said. She smiled shyly. "I'll miss you. And you don't speak funny after all."

"You don't neider," said Gabe generously. He put his hands around the kitten's ribs and held him out. "Say goodbye to Stewpot?"

"Goodbye, Stewpot," Missy said, scratching the kitten behind the ears. His hind legs batted pleasurably, but Missy had to withdraw her hand and reach hastily for her handkerchief as she sneezed three times in rapid succession. This was followed by a shallow cough. "I'll miss you, too," she said.

After a few more obligatory wishes for a safe and comfortable journey from Mary, Frances and her daughter stepped out into the orange morning light, and Jeremiah was left alone with his sister and nephew. Mary looked at her brother, watching her with soft, sad eyes, and she did not know what to say.

"Can't I persuade you to come after all?" he asked quietly. "We could delay until tomorrow to give you a chance to pack. I'd explain to your husband for you."

"No," said Mary. "No, I couldn't possibly. My place is here. My home is here." She closed the distance between them and reached to put her palm against her brother's cheek. "I know your heart is in the right place, but you have to try to see how impossible it is for me to leave."

He screwed his eyes closed. "I do," he said. "I truly do. I just…"

He looked at her and reached to draw her hand away from his face. He clutched it in both of his own, looking down at her fingers as if trying to memorize their every contour. "I just wish I could be sure I would see you again," he whispered, his voice catching painfully in his throat.

"Of course you will," Mary promised. "It may not be for another five years, but of course we'll see each other again!"

He studied her face and nodded. "I'm being foolish, I know," he said. "But if Mississippi does leave the Union…"

"Then it will be no different than if I were living in Paris or Montreal," declared Mary. "Postage would be more expensive, that's all. I still do expect you to write when you can."

"Of course I will," he promised. He reached up and, in an intimate gesture he had not made in fifteen years, stroked the wing of hair that swooped down from her part to her ear. "Take care of yourself, Mary Beth. I know you'll take care of Cullen Bohannon and that fine little boy, but I want you to take care of yourself as well."

"Don't be silly," she murmured, but her throat was tight and she was afraid she might start weeping. Suddenly she wanted to throw herself into his arms and weep against his shoulder, the way she had the year she was five when she had fallen down the steps of the Manhattan townhouse and scraped her knees raw. Instead she squeezed his hand and smiled. "Have a safe journey. And do try to be patient with Frances in the stagecoach: I think she lives in terror of them now."

Jeremiah's laugh caught painfully in his throat and his eyes locked with hers. In an instant the whole history of their shared lives seemed to pass between them. Then a polite cough came from the doorway and the spell was broken.

"I hate to interrupt the fond farewells," said Cullen. He was leaning on the doorjamb and consulting his watch. "But we ain't got but ninety minutes before your train leaves, and it'll take the mules a full hour to get into Meridian. Sure you don't want to come, Mary? Give you a little longer to say goodbye."

In that instant she wanted nothing more than to delay the parting, but she knew that it was best to get it over with now. Besides, she was not dressed for a drive into town: she had put on the nicest of her work dresses without a hoop, in anticipation of helping Bethel to put the house to rights. "I'd best not," she said. She kissed her brother's cheek. "Goodbye, Jeremiah, and thank you. For everything. You're so very sweet."

Jeremiah mustered an unsteady smile, the corners of his mustache quivering. Then hastily he turned from her and dropped to one knee before his nephew. "Goodbye then, Gabe," he said. "You look after your mama, you hear me?"

"Yassir," said Gabe stoutly. "I always looks after Mama."

"Good," said Jeremiah. He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and brought out a glittering gold coin. "Here's a dollar for you. Don't lose it, and don't spend it all at once."

Gabe's face broke into an eager grin. He had never before had his very own money. He held out his hand and closed it tightly around the coin. "I won't," he pledged. "G'bye, Uncle Jeremiah. You take care on dat train."

Jeremiah chuckled as he got to his feet, then glanced at Mary and lost his smile. Swiftly he moved in and brushed his lips against the crest of her cheekbone, his whiskers tickling her temple. "Goodbye," he breathed. Then he squared his shoulders and strode off past Cullen, and jogged down the veranda steps towards the waiting buggy.

Mary tore her eyes away and found Cullen watching her. "You all right?" he asked softly, his expression gentle.

She nodded. "You'd best get on," she said. "It would never do to miss the train."

"Yup," Cullen huffed. He smiled shallowly and pushed himself off the doorpost, then strode down to climb up beside Missy. He gathered the reins and clicked his tongue. "Off we go!" he said as the Morgans picked up into a trot.

With a rattle of wheels and a squeaking of springs the buggy was gone from view. Mary might have gone out onto the veranda to wave them off and to watch until they vanished up the drive, but she could not quite bring herself to do it. Instead she turned around and put on her very sunniest smile for Gabe. "You've been such a good boy for the company," she said. "Let's go and put that dollar in my jewel box where it will be safe."

"No!" said Gabe, his expression suddenly very fierce. He lowered his arm to drop the kitten and then clasped his empty hand over the one clutching the dollar. "Pappy keep _his _money in de desk. I wan' put mine in dere, too."

The obdurate set to his jaw and the belligerent look in his eyes were such a perfect echo of Cullen's that Mary found herself laughing. "All right, then: into the desk it goes."

She let him lead her into the parlor and lifted him up so that he could tuck his dollar into one of the drawers near the top of the secretary. By the time this little ceremony was concluded Bethel had come out from the kitchen and was waiting in the front entryway. Mary greeted her with a determined smile. "Let's get to work," she said, and the black woman nodded.

The most important order of business was changing the mattress on the Bohannons' bed. After a fortnight the straw was finally broken in to the point where it was almost comfortable, but Mary intended to get Cullen back into a feather bed as quickly as she could. She didn't know whether his sleep had been broken by the unfamiliar mattress, or whether it was just that his tossing and turning was more evident on straw, but it worried her. It was hard work for the two women to wrestle the heavy tick off the bed and to move the two lighter but equally ungainly feather mattresses up the hallway. Gabe watched the entire procedure with great interest from the safety of the stairwell. When the bed was made and the guests' sheets and pillowslips bundled up to be washed the next day, it was time to restore the nursery to its original owner. These efforts were superintended by Gabe, who knew every change that had been made and insisted they all be put right to his satisfaction. When Mary's third attempt to put his rag rug back "'sac'ly" where it belonged failed, Gabe hopped down out of the armchair and promptly did it himself, shooting his mother a look of intense exasperation.

Bethel chuckled. "There now, Missus Mary, that so hard?" she asked.

_*discidium_*

With the trunks carefully loaded in the baggage car and the portmanteaux settled on the luggage rack in the passenger car, Cullen slipped past the conductor and hopped back down onto the platform. Missy and Frances, who had been waiting in the shaded comfort of the buggy, now came towards the train with Jeremiah. Cullen hurriedly removed his hat and smiled courteously.

"Goodbye to you, Miss Frances," he said. "I'm sorry I wasn't much company for you, but we been proud to have you to visit."

"Thank you, Mr. Boh—_Cullen_," she said, extending her hand. "I know we have taken you away from your work, and I'm sorry for it. Please understand."

"I do," he assured her. "It's been good for Mary to spend time with her people. You have a safe journey, now."

She thanked him, and he said his farewells to Missy, and the two of them stepped up onto the train, the conductor escorting them down to the seats beneath their cases. This left Cullen and Jeremiah standing on the platform amid the chaos of last-minute loading. Unsure what to say to his brother-in-law, with whom he had scarcely exchanged half a dozen sentences since their moonlight quarrel, Cullen rubbed his palm against the side of his trousers and smiled thinly.

"Guess this is goodbye," he said awkwardly.

"I suppose it is," said Tate. "Thank you for your hospitality. And I do appreciate you being gracious to my wife and daughter even if you and I don't see eye-to-eye."

"Like I told you the day you arrived, the comfort of our ladies comes first down here," Cullen told him. "I know how to mind my manners: I ain't a savage."

"I know that." Tate grimaced uncomfortably. "I just…"

"You just find it easy to dismiss me on account of the way I talk, and the fact that I'm Southern, and because I own slaves," said Cullen. "Them three things been between us since the day we met, Tate: don't try and deny it."

"Yes, they have," said Jeremiah. "And you don't like me because I make use of my education, and I'm successful in a world you couldn't cope with, and I'm not afraid to speak out for my beliefs even when it isn't convenient."

Cullen shook his head. "That ain't it at all," he said. "I got more education than you, though you like to forget it; I had me some success in that world too, only I didn't much care for it; and I respect any man who'll speak out for his beliefs, _especially _when it ain't convenient. What I don't like about you is the way you sit in judgment over everyone who don't see the world the way you see it, or want the things you want. You suffer from the Northern delusion that you're inherently superior to the rest of us, and somehow that gives you the right to stick your nose where it ain't wanted."

He broke the burning gaze with which he had been holding the other man's eyes, and drew his palm across his jaw. "It don't matter anyhow," he said. "You're going, and we ain't going to see each other again for years. I'm thankful you came to see Mary: I know how fond she is of you, and she been missing her people. And I wish you a safe journey. Don't spend the night at the rail hotel in Corinth: last I heard they got bedbugs."

Tate's nose wrinkled. "I appreciate the advice," he said. Then he reached out and seized Cullen's elbow. "You look after my sister, Bohannon," he growled. "I mean it. Whatever happens, you remember she's your first responsibility. Her and that sweet little boy."

Cullen flung him off, bristling with hot indignation. "I told you, Tate: you got no right telling me my business. And you don't need to remind me to look after my wife. Whatever I got to do I'll see she's fed and cared-for. Now why don't you get on that train and start looking after your own family?"

Jeremiah looked as if he wanted to say something more, but he simply shook his head instead. "Goodbye, Bohannon. I won't pretend I'm sorry you've been too busy to have much to do with us, but I thank you for the hospitality of your home nonetheless."

"And you're welcome to it nonetheless," said Cullen; "but I won't pretend I ain't glad to see you gone."

Tate grunted and inclined his head, then brushed past Cullen and climbed the iron steps to the door of the rail carriage. He turned and looked back. "Bohannon," he said. "If Mississippi tries to leave the Union you've got to know: Washington will not simply let her go."

"Washington don't know how to mind its own business any better than you do," Cullen said caustically. "You go back and tell all your abolitionist friends that the Southern states ain't just going to lie down and give up their freedom to make their own choices. We got a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, same as everybody else."

"Everybody else, Bohannon?" said Tate archly. And then he was gone, vanished behind glass reflecting the east half of Meridian in sharp, lively detail.

Cullen ran his tongue along his teeth as if to scrub away the taste of his brother-in-law, and turned back toward the buggy. Further up the platform Nate was sitting on the buckboard seat, holding the mules tight against their urge to bolt from the noise and the smoke. His eyes were fixed on his master. Cullen climbed onto the driver's seat and turned Pike and Bonnie away from the hitching post. He pulled up next to his man and leaned forward with his elbow on the buggy rail.

"You got something you want to say?" he asked.

Nate shook his head, and his eyes were free from the storm of resentment that had filled them for so long. He only looked weary, and maybe just a little sad. "We bes' get down to the lumber yard," he said quietly. "Need us some planks for them crates."

Cullen grunted his assent and flicked the lines. He did not look back at the train carrying away his troublesome guests, but as he dickered with the proprietor of the lumber yard he listened for the howl of the whistle that meant they were well on their way.


	34. Man and Wife

_Note: Mild content warning. Still within the rating, but you know… mild content warning. It's canonical, though: "Mary was a lot of fun" (Cullen Bohannon, "Get Behind the Mule", Episode 310)._

**Chapter Thirty-Four: Man and Wife**

It was almost as if Jeremiah and Frances had never been present at all. The house was restored to order, and the only signs left of the guests were the gifts they had left: wine on the rack in the root cellar, Gabe's little boots, a new row of magazines on the shelf in the parlor, tin soldiers lined up for battle on the nursery floor. Mary decanted the whiskey so that it stood enticingly on the sideboard, and Bethel rinsed the empty bottle and put it away for some other, later use. They moved the trunk of winter clothes back into the front bedroom, but Mary decided that the sewing machine could stay where it was. In making Lottie's dress she had enjoyed being convenient to the dining room table and closer to the heart of the home, instead of tucked away in a little-used upstairs room.

With everything once more where it belonged, Bethel and Mary fell back into the work of laying in preserves. A gentle rain started up shortly after noon, and made it bearable to stand over the hot stove stewing the fruit and sealing the earthenware jars. Mary filled a peck basket with apples and sat at the table quartering them for boiling while Gabe sat beside her playing happily with his two little generals and now and then helping himself to a slice of the crisp, tart fruit. The tomatoes had all been successfully saved, and Bethel was now busy pickling beets. When the apples were soft the two women took turns pressing them through the tin sieve with a heavy pestle to make a fine puree. With this they mixed the sweeting and the spices, scraping the very bottom of the cinnamon drawer to do it. They were using sorghum and vinegar instead of sugar and lemon juice, but the resulting mixture tasted only a little different from what Mary had been expecting, and the texture was just right. Then it was poured over the bottom of the largest pot and put on the back of the stove to simmer and thicken into apple butter.

While Bethel divided her energies between stirring this concoction and spooning briny beets into little pots, Mary took out the picnic hamper and filled it. For two weeks, with Mary and Bethel occupied with the guests and Lottie tending the tobacco fires, the four in the fields had had to do without their afternoon sustenance, and Mary was determined to bring it out to them today. She cut eight thick slices of bread, slathering them liberally with butter and sandwiching them in pairs before wrapping them in a napkin. There were hard-boiled eggs left from breakfast, and she put these in the basket as well. She took a small piece of butcher's paper and folded it into a little funnel which she filled with salt and pepper and twisted closed. She covered the dish of stewed tomatoes – the last of the fresh ones – with a scrap of waxed linen to keep it from sloshing as she walked. There was about half pint left of the green-bean-and-potato bake that Bethel had made for the Tates' last supper in Lauderdale county, and Mary included this as well. The last of yesterday's apple tart was set carefully on top, and four tin plates slid down one side of the basket. Forks and a serving spoon were added, and five clean, ruddy apples, and then the basket was filled. Mary looked at it for a moment before tucking a cloth over top to keep out the rain. It was a varied meal and would surely be welcome to those working on empty stomachs, but there was not a scrap of meat.

"Where you goin' wid dat?" asked Gabe as Mary put on her bonnet and wrapped Bethel's shawl about her shoulders, hefting the basket into her arms.

"I'm taking some food down for Pappy and Nate and Elijah and Meg," said Mary. "They've got hours to work before suppertime, and they'll be hungry."

Gabe kicked the underside of the bench in his eagerness to launch himself off of it. "I's comin' too!" he announced. He hopped down onto the floor, reconsidered his strategic position, and clasped his hands behind his back in an adorably innocent posture. "_May_ I come too?" he amended.

Mary did not have the heart to deny him, but neither did she think that Bethel would approve. "It's raining, dearest," she hedged.

"Ain't rainin' that hard, Missus," said Bethel, not looking up from the slowly clarifying apple butter. "He won' take no harm from a little walk. Do him good mos' likely. Do his pappy good, too, to see him."

Mary did not doubt that this was true. She smiled at Bethel's quiet conspiracy. Cullen needed cheering, and badly, and the sight of his son was the one thing truly likely to do it. "Run and fetch your boots and your topcoat, darling," she said to her child, setting the basket down on the edge of the table.

Gabe tore off into the front hall, from which direction some disconcerting thumps and bangs soon issued. When he was gone Bethel turned from the stove. "Try an' get him to sit a while if you can, Missus Mary," she said. "Even jus' ten-fifteen minutes to take the weight off his feet. Don' let him jus' bolt that food down and get straight back at it."

"It won't be easy," said Mary. "He'll be chasing after a wasted morning."

"I know it, an' tha's why you's takin' Mist' Gabe," said Bethel. "That chile got the knack for persuasiveness."

The little diplomat himself came charging back into the room, brandishing a copper-toed boot in each hand. He had put on his little gabardine topcoat, but had managed to get it upside-down. Mary smilingly set it to rights and tied the shoestrings snugly. She picked up the basket again and opened the door, just as Bethel came from the stove with a stoppered quart bottle which she placed carefully in Gabe's hands.

"You take this down to your pappy," she instructed. "Don' you drop it, now. It goin' get warm."

"I won'," Gabe pledged valiantly. "Not me."

"Good boy," said Bethel. "Coffee," she added at Mary's querying look. "Already sweetened up. They can use the water dippers to drink it: no sense sendin' cups."

Mary smiled her thanks for this piece of ingenuity and slipped out onto the stoop, holding the door with her hip so that her small companion could follow. Together they crossed the dooryard and cut up onto the rise. As they neared the crest, Gabe turned and looked back.

"You's can see de house from here," he said; "but not down dere. But it still Pappy's land, ain't it, Mama?"

"That's right, dearest," Mary agreed. "All of this is Pappy's land. It will be yours someday."

Gabe frowned. "Where Pappy goin' live den?" he asked.

Realizing she had unwittingly touched on the taboo subject of his father's mortality, Mary scrambled for a credible evasion. "Wouldn't you let Pappy live on your land?" she asked pleasantly.

Gabe snorted. "'Course I would!" he declared, then added generously; "An' you, too." They took another few steps together before Gabe paused, pensive. "An' when I's growed up den _I_ can work hard, an' Pappy won' have to."

Mary wanted to gather him into her arms and kiss him, her sweet and uncomprehendingly selfless little boy. But she was laden with the hamper and could only smile. "That's very good of you, dearest," she said. "But I hope by the time you're grown up our troubles will be over and no one will have to work as hard as your pappy does now."

Gabe considered this, then nodded and started down the hill, singing loudly and blithely off-key one of Bethel's songs: "_Nobody know de troubles I's seen; nobody know bu' Jesus. Nobody know de troubles I's seen. Glo-o-o-ry Halle—_Pappy!"

His pace quickened to a run, small legs flying so that he careened down the hill with such a fearsome pace that he looked about to topple over. But he reached the flat stretch of sod safely and stopped eagerly at the edge of the field, hugging the bottle to his chest with one arm so that he could wave with the other at his father. "Pappy, Bet'l send you coffee!"

Cullen, halfway down one of the now-ragged rows, turned his head and raised his eyes without straightening his stooped spine. He blinked into the gentle rain, frowning as he took in the sight of his child at the border of the mud and his wife coming down through the wet indiangrass. Then he mustered up a smile. "Did she, now?" he called, hurriedly cutting the leaf he had been holding and handing it up to Elijah. "And she sent you to bring it to me."

"Yeah," said Gabe, in precisely his father's lilting way. "I didn' spill none of it, neider."

"Good man. Go ahead and set it down by the buckets: we'll stop at the end of the row." So saying he bent his head again and burrowed deeper into the plant he was priming.

Gabe toddled off to obey, happily enough, but Mary reached the foot of the hillock and stopped. The sight before her tore at her heart. She did not often come down to the tobacco fields, but she had seen enough of them over the years to know how a crop ought to look mid-harvest. The broad fronds should have spread proudly across the rows, like ladies' ruffled parasols over the bare stretches of picked stalk. Instead these leaves drooped, tired and tattered and dejected. The rain, hardly more than a heavy mist in the air, gathered along the battered veins and dripped from the ragged tips to cut little freshets in the earth. But as hard as this vista was to bear, the bowed, muddied figures between the rows were worse. Shoulders rounded against the pain of stooping, weary arms working methodically, proud backs bent, Cullen and Nate scrounged for the salvage of the once-promising harvest. Elijah and Meg leaned heavily against the tobacco poles they held, the butts buried against the toe of boot and shoe to keep them from sinking into the mire. Elijah's head was bowed so that the grizzled curls at the nape of his neck showed beneath the palmetto-frond rain hat, and Meg was staring up at the sky with a half-drunken look of discouraged exhaustion. They were all wet through and smeared with muck and tobacco sap, even though Nate and Cullen had only been down here since half past ten in the morning. Every one of them looked as battered and defeated as the field itself.

"Mama? You goin' put dat basket down?" asked Gabe curiously, looking up at her.

Startled from her misery, Mary smiled at him. "Yes, dearest, and you can help me." She cast around. The foliage on the oak tree was only just starting to pale, not yet even showing yellow, and under its thick canopy the grass was only damp. She carried the basket to the tree and set it between two roots. Then she shook out the cloth that had covered the food and spread it on the ground. She wished she had thought to bring napkins, and she cast about for something to bring a little cheer to her makeshift table.

"Gabe, run and pick me some of those asters," she said, pointing off to the seldom-trod sliver of pasture that ran down towards the middle field. "Make sure they have nice, long stems."

The boy ran off, and Mary took the plates from the basket. She knelt down on a corner of the cloth and began to fill them, heaping out generous servings of each dish. She carefully peeled apart the slices of bread and set them prettily at an angle on the edge of each plate. She rapped each egg with the side of a fork and removed the shells delicately, tossing away the shards in the grass and setting the clean white orbs in the center of each plate. She laid them out as if setting a board for company, forks tucked neatly beside. Then she brought over the bottle of coffee and the dippers, and as an afterthought one of the pails of drinking water as well. This last she set just past the edge of the cloth.

Gabe came back, arms full of bright yellow blossoms like dewy stars. He had been so diligent in ensuring long stems that two or three of them had been pulled out by the roots. Mary broke off the muddy tangles from these, shook the water from the petals, and quickly plaited the stems into a wreath, which she set in the center of the cloth. As she had hoped her simple centerpiece added a spot of brightness in the indifferent gloom of the day. She sat back upon her heels, smoothing the dampened skirts of her work dress, and surveyed the effect with satisfaction.

Nate and Meg were out of the row now, toting their pole to the edge of the rise and lying it carefully down. They looked towards Mary and hesitated, lingering instead until Cullen and Elijah joined them. When Cullen saw that his wife and son had not simply left the food and retreated to the house, he frowned and started down the length of the field towards them.

"You'll get wet," he said as he plodded up. Then his furrowed brow softened at the sight of the neatly spread meal. "Ain't this pretty," he murmured.

"I pickeded de flowers," said Gabe proudly. "Nice, long stems!"

"Rinse your hands and come and eat," Mary instructed. "You must be famished."

He gave her a long, inscrutable look, and then went to join the others at the pail with the red rag. Then he sat cross-legged on a corner of the blanket, curling his spine forward with a low, faint groan. Meg, Elijah and Nate all hung back, glancing uncertainly between master and mistress. They were accustomed to sitting with Cullen to eat their simple dinners, but Mary's presence was clearly unsettling.

"Please sit down," Mary said. "I'm sure you're all hungry after working so hard."

The three darkies exchanged uneasy glances. Mary wondered whether she might not have been wiser just to withdraw to the house. She went so far as to take hold of her skirts so that she might take her leave, and then she remembered Bethel's instruction that she should try to get Cullen to sit and rest a little while. He had his fork in his hand already, and the tines kept twitching towards the food. If she left he would simply devour it as quickly as he could and hurry right back into the muck.

"Please sit," she said again. Something of her anxiousness must have shown in her voice, for Meg's worried countenance grew suddenly serene and she folded her sodden skirts into a pad for her knees as she lowered herself to the ground.

"This a mighty pretty picnic, Missus Mary," she said shyly.

"Thank you," said Mary. "It isn't much, but I thought the day could do with a little cheer."

Meg looked over her shoulder and beckoned, and Nate knelt down next to her. He was still stiff and uncomfortable-looking, but the smell of the food seemed to decide him. He picked up his fork.

"'Lijah?" said Gabe, frowning in puzzlement at the aged foreman. "Ain't you goin' eat?"

"Yessir, Mist' Gabe, I'd sure admire to do that," said Elijah. "But you gots to sit down 'fore I can."

Gabe nodded solemnly and plopped down between his mother and father. Elijah lowered himself onto the edge of the blanket beside Nate, and Mary noticed for the first time how stiffly and slowly he moved. Poor man, he was too old to work fourteen hours a day in all weathers. And yet he did it without complaint.

"Tuck in," said Cullen, spearing several green beans with his fork and biting into them with ravenous haste. He took three more mouthfuls before anyone else started eating. Again it was Meg who made the first move, watching Mary from the corner of her eye as she did so. She broke off the corner of a piece of bread and used it to gather a small heap of stewed tomato.

As soon as she swallowed the two black men fell upon their meals, bringing the plates up into their laps and bowing low over them. Cullen had abandoned his attempt to eat in a civilized fashion, and was doing the same. Then he caught himself, looked up at Mary, and tried to straighten. He set the plate down on the cloth and nudged it nearer to Gabe.

"Here, son," he said, giving the child one slice of his bread. "Help yourself."

Gabe took a happy mouthful, and then reached out to pluck up a piece of potato. "I never et in de rain before," he said. "It ain't so wet."

Cullen chuckled, and the fine lines of worry faded for a moment. "It sure ain't this time," he agreed. "What you been doing all day then, huh?"

"Eatin' apples," said Gabe. He stuck two fingers into his father's tomatoes and sucked them clean. "Mama an' Bet'l makin' apple butter. Dey don' hit dem apples, dough."

Cullen looked questioningly at Mary. "The butter churn," she translated. "We hit the cream to make butter, so I've been told." She rumpled her son's damp curls. "But apple butter is different, Gabe, isn't it? We make it on the stove instead."

"Mm-hmm." The little boy was chewing another mouthful of bread. He said something around it that Mary could not decipher.

"That so?" said Cullen, frowning. His eyes moved again from the boy to the woman. "You should have waited 'til me and Nate could do that. Full ticks are awful heavy."

"They aren't, not really," said Mary, understanding now. "Just large and unwieldy. Bethel's as strong as a Shetland pony; we managed all right. And this way the bed's all made and ready."

"What'd you do with the straw one?" asked Cullen.

"Put it on the other bedstead, of course," said Mary. "There's no sense in emptying it out: it will be sweet and fresh for months, and we may have company again."

He grimaced. "You ain't extended any more invitations I don't know about, have you?"

"No," she promised. Nate was scraping up the last of his beans, and Mary scooped up a second helping for him.

"Thankee, Missus," he mumbled, only just pausing long enough to swallow.

Gabe considered the bread in his hand and apparently decided he did not want any more than the four bites he had taken. He set it down and patted Cullen's knee. The soaked oilskins squelched and Gabe's palm came away muddy. "Why's you so dirty?" he asked.

"Tobacco picking is dirty work," Cullen mumbled. He too was intent upon his food, and Mary thought miserably that she should have found a way to get the afternoon basket down to the field in spite of the guests.

"Bet'l goin' scold you," Gabe warned. "You ain't supposed to git in de mud."

"Bethel's going to scold _you_, darling, if you don't clean that hand before it soils your clothes," said Mary. "Go and rinse in the bucket."

Gabe moved to get up, spreading his palms to plant on his knees for leverage, but Mary caught his wrist just in time and helped to hoist him with a hand in the small of his back. Gabe strode off to the pails. "The one with the red rag," Mary told him, and he paddled his hand obediently and then came back so she could dry it with her handkerchief. Gabe deposited himself in her lap, cuddling against her and craning his neck to look up at her.

"Ain't you goin' eat nut'in', Mama?" he asked.

"I'm not hungry," said Mary. "I had a lovely dinner."

Gabe's brow crimped worriedly. "Didn' Pappy git no dinner?"

"Course I did, son," Cullen said. His lips were tight and there was a flare of annoyance in his tired eyes as they flicked to Mary. "This here's just a treat to tide us over until suppertime."

The others were all coming near to the end of their food, and Mary served up the last of the beans and the tomatoes. As these too vanished she brought out the tart, carefully sliced into four equal pieces. Seeing it, Nate dropped his fork with a clatter. He picked it up again hastily, abashed, and averted his eyes from Mary's smile.

"Just a treat," she echoed as she placed a slender wedge on each plate. "To tide you over until suppertime."

The slaves each murmured their thanks. Instead of attacking the pie as they had the other foodstuffs, each broke off a tiny forkful from the tip of their wedge and lifted it reverently to their mouths. Elijah's eyes closed blissfully and Meg's grew wide.

"Missus, this here got sugar!" she exclaimed. Then she pressed her tar-blackened fingertips to her lips and her color deepened. "Beggin' your pardon."

"It's left over from last night's supper," said Mary. "It won't keep much longer, and in the damp the crust will go soft."

"But…" Meg began. She seemed to realize that it was not her place to argue, for she fell silent and took another small piece of pie.

Cullen, either hungrier than the others or less in awe of the offering, was already down to the last inch before the crust. He offered a generous forkful to Gabe, who opened his mouth like a parrot and accepted it. Cullen whisked the utensil out between his pressed lips and Gabe gave a muffled laugh. Cullen glanced at his hand, determined that it was as clean as could be reasonably expected, and drilled his fingertip in against Gabe's stomach. The boy squirmed, kicking the blanket with one little boot, and Mary hugged him.

"Pappy's going to tickle you," she warned. "Pappy's a fearsome tickler."

Cullen reached to play his fingers against Gabe's flank, and raised one knee as he rocked towards her. Her shoulder brushed his, the sticky tobacco sap catching at the cloth, and his wet hair slapped against her nose. Desire rose within her, and he must have felt the spark as well, for he murmured in her ear; "Pappy's gonna tickle _you_."

Gabe's howl of laughter drowned out the words from general hearing, but abruptly Mary remembered that the three field hands were sitting not two yards away and watching the entire performance. Tamping down her yearning for her husband, she made her own merry ascent up Gabe's spine with dancing fingers. He squealed and rolled off of her, his bottom landing on the edge of Cullen's plate.

Cullen laughed, rescuing the dish and the last mouthfuls of pie, and Mary smoothed her skirt as Gabe got up on his hands and knees. He scrambled to his feet and retreated beyond the pails. "You can't catch me!" he taunted eagerly.

The look of yearning in Cullen's eyes was brief but painful to witness. He longed to go running after his son, but he had neither the time nor the energy to do it. "No I can't," he called, remarkably cheerful. "I got to get back to work, but I'll tell you what. Sunday you and me's goin' chase all you want. I'll bet I know a couple of hunting games you ain't never played."

Gabe crowed delightedly and tried to turn a handstand. As he lacked Charlie Ainsley's length of limb and six-year-old coordination, he wound up doing little more than planting his feet in the grass, kicking his heels eight inches into the air and collapsing in a ball that rolled down towards the tobacco. He landed on his back, knees in the air, and thumped his feet against the wet grass.

Cullen watched him, grinning, then sighed and looked at the field hands. "Best get to it," he said, grunting as he started to push himself up.

"Wait! There's coffee," said Mary. "There was no room for cups, so you'll have to use the dippers…"

Cullen waved off her apology and took one ladle. The other he handed to Nate. Mary poured the dark fluid, still hot enough to give off a faint aura of steam, and held the bottle so that she could readily refill the vessels. Nate took a swallow and passed the dipper to Meg, and then to Elijah. Cullen cupped his palm under the bowl of his, holding the warmth of it close. He drank deeply and sighed.

"Just what we needed, Mary; thank you," he said.

"It was Bethel's idea," said Mary. She gathered up the plates. They had all been mopped clean with the last crusts of bread, and not a crumb of pie remained. She stacked them and placed them in the basket, then collected the forks. She brought out four of the apples and set them in the grass. "In case you get hungry a little later on," she explained.

"Thankee, Missus; that righ' kind," said Elijah. Meg nodded, and Nate was watching her thoughtfully.

When the last of the coffee was gone, each of the four laborers took a dipperful of water and got to their feet. The slaves went to collect the poles, and Cullen picked up the cloth and folded it for Mary.

"It's awful dirty," he said regretfully. "And your skirt's wet."

"It will dry," she said. She took the bundle and set it in the basket. Gabe was capering in the long grass now, and she tilted her head in his direction. "Our little man, however, is going to need a bath and a change of clothes."

Cullen chuckled softly, and looked at her face. His hand moved as though to stroke her cheek, but it was still sticky with tobacco juice and he let it fall to his side. "Thank you for bringing him down," he said. "I know Bethel would have objected."

"Not today," said Mary. She reached to straighten the frayed collar of Cullen's coarse shirt. Her fingers came away gummy. "I'd best get him back to the house."

He nodded regretfully. "I'll see you this evening," he said, as though making a promise to himself. Then he turned and went to help Elijah lift the half-laden pole.

Mary returned to the house by way of the tobacco barn, where she checked to make certain that Lottie had enough drinking water and to give the child the fifth apple. Gabe was fascinated by the view of the underside of the curing leaves, and they lingered a little longer than Mary had intended. Then it was back to the house to help spoon the apple butter into jars so that she and Bethel could get a start on supper.

_*discidium*_

The delight of watching his merry child faded far sooner than it should have done. Why he could not cling to that image Cullen did not know, but the mud and the tedium and the futility of his work dragged it out of him well before the shadows even grew long in the field. The tobacco was not ripening as it should have. There had never been much hope in the top field, where the hail had done its worst, but the western half of the middle field was sluggish, too, and every time Elijah took a measure of those leaves he shook his head wearily. They were all weary: worn out and heartsick and jaded with pouring into a crop that was obviously struggling the same backbreaking toil they would have put into a successful one. The melancholy that had only struck them near the end of last year's priming came early now, quite likely because they were all expecting it. And Cullen could not fight the doldrums in the others, because he did not know how to conquer it in himself.

It might have helped his spirit if the rain didn't keep coming back – never as fierce as on the day of the storm, but steady and persistent. The mud would just start to dry, and there would be a sprinkling in the night to stir it all up again. Today was the first time since the hail that they had had rain while working, but it didn't make much difference what time of day it fell. The tobacco leaves, tattered as sieves though they were, still miraculously retained their ability to hold cupfuls of water to pour on the pickers. The burning headache of lingering tobacco sickness was Cullen's constant companion now, though the dizziness seldom stretched beyond annoyance and his appetite was no longer suffering. He wondered if the others all felt the same way; particularly Nate, who matched him leaf for leaf and was equally unable to keep his clothes dry even on the sunniest afternoon.

The return of his appetite, though a sign that he was not on the verge of collapse, was a misery and a nuisance in itself. Bethel, wonder that she was, had managed to make the meat stretch to the very end of the Tates' visit, but in increasingly smaller portions. One ham, a few pounds of salted mackerel, and four chickens – two old layers and two healthy pullets they could not really spare – had fed eleven people for a fortnight, to say nothing of Boyd Ainsley's men. Now even that was gone. There was still a little salt pork: about four pounds, Bethel said, which meant there was less. That was in reserve for flavoring dishes. There had been eggs at breakfast, and no gravy, and there had been eggs to take for dinner. Mary had brought them each an egg with the much-needed afternoon repast. And there would be eggs at suppertime too. But somehow an egg just didn't stick to the ribs the way that bacon did, and the good of a meal wore off long before it was time for the next one. Cullen would have to do something to remedy the situation, or he didn't see how he could keep himself and his field hands on their feet through the long days. He didn't much like them eating up the bread in the afternoons, either. There was a good bushel of flour still left in the barrel, but it would not last forever.

At least the yams would be ready soon. They would need to start digging them in about ten days' time, if they were all to be out safely ahead of the first frost. The thought of a sweet potato, baked to mealy perfection with the good, dark skin crisp and the orange flesh glistening with melted butter made Cullen's mouth water. Yams didn't last much longer in the stomach than bread, but they were a mighty comfort to an empty belly nonetheless. The anxious thought that they could not dig yams _and_ prime tobacco at the same time only visited him briefly. He could not afford to think about that.

The sun began to set and the air grew cool. The rain was still trickling indifferently upon the land, and Cullen's boots squelched in the muck. He had to move carefully to avoid sinking in it up to his knees. He had almost lost his boot that afternoon, and had dragged it out half-full of mud and filthy water. His wet feet itched and his wet clothes chilled him. In this damp there was no question of burning the waste from the cornfields: the broken stalks, felled by the hail, were rotting there. That was no bad thing, according to Elijah, for what was it but a thick layer of mulch? But they needed to plow those fields for the winter wheat, and Cullen did not see how they could do it if they were crowded with moldering detritus.

As the light abandoned them and work had to be called to a halt for the day, they still had half-a-dozen rows left in the field. It wasn't so bad, Cullen told himself. They could be done those in an hour or two tomorrow, and then they would be able to go down to the bottom field again. He would be able to pretend, or at least to imagine, that his entire crop still looked like that: whole and broad-leafed and flourishing, money hanging heavy from straight, healthy stalks, just waiting to be brought in and cured and boxed and sold. He supposed a real farmer would just be glad some of the crop was left untouched at all, but he could not help thinking of what might have been and running over the events of the last fortnight as if he could have altered any of them with some choice of his own. That was the worst of it: the perfect inevitability of the disaster, without even the small comfort that he would be wiser next time and so avoid a second occurrence.

Lottie was waiting for them when they arrived at the tobacco barn. It was almost time to rotate the poles again, and Cullen found himself wondering whether he could justify doing it tomorrow so that Meg and Elijah could finish the six battered rows without him. It was an unworthy thought and he quashed it. He couldn't shirk from his duty, and dreaming about doing so was almost as bad. Still he couldn't quite keep himself from wishing. Moving the cured leaves was an honorable reason to stay out of the field: it furthered the interest of the crop and brought them one step closer to the end of the harvest. No one could fault him for doing something that needed to be done, even if he thereby avoided something else that he loathed a hundredfold more.

It was Nate's turn to take the first watch: Cullen's to sleep through the night. He was shamefully glad of this, too. It had been pretty near seventeen hours since he had dragged himself out of bed to sit the last shift of the night, and even if he had wasted the morning gallivanting off to Meridian he was still bone-tired. The next hour, spent pitching hay and hauling water and cleaning hooves by lamplight, passed in a blur, and he stumbled wearily to the back stoop, where Bethel had warm water and rags and the old quilt waiting for him. She had a bath drawn, too, but he was scarcely conscious of what he was doing with the nailbrush and the stinging soap. Yet somehow he found himself in his nightshirt and his father's smoking jacket, sitting at the dining room table without any fear of guests wandering in to plague him.

Mary sat with him while he ate, and Cullen cleaned his plate thoroughly, but he could not have said what he had been given or how it had tasted. His jaw ached. He must have been clenching his teeth through most of the afternoon. When Mary led the way to bed with the candle, the stairs struck him as an almost impossible obstacle. Somehow he managed to mount them, but he did not dare to stop at the nursery door for fear he would find himself unable to start up again. He shuffled around the foot of the bed and shucked the heavy, quilted wrap before crawling between the covers. His body sank deep in the soft feather tick and he moaned softly.

Mary looked up from the clothes press, from which she had been taking clean undergarments to lay out for him. "What is it?" she asked quickly.

"I missed my bed," he mumbled, burrowing further into the mattress.

"Aren't you glad that Bethel and I moved it now?" she asked, a smile in her voice. He heard the whisper of her corset-laces and the shallow _sprang_ of her busk. Footsteps to and from the laundry hamper. A puff of air to douse the candle. There was a cool draft between the sheets as she lifted the bedclothes on her side of the bed. She had put another quilt over them now: summer was over and the nights were sometimes cold. The mattress rippled only a little as Mary lay down, curled towards him in the moonless dark. Feathers, Cullen thought gratefully. Straw would have bucked and bounced and jostled no matter how she tried.

"You're a wonder," he murmured thickly. He was already slipping towards sleep. Her hand crept up the crest of his hip, stroking his flank before curling to settle on his breastbone. The warmth of her touch seemed to ameliorate some of the ache in his ribs.

"So are you," she breathed. "Standing so strong, keeping everyone together when they've had trials enough to tear them apart. I'm proud of you, Cullen. So proud to be your wife."

She shifted closer, her foot brushing against his shin. It was warm and soft and smooth as velvet, and it soothed his troubled spirit. Her hand moved up to his shoulder, drawing him still nearer. When she breathed her breast swelled to stir the ruffle of his nightshirt. He supposed he ought to reciprocate her embrace, but his arms were leaden after a day of hauling steamer trunks and reining in eager horses and picking, picking, picking ragged tobacco. He could not quite bestir himself.

Her breath stirred his whiskers now, and before he knew what she was doing Mary kissed him. Her lips brushed his ever so lightly, ever so chastely, as if it were Sunday morning and they stood in the churchyard in front of half the county. His own tried to draw into the motion, to deepen the contact, but they were too slow. She was gone. Gone, but still near enough that the tip of her nose brushed his and he could smell the sweetness of her breath. The haunting aroma of lilac still clung to her from the sachet she always wore – replenished now from the petals her sister had sent. Beneath that simple perfume Cullen could smell _her_; the faint, vital scent of a real woman, a woman who loved him, a woman who would sit on the ground in the rain by a ruined tobacco field just to brighten his long day a little. He wanted to draw nearer, but his exhaustion and the wretched relief of lying in a soft bed pinned him down like a moth beneath glass.

Then her lips touched his again, more deeply this time. She was so near that their nightclothes had to be touching: he could feel her warmth through the oft-laundered muslin. His mouth moved instinctively with hers, and her hand moved to stroke the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. The arch of her foot slid down to caress his ankle.

"I love you," she whispered. "I'm so proud of you."

Her other hand found his where it was pinned near his waist, and their fingers twined. They kissed, the tip of her tongue flicking against her teeth. Cullen's eyelids were so heavy that he could not keep them open, and he thought drowsily that there was no better way to fall asleep after a long and weary day than in the arms of his wife. His head rolled sleepily down into the valley between their pillows, and his cheek came to rest on her collarbone.

Her _bare _collarbone.

His breath caught in his throat, and his left hand finally found the wherewithal to reach for her. He touched the soft contour of her hip, his callouses catching against the warm satin of her skin. For a moment of blazing intensity his mind worked like lightning lancing across a sky of dark exhaustion. Mary almost never disrobed completely, even when they lay together as man and wife. It was simply not the way things were usually done. A lady's nightgown was intimate enough, and no real impediment to the act of love. When Mary removed it – or encouraged him to remove it – it was a sign that she wanted more than the simple, rocking caresses of familiarity. It was a sign that she wanted to play, to share their secret and almost indecent passion. It was an invitation to perfect intimacy and to the fire of their love as it had been in the early days, before poverty, before toil, before worries and responsibilities and drudgery had weighed them down. It was an invitation to be as they once had been, long ago.

At his touch she slithered nearer, and her hip pressed against his. The cloth of his nightshirt was almost no barrier at all: he could feel the heat of her, and the thrum of her pulse thorough the vessel that ran through her stomach to her legs. He could feel the soft bulge of flesh below her navel, where the contours of childbearing still lingered faintly like a testament to her courage. Her breasts were pressed against him now, and his hand slid as far as her waist with the will to caress them. But it could not find the strength to meet the rise of her ribs beyond the place where her corset had sculpted her in to a small, supple girth. He could feel every sensation of her body against his, but in his own he felt nothing but weariness and aches and a longing for deep, untroubled slumber.

She was kissing him now beneath the angle of his jaw, travelling down towards the place where his neck met his shoulder. Her legs moved again, enticing and yet somehow not arousing. He yearned for her, but he could not find the physical desire. It was like that moment when Gabe had called out to his father to chase him, and Cullen could only watch him run, longing for a time when he could have bestirred himself. Longing to be free of the bondage of the land that held his life and his loved ones to ransom against its whims.

"It's been so long," Mary murmured, her passion and excitement in every word. "We haven't… not really… not since… not since…"

She was too breathless to articulate her thoughts, but he understood. They had not lain together, not properly, since the early summer. Before he had first fallen ill. Before _she_ had fallen ill. Just about the time the tobacco-topping started. Oh, there had been stolen caresses; nights spent with limbs entangled in the wake of passionate kissing; sleepy petting of the sort preachers railed against in thickly veiled terms; but no true lovemaking. Never in their married life had they gone so long without. He had not thought about it. He had been too weary to think about it. And now that he realized, he was too worn out to put the matter right.

She was nestled against his chest now, and her hand had crept free from his to unbutton the front of his nightshirt. The opening reached only midway down his ribs, but the gap was sufficient for her to press her cheek against his breastbone, her breath stirring the fine hairs on his chest. Still sleep was dragging on him. He could feel his dreams, uneasy but inexorable, rising up to carry him away. He had to tell her, had to explain. Apologize. Yet somehow he could not speak.

Mary pressed closer still, until the heat of her enveloped his whole front. The long, aching muscles down the fronts of his thighs relaxed a little, responding to the comfort of her warmth. His sore hips loosened. His tense breathing eased. Only his back was still locked in the misery of the cold day of labor. From the base of his skull to the tip of his tailbone his spine was knotted with pain and fatigue, and his mind kept trying to slip away and leave the suffering behind for a little while, however much his heart ached to respond to Mary's caresses.

"Mary…" he breathed, managing somehow to make his lips move. Now he felt hot, all right, but he was burning with shame instead of passion. Nothing stirred in his loins, though his soul cried out for her. "Mary, I don't… I'm too…" He swallowed the hard lump of bitter regret and forced out the humiliating admission. "I'm too tired, angel. I don't think I can."

She made a muffled, startled sound, and he remembered too late that he had turned her down the last time, too. When last she had come to his arms, amorous and tender and so beautiful in the candlelight, he had pulled away from her and refused her advances. Then he had done so out of concern for her health, as Doc Whitehead had advised. Then at least he had been depriving them both in the moment of shared desire to protect her from harm. But now? Now he could not even show willing. What sort of a man was he?

Mary's head rose up, her mouth finding his again. She swallowed his next plaintive half-apology, and when their lips parted she whispered; "You don't have to. Let me."

Her hand slipped down along his tormented back, her thumb pressing deeply against the knotted bands of muscle. She kissed the corner of his nose. His cheekbone. The sandbag of a lid slung low over an eye he could not open. He could smell her. The sweet, beloved scent of her would follow him into the sleep he could no longer resist. Dimly he was aware that she was pulling gently at his nightshirt, drawing the cloth up over his knee, along the lean line of his leg, up towards his hipbone. It caught, the other seam pinned underneath him, and her other hand moved down to ease it free. The cloth crept over his waist and there was almost nothing between them now, except in the span from breastbone to belly. Still he felt nothing but a deep drowsiness and the quiet comfort of her body against his. And his regret.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled before the capacity for speech could abandon him entirely.

"I love you," she breathed. Her hand slid over his hip to brush over his leg, her touch like the passing of a feather against his skin. Faintly, almost ethereally, she stroked the inside of his thigh. In that simple gesture, that single crystalline moment, his exhaustion was forgotten. His blood stirred at last and he pressed himself to her as she rolled onto her back to welcome him.

Somehow Cullen was not tired anymore.


	35. New Games

**Chapter Thirty-Five: New Games**

On Thursday morning Cullen hitched Gus and Betsy to the buckboard and drove into Meridian. He left as soon as it was light and made good time. As he was only going to pick up the lumber he had ordered on Monday, he did not trouble with his good clothes. Instead he simply put on his clean pair of work pants, the best of his coarse cotton shirts, and his old gabardine vest. He debated whether to trouble with a topcoat, and finally decided not to. His good one was too fine to wear while loading pine, and his other too shabby to in any way aid his appearance. It might have made sense to wear it for warmth, but the day was clement and the sky was clear. He had put on his watch, less because he needed it and more because the stout silver chain presented a visible cue that he was not entirely destitute – an important consideration when buying anything on credit.

In a fit of optimism he had brought his rifle. It was a reliable and meticulously-maintained Sharps, eight years old but polished and tended and accurate to well beyond five hundred yards. It was loaded, and Cullen had his cartridge pouch on his hip. He did not really expect to see any deer, driving down the main road in the rattling buckboard with a pair of overly conversational mules braying at one another, but if he did he had no wish to waste the chance. He couldn't be spared to go hunting during the week, and he doubted either Mary or Bethel would approve of him doing so on a Sunday however badly the household needed meat. The nights were still not cold enough for butchering a hog, but he was ready to compromise on smoking venison even if he had to ask his wife to tend the fire. He knew that Mary would be glad to do it, tedious as it would be to take time out of running the house and bringing in the garden and chasing after Gabe without Lottie to deputize. He knew she was just as concerned as he was about asking everyone to do without, hard as they were working.

As he had just about expected, Cullen reached Meridian without any sign of worthwhile game. The town was just stirring for the day, but the lumber yard commenced business early and the proprietor was in the office shanty when Cullen pulled up. He was a sallow-faced man with shrewd eyes and a habit of scrubbing at his nose with a greasy handkerchief that he brandished almost constantly between the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand. As Cullen climbed down over the wheel he came hurrying out to greet him.

"Morning, Mr. Bohannon!" he exclaimed with the cheerfulness of one who sprang eagerly out of bed to greet each new day. "We've got it all ready for you: best pine sawn to order."

"I hope not, Mr. Skelton, as I ordered worst pine," said Cullen. "I ain't building no monument: just need some tobacco boxes."

"All our pine is good pine, Mr. Bohannon. I don't carry inferior stock," said Skelton with mock indignation. He winked. "I got just what you ordered. Right over here."

He led the way to a tall section of split boards, still yellow and smelling strongly of fresh-cut timber. They had been cut to the appropriate lengths, and inspecting the top boards Cullen was satisfied that it was indeed cheap pine: loose-grained and knotty and, hopefully, inexpensive. "Looks good," he said. "What do I owe you for this lot?"

"Cutting included, thirty-six dollars eighty cents." Skelton sniffled and wiped his nose. "Best price you're likely to get this side of Montgomery."

"I know it," Cullen said, trying to hide his discomfiture. His debts were mounting, and the fact that this was an absolutely necessary expense did not soothe him any. "Put it on my account, same as last year?"

Skelton shifted uncomfortably and hooked his thumbs into his suspenders. He cleared his throat; a deep, phlegmy sound. "Well, now, Mr. Bohannon, I'd like to do that," he said. "The good Lord knows you been a reliable customer for years: ever since you and me was just boys and it was our fathers done the trading."

"But?" said Cullen. His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed warily. Whatever the man was about to say he knew he would not like it.

"Well…" Again the handkerchief flapped wetly. The clatter of boards came from the other side of the yard, where Skelton's two burly slaves were stacking hickory beams. "Thing is, word's got 'round that you took some harm in that storm the other week. Hail damage to the crop. Folks are saying what you got left ain't hardly worth shipping."

Cullen's blood ran hot. "Folks, huh?" he grunted. "What kinda folks?"

"Oh, you know. Folks. People 'round these parts," hedged Skelton. "I don't like to say where I heard it: I ain't a one to spread gossip."

"You might not spread it, but you're listening to it," said Cullen. He was trying to keep his temper from flaring, even though the effort of doing so felt like it might just be more than he could manage. He had been up in the night to take the second watch, and his broken sleep hadn't left him with much patience. "And you don't need to tell me where you heard it: it was Abel Sutcliffe, wasn't it? He didn't just mention it in passing, neither, I'll bet. He came out here to tell you especially."

Skelton said nothing to this, but his squirming discomfiture was answer enough.

"I see," said Cullen. "That's how it is."

"He came by to get a price for walnut flooring," Skelton squeaked. "It wasn't like he just stopped in to talk about you."

"You mean to slander me. Think about this, Mr. Skelton. There ain't been building on Hartwood since the gin house was finished six years ago. What's Sutcliffe want with walnut flooring?" It was all that he could do to keep his voice measured and reasonable. He wanted to roar with frustration. Disparaging him to the neighboring planters was one thing: it was spiteful, sure, and it made for some mighty awkward moments, but there was only so much real harm it could do with Cullen's reputation being what it had. But going to the tradesmen on whom he relied for consideration until he could get the tobacco sold, intimating that he was amassing debts he couldn't meet: that was downright foul.

"I don't ask those questions!" squeaked Skelton. He had taken a half-step back and was watching Cullen uneasily. "That's a good order; five hundred square feet of high-quality flooring. I can't risk losing a customer for being nosey."

That was just to say that he'd known the excuse was a thin one at the time, thought Cullen. Slowly and deliberately he blinked, trying to keep his impotent rage from blazing out through his eyes. He had to fix this. He didn't have thirty-six dollars to his name at the moment, and without those boxes he couldn't get his harvest to New Orleans. He needed credit, even if he had to beg for it.

"Listen," he said, his voice remarkably steady. "I've been a loyal customer. You've given me lumber on credit three years running now, and I've always paid you in full before the end of the year. My word's good, and you know it. Ain't that so?"

"That's so," agreed Skelton hastily. "But a man's word ain't no compensation for a failed crop. I'm sorry for your misfortune, Mr. Bohannon: truly I am. But I can't risk taking a loss like that with the way business has been. Folks ain't building the way they used to, and that's a fact."

Cullen raised his eyebrows and made a great show of looking over his shoulder. Beyond the wall of the yard, not twenty feet from the end of the lot, workers were swarming like ants over the skeleton of a warehouse. Further away, towards the railhead, shouts and hammers rang out. Off to the southern end of town, beyond the rows of shops on the main street, houses and businesses were sprouting up like weeds. While it was true that the contracts for sumptuous plantation homes had likely slowed since '57, there was certainly no shortage of custom.

Cullen brought his gaze pointedly back at Skelton, who seemed to be fighting the impulse to squirm. "My word is good," he said again, much more slowly. "That's why I ask you to believe me when I say this. We did get some hail in that storm, and we did take some damage to the crop. But I expect to bring in pretty near fifteen hogsheads when all's told. Maybe twenty. And a reasonable share of that is going to fetch top price. It is worth shipping, Mr. Skelton, and I aim to ship it. You know I can't do it without that timber, and that means I got business to give you. Next year I'll have business too, and the year after that and the year after that. I ain't never given you cause to doubt me, and I guess I just got to hope you'll take my word about my crop over the word of a man who's never put a dime in your pocket."

He tilted his head back, gazing down the side of his nose in what he knew was a very daunting way. He had something, so Bethel had been wont to say in his youth, of his mother's aristocratic looks. The effect, when put to the proper use, was not unimpressive. He unleashed it now because what he had just said was a gamble: he had no proof that Sutcliffe had never brought business here, and if he was wrong he had just bruised his credibility. And his credibility was just about all he had left to bargain with.

Skelton swabbed at his nostrils and snorted disconsolately. "You got to understand," he said. "It ain't that I don't want to keep your business, but I got to look out for my interests. I'm just trying to keep my family fed."

"So am I," Cullen said, his voice losing some of its air of fierce command. He had pushed past the worst of it: all that was needed was to drive his point quietly home. "You know I'll pay you just as soon as I'm back from Louisiana. You know that."

The other man's face crumpled. "I guess I do," he muttered. He wiped his hand on the seat of his trousers and held it out. "Thirty-six dollars and eighty cents, interest-free 'til the first of the year. After that it's eight percent a month."

That was ridiculous, but Cullen swallowed his protest. He would pay up on time: he had to. He couldn't survive without the good will of the merchants, any more than he could survive without bread. He shook Skelton's rough hand. "I'll be down here just as soon as I'm off that train," he said. "You'll be my first stop. And so you know, I don't hold it against you that you been listening to malicious gossip. A man's got to consider his own interests, and I understand that. Just next time do me the courtesy of asking before you jump to any conclusions, all right?"

"All right." Skelton looked at the piles of neatly stacked boards. "You want a hand loading her up?" he asked.

Cullen shook his head. "I got it," he said. "You go make a note of what I owe, or the ink won't hardly have time to dry before it's paid."

Skelton chuckled appreciatively from behind his handkerchief. "It's a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Bohannon. Honest it is."

"That's how I aim to keep it," Cullen said. Then he strode off to lead his team closer.

_*discidium*_

With the wagon loaded, groaning under the weight of the lumber, Cullen left the yard and trundled his burden up Main Street. He had originally intended to go to the hardware store for nails, because they were less expensive, but he had changed his mind. If Sutcliffe had been doing the rounds of the town spreading venom and casting aspersions on his liquidity, he would have a hard time getting credit anywhere he wasn't known. So he drew up the wagon in front of Townsend's Dry Goods and flung the lines over the hitching post.

The front of the shop was empty, and the chime of the bell as he entered seemed to echo off the crowded shelves. Cullen forced himself to meander casually down towards the corner where the small selection of tools and hardware was kept. He was glad that he had when the door to the storeroom swung open and Mr. Townsend came into the front of the shop, blotting his lips with a table napkin. He crammed it into his pocket and grinned at the sight of his customer.

"Good morning!" he said cheerily. "Seems every time I see you you're abroad earlier and earlier. Be turning up in the dark next." He slipped behind the counter and planted his hands upon it. "What can I do for you today?"

"I need two pounds of nails," said Cullen. "And I need to put them on account."

Townsend's welcoming expression wavered, almost imperceptibly, but this time Cullen was not caught unawares. "So he got to you, too," he said quietly. "Look, I ain't denying I had some bad luck, but I'm bringing in my crop and I'll be able to pay you, same as always, when it's sold."

The older man nodded. "I know that," he said. "You ain't never given me trouble or excuses; your credit's good here. But your crop's all right, then? There's something left?"

"Yes, there is," Cullen said, a little stiffly. He realized now that the man was genuinely concerned for him, and he found that almost as uncomfortable as the lumberman's suspicion. "I need the nails for the boxes to ship it. Two pounds of the half-inch spikes."

Mr. Townsend measured them into a paper sack, careful as always to keep his hands well away from the scale. He was another man whose survival relied upon his reputation for honesty. He rolled the top of the bag closed and put it on the counter near Cullen's hand. "Anything else you need?" he asked.

Cullen shook his head. "Just the nails," he said. "Much obliged."

"They're three cents cheaper at the hardware store," Townsend said. "I only stock 'em because they don't sell by the quarter pound."

"I ain't got credit at the hardware store," said Cullen. "You think they're likely to extend it now?"

The shopkeeper made a vague noise of assent. "What did you do to poison Mr. Sutcliffe against you?" he asked.

"Refused to sell him some land," Cullen muttered. It went deeper than that, but he was not about to repay gossip with gossip and lower himself to his neighbor's level.

"But you can't possibly work all you got with five niggers," said Townsend. "Why don't you just sell a little? It wouldn't do your pocketbook no harm."

"I ain't interested in selling," Cullen said coldly. "I got me a thousand acres, and I'm keeping it."

"You'll forgive me for saying so, Mr. Bohannon, but you just sound stubborn," the older man ventured.

Cullen grinned. "I've heard that before." He picked up the sack of nails and hefted it in his hand. "You want me to sign anything?"

Townsend shook his head. "Your word's good here. I'll just make a note of it for my own reference."

"Good day to you then," Cullen said. He stepped out into the sunshine and looked up and down the street. He supposed he ought to stop in and check if there was any mail, though he didn't expect anything. Mary's parents would likely wait to write until they got a firsthand report of their daughter's wellbeing from Jeremiah. He wondered what the man would say, and what Mr. and Mrs. Tate would think. He supposed it didn't much matter.

He deposited the sack of nails under the wagon seat, and started down the boardwalk. He had gone no further than the end of the next building when someone called his name.

He looked around, somewhat puzzled, and then breathed easier when he saw the familiar bay with its white star. "Morning, Doc!" he called. He came to the edge of the walk as Doctor Whitehead led his mount towards the hitching post. Following behind was a lively little Quarter gelding, on which was seated the physician's youngest son. Cullen smiled warmly. "Good morning, Ben."

"Good morning, Mr. Bohannon!" the boy said. He was fifteen, with a certain wild affability that Cullen recognized all too well. It was the bearing of a youth who had never known a mother's refining influence. "What brings you to town today?"

"Picking up lumber for tobacco boxes," said Cullen. He squinted at the doctor, who was silhouetted against the bright sun coming between the tailor's and the eating-house. "Out on a call?" he asked.

The older man shook his head. "Going down to the station," he said. "Congressman Barksdale's coming in on the ten o'clock train. Promises to be an interesting speech."

Cullen frowned, puzzled. "He's campaigning? He's the incumbent."

"I gather it's less to do with him and more to do with the presidential race," said the doctor. "Still, I never miss a chance to hear him speak. He's an inflammatory sort of man, but he surely does have a way with words."

"Never much cared for him myself," said Cullen. "Too flamboyant. Politicians ought to be practical. Reasonable."

"What's he s'posed to do if the other side ain't reasonable?" argued Ben enthusiastically. "Them Yankees in Washington keep trying to tell us we ain't got the rights we know we got! Why, I heard—"

"Cullen don't want to talk politics, son," Doc Whitehead said soothingly, casting his boy a fond, tolerant look. "Why don't you go on down there and find us a good spot?"

The boy cheerfully spurred on his horse, moving rather too quickly for a busy town street. Cullen followed him with his eyes until he neared the telegraph office, and then looked back up at Whitehead. "What makes you think I don't want to talk politics?" he asked.

"_I_ don't want to talk politics," said the doctor. He swung down out of the saddle. "We just had Theo and Jesse home for a week, and it's all the two of 'em could talk about. They've got Ben in a flap now, too. And I get quite enough of it on my rounds as it is."

"Then why're you going to hear Barksdale?" said Cullen. "Somehow I doubt he's goin' be talking about the weather."

"Ben: I told you," Doc Whitehead said. "And I really do appreciate a talented orator, even when I'm not much interested in what he's got to say." He took off his felt hat and leaned his right elbow against the hitching post, studying Cullen's face carefully. "You look wore out, son," he said softly.

"I'm tired," admitted Cullen. There was no use in trying to mislead the doctor. "It's picking time: everybody's tired."

"Heard you had Miss Mary's family to stay. How'd that go for you?" The kindly eyes were searching for something, but Cullen could not guess what.

"All right," he said, shrugging as much as his aching shoulders would allow. He wondered how long it would take that pain to go away once the harvest was in. "I didn't see much of them, really. Had a quarrel with her brother, but it wasn't our worst. So you had the boys home from college. Apart from the political talk, nice visit?"

"Oh, yes," Doctor Whitehead agreed. "Though when the three of them get talking they're loud enough to bring the roof down. I think they just about drove Ellie crazy."

Ellie was the family's mulatto housekeeper, and the only slave Doc Whitehead owned. She was renowned throughout the county for her patience: the three Whitehead boys were notoriously hard to handle. Cullen had to admit he was likely at least partly to blame for that. When Theo and Jesse had been young and impressionable, he had been the local hell-raiser and something of an idol to them. Ben, being younger, was simply following in the footsteps of his siblings.

"Pity we didn't get everyone together," said Cullen. "They could have argued with Jeremiah Tate on my behalf."

Doc chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. "Nobody needs that," he said. "There's enough arguing these days. Or rather, _agreeing_. Loudly and angrily. I don't know, Cullen. There's trouble brewing. I don't like it." He studied the brim of his hat and flipped it in his hands. Then he looked intently at the younger man again. "Everything all right up your way?" he asked quietly.

"You mean did we have a hailstorm take out the whole crop?" Cullen said caustically. "That's only a half-truth, like everything else Sutcliffe's been saying about me. Has he poisoned everyone in the town I might need a little consideration from?"

"Not me," said Doc Whitehead. "Though he tried. I ain't meant to take sides, Cullen, but you ought to know I will for you. I told him if he don't stop this talk he'd best look for a new doctor to tend to his wife."

Cullen flinched. "You didn't," he groaned. "Doc, you don't want him coming after you. He pretty near ruined my chances of getting my crop to market: only some slick talking saved me this morning."

"Well…" The corners of the man's eyes crinkled into a sheepish smile. "Maybe I didn't put it quite so strongly as that. But I mean to if he keeps this up. It ain't right, what he's doing. Talk's more harmful than anything in these parts, and he's just about as silver-tongued as the Congressman." He paused, then said; "What damage _did_ the hail do, son? Tobacco's mighty vulnerable."

"We lost some," Cullen admitted. "What we got left ain't what it should be for the most part, but I think we'll get by. So long as nothing else goes wrong. Surely God can't let nothing else go wrong."

"You know I'll always do whatever I can to help you," said Doc Whitehead gently, clapping Cullen's elbow. "I ain't the only friend you got, neither."

"I know that, too," said Cullen. "Boyd Ainsley let me have three of his hands for a few days to put things to rights again after the storm. Would've been in a tough place without them."

The admission startled him, but he soothed himself with the knowledge that it would go no further than Doc. Besides, he reasoned, he owed it to Boyd to make known where he could the man's generosity. "Look, I got to be getting back," he said. "The days are getting shorter, and the work keeps piling up."

Doc nodded. "I'll see you on Election Day?" he asked.

"Wouldn't miss it," Cullen chuckled. "If things is as hot as you say, I might just bring my gun."

"You give my regards to Miss Mary, now," said Doc Whitehead. He smiled unsteadily. "And don't push yourself too hard, son. Won't do to have you fall ill again."

Cullen didn't see any need to confess that he had been ill again, or that the sickness still lingered in his perpetually sore head and the occasional bouts of giddiness. He grinned again. "Only a few weeks left," he said. "Never thought I'd be so eager for winter."

The doctor sighed, looking up the street towards the station. The hum of a gathering crowd was beginning to fill the air. "Don't know that I would be, Cullen. Not for this winter."

Whether it was a reference only to the upcoming election and the turmoil it was likely to bring, or whether it was also a veiled reference to the bleak Bohannon prospects Cullen did not know or care to guess. He took his leave of Doc and went back to the wagon. Not until he had left Meridian behind did he realize that he had forgotten to go for the mail. He wasn't inclined to turn back: if there was anything it would just have to wait.

The sun was high and the day was warm, and if he had only been out here with his horses he might have enjoyed himself. Instead he had the mules, stolid and dreary and dull. He watched the rippling of their withers and the rocking of their broad hindquarters, and he hated them. It wasn't their fault. Gus and Betsy were good enough beasts, but Cullen resented them. They were nothing but drudges, bereft of spirit and imagination and drive. They were an ugly reminder of what he himself was becoming.

He was almost home, past the Ainsley land where the slaves were picking cotton with swift efficiency, when he heard a rustle in the undergrowth: something a good deal larger than a rabbit. It came from the thickly overgrown woods that belonged to the butcher in Meridian. "Ho!" Cullen called as softly as he could. The mules halted and the wagon creaked to a stop. Holding his breath and praying the noise had not startled the animal, Cullen bent down and groped for the rifle. He lifted it and got a good hold on the stock, levelling it below his eye and turning to brace his leg against the hard board seat so that he would be ready to fire. The noise grew nearer, and the bushes at the side of the ditch rocked. His finger found the trigger. Deer or bear, he would only have one shot to kill it. Right into the eye was his best chance.

The branches parted, and a slender dark limb slid out, picking for purchase in the long grass. Cullen's fingertip twitched as a wide, brown eye came into view. It was fortunate that his mind was swift and his body obedient, for he aborted the motion only just in time.

"Shit!" he exhaled sharply, lowering the rifle before his pulse could start hammering against his ribs. "What the hell you think you're doing, boy? You like to got yourself shot just now!"

The child stood frozen, eyes enormously wide. One hand still clutched the front of his shirt, which was pulled up into a makeshift apron heavy with hickory nuts. The other was clutching at his throat as he fought a silent scream. It was Eli, the boy from West Willows with whom Lottie had brawled. Hurriedly Cullen stowed the rifle on the floor of the wagon and raised his hands in a nonthreatening gesture.

"Easy, there. Easy. I ain't gonna hurt you. I was just hoping for a doe."

The boy swallowed painfully, but seemed rooted to the spot. "Please, Massa," he stammered. "P-Please, I didn' mean to trespass. I was jus'…"

"Just pinching hickory nuts," said Cullen, grinning. "Don't Mr. Ainsley feed you enough?"

"Yassir," said the boy. "But these here… they's a treat, an' the trees over Wes' Willows gets picked up in no time." He stiffened, thrusting out his jaw belligerently. "I didn' steal 'em," he said. "They's jus' lyin' there, goin' rot or be took by squirrels."

"Save your excuses for someone else," Cullen said, waving his hand. He didn't approve of darkies trespassing, but unless they did so on his land it wasn't any of his business. Anyway, scavenging nuts was just one of those things boys did. He and Nate had done just the same thing a quarter-century ago, and in just the same woods. "I ain't the hickory nut sheriff. I take it you were headed back to your plantation when we startled each other?"

"Yassir," Eli agreed with such vehemence that Cullen wondered whether he was speaking the truth. "I's jus' goin' back."

"Well, go on, then," said Cullen. "And mind where you go in the woods. It's hunting season."

With a scraping bow and a series of "yassir"s and "thankee sir"s, Eli retreated, scrambling up onto the road behind the wagon and pelting off towards the Ainsley property. Cullen watched him go, his amusement over the encounter blunting just a little his frustration that the boy had not been a deer after all. He had certainly given the child a scare that would make him think twice next time. He flicked the reins and drove the mules on. Turning into his home lane, he remembered too late that he had neglected to pick up a piece of candy for Gabe and Lottie.

_*discidium*_

The game was called hide-and-go-seek, and it worked like this. Pappy would stand up on the veranda, leaning against one of the columns in front of Mama. She was busy with the mending, but she had promised to make sure that Pappy didn't peek. Then Pappy would count all the way to thirty. This was higher than Gabe could count, and so he couldn't be sure Pappy didn't skip numbers, but Mama was meant to be looking out for that, too. Not that Pappy was a cheater, no sir! Gabe didn't believe that for a minute. But Pappy had grinned and winked and said somebody had best keep an eye on him, 'cause he was a rascal and he did love to win.

While Pappy was counting, Gabe would run and hide. He was allowed to hide anywhere in the house or the stable or the dooryard, but he couldn't go any further than the east fence or the well, or the edge of the sweet potato patch or the far paddock fence. And he couldn't hide in the toolhouse or the cellar, but anyway those were shut up and he couldn't get in. The kitchen was also off-limits, because Bethel was taking her Sunday nap. Other than that, though, Gabe could hide anywhere he wanted. Then when Pappy finally got to thirty, he would shout that he was coming, and he would look for Gabe. If he found him, Pappy won. If he couldn't, Gabe won. Then they'd start all over again.

It was a good game: even better than chasing. Gabe had discovered that he was a _very _good hider. The first time, not sure what to do, he had just hidden under Mama's chair. He had thought that Pappy would see him straight away when he opened his eyes, but he hadn't! He had gone off wandering to check the henhouse, and the parlor, and the bedrooms and the barn before coming back to the front of the house and looking under the porch and up on the roof and finally in Mama's sewing basket before declaring he didn't know where that boy had got to. But although he had won, Gabe wasn't satisfied. It hadn't been very exciting at all, hiding behind Mama's skirts as she rocked peacefully to and fro and darned the knees of Pappy's rattiest drawers.

So the next time he really _had _hidden in the henhouse, but the hens had raised such a racket that Pappy had found him right away and declared that perhaps they ought to make the henhouse off-limits, too, since it might upset the chickens and keep them from laying. They needed every single egg they could get, because there wasn't any meat to eat. Gabe didn't understand this correlation, because eggs didn't taste anything like meat, but it seemed very important to Mama and Pappy and Bethel. For his part, Gabe liked eggs and he didn't want to have to give them up just because the hens were upset by a game, and he readily agreed not to hide in the coop again.

The third time, he had climbed between the first and second rails of the paddock, careful to give Pike and Bonnie and them derned mules a wide berth, and had slipped into the barn. He had looked around for a good place to hide, and had just about decided to climb up into the buggy when he heard Pappy shout from the house. In a moment of panic, convinced he would be discovered immediately, Gabe clambered up the ladder into the hayloft.

He wasn't really supposed to be in the hayloft alone, but he didn't know why. He could climb the ladder all by himself now, without Lottie behind to catch him if he got too tired. And he certainly wasn't silly or babyish enough to fall off the edge. It was nice in the hayloft: warm and sweet-smelling and quiet. He liked to lie on his back against the big mound of hay, and feel it crackle beneath him. It was a good place to wait while Pappy, who despite his many talents didn't seem to be much of a finder, went looking for him behind the house again. Gabe could see him out of the hayloft hatch: a small little man like a tin soldier far below. It made him giggle to think of his tall, strong pappy small enough to put in his hand.

It had been a very good day. Pappy and Mama had not gone to church, because Pappy had to take the second shift in the tobacco barn so that Lottie could have a day to rest. Gabe had been displeased by this until he discovered that he was allowed to go and sit with his father while he minded the fires. Pappy even let him put wood chips on the embers, and Gabe was able to hand him the nails while Pappy sat cross-legged on the floor of the kiln, making tobacco boxes out of thin yellow boards. It was very special to have private time with Pappy, without Mama or Bethel around, and Gabe had felt tremendously grown-up.

They ate dinner late because Pappy was watching the fires, and then they had gone outdoors to play. Only Mama couldn't: she had to do the mending. She hadn't had time to do it all week, because she and Bethel were cleaning and chopping and stewing and pickling everything from the garden. They dug up onions and bulbs of garlic, brushing them clean and braiding their stems together to hang from the pantry ceiling. They brought in bushel-baskets full of turnips and carrots and parsnips. And they planted new rows of collards and the winter beans. Soon the summer beans and peas would be ready for picking, and then Mama would have a bowl in her lap all the time, shelling and shelling the hard, round seeds to cook all winter. It all seemed like an awful lot of work to Gabe, and he was glad he wasn't a girl and didn't have to do it.

He heard the front door of the stable creak, rattling on its rails as it was hauled open. Hurriedly he burrowed into the hay so that only his face and his knees peeked out. Eagerly he listened.

"Gabe?" called Pappy happily. "You in here? Where you at, son?"

His footfalls moved down towards the horses' stalls, and then up towards the mules'. Pike had wandered in and was lapping at the big trough. Gabe heard the _hush _of Pappy's hand against the horse's neck. "Here, now, you seen my boy?" he asked. "I know he's got to be 'round here somewhere, but hanged if I can figure out where."

Gabe giggled, clapping his hands belatedly to his mouth. He held his breath, fearing that he had been heard.

"What's that you say?" Pappy queried. "He might be over in your stall? All right then… _found you! _Aw heck, he ain't here."

Pike snorted and tossed his head so that Gabe could hear his mane crackling cleanly. "Maybe he's in the corn crib?" said Pappy. There was a rustling of dry husks from below. "Don't look like it to me. Where is he? Where's Gabe?"

Eagerly Gabe listened as the footsteps moved off into the paddock. Pappy hadn't even though to look up in the hayloft! From outside he heard him call; "Here, now, you seen Gabe?"

He was laughing so hard now that he could hardly breathe with the effort of keeping quiet. He crept out of the heap of fragrant grass and slithered on his belly so he could look out the hatch. Pappy was standing below, hands planted square on his hips. Lottie, wearing her pretty new dress that Mama had made, had just turned to look at him.

"He los' again?" she asked anxiously.

"No, no," Pappy reassured her. "We's playing hide-and-go-seek, and he's gone and hid hisself so well I can't find him. I checked the nursery and behind Mrs. Bohannon's chair, and I checked the garden and I checked under the washtub. I even checked my pants pockets, but he ain't there neither."

Pappy was so silly sometimes, Gabe thought. He would never fit in his pants pockets! His hushed giggle was interrupted by a fearsome sneeze. It took him by surprise and he couldn't muffle it. As it passed, Gabe froze. Lottie was looking right at him, her head tilted back.

"Why, Mist' Cullen," she said; "he right…" She glanced at Pappy and stopped, but Gabe couldn't see why. All he could see was the top of Pappy's hat and the back of his body, all from an angle looking down across his shoulders. "He a right good hider, I bet," Lottie said. "Mebbe you ain' never goin' find him."

"Maybe I ain't," said Pappy. He cupped a hand to his mouth. "Here that, Mary? Lottie says I ain't never going to find him!"

"Oh, dear," Mama sang out. Because she was a lady and didn't every really raise her voice Gabe could only just make out what she was saying. "I suppose you'll have to be the one to explain it to Bethel."

"Suppose I will," Pappy said, taking off his hat and dusting it across his leg. He strode towards the house and just out of view. "Can't think where he got to. Guess he whipped me again. Hear that, Gabe?" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "I give up! You win again!"

Giggling, Gabe climbed carefully down the ladder. He snuck across to the other side of the barn and crept around Bonnie's stall so that it looked like he had been hiding over there. Then he came marching triumphantly into the sunshine.

"Here I is!" he declared proudly. "You couldn' fin' me!"

Pappy jumped as if he had been tapped on the shoulder by a haunt. "Well, how 'bout that!" he crowed, swooping down to pick Gabe up. He tossed him skyward and Gabe howled with laughter. "Where was you hiding?"

"Ah-ah, Cullen," Mama said, smiling from the porch as she cut off a thread with her tiny scissors. "You're only entitled to know that if you find him."

"Yeah," agreed Gabe. He frowned thoughtfully, sneezed again, and asked; "What's 'titled?"


	36. Hartwood

**Chapter Thirty-Six: Hartwood**

When Mister Cullen relieved her of the morning watch on the tobacco fires, Meg hurried down to the quarters. In the quiet of her cabin she washed herself, combed her hair carefully, and put on her good dress. She did not often have occasion to wear it these days, for the last several weeks had been too hard and wearisome to leave her with any strength to go abroad on Sundays. The ceaseless, desperate work in the tobacco and the long days made longer by the necessity of keeping watch in the kiln were sapping her strength and smothering her spirit. She worked as tirelessly as she could, and she never complained. She owed that to her master, who had never shown her anything but kindness and who cared for the wellbeing of her child, and who worked just as tirelessly and uncomplainingly himself, even when he was sickening. Indeed, all that had been sustaining her through the long, hard days were her loyalty and Mister Cullen's determination. She didn't understand how he could keep up such unyielding strength in the face of calamity, but she was grateful that he had. She never would have been able to cling to her own hope otherwise.

Today, however, she was determined to go and see Peter. She missed him terribly; at cotton-picking time it was impossible for him to come to her, and she had been too weary to come to him. But last night had been her night to rest, and the morning watch never tired her as the nightly ones did. Having the first watch of the day, Meg was left with all the hours until sundown to spend as she pleased. Bethel would serve up dinner and supper, freeing her even of that obligation. She could pass over the pastures and slip through the belt of woodland and be on Hartwood Plantation and in the arms of her husband in only a few minutes. She took a last look around the cabin, picked up the little basket she had packed to take with her, and hurried out into the sunshine.

She found Lottie by the willows, picking autumn wildflowers to weave into her hair. The childlike portrait of the bedecked pigtails was a quiet contrast to the dignity of her new dress. The collar and the row of buttons lent a lady's grace to Lottie's gangly body, and with its voluminous flounce the skirt stood out stiffly enough that the absence of petticoat could not be seen. Missus Mary had done a wonderful job, and Meg was grateful. Not many plantation mistresses would have taken such trouble – or cut up one of her own gowns – for a girl-slave. At the sight of her mother's own pretty sprigged calico frock, Lottie's face broke into an enormous grin.

"You's goin' see Pa!" she exclaimed.

Meg smiled almost shyly. After so long between visits she felt almost like a girl again, sneaking down to the edge of her master's land to meet her lover by moonlight. "Is there anything you'd like me to tell him?"

Lottie tilted her head, considering this, and then shrugged. "You could say how Massa been trustin' me to watch the fires," she said. "An' tell 'im I ain't let 'em burn down once!"

Lottie was so proud of the trust Mister Cullen had placed in her. Meg worried sometimes about her girl spending the long days shut up in the hot barn, but it was a thousand times better than working in the tobacco and Meg knew it had to be done. There was simply no one else to do it. After the picking was done the field hands would be able to take turns with her, but until then they had to make do. And Lottie didn't seem to be suffering from anything other than a sense of self-importance born of the dignity of her position.

"I tell 'im jus' that," Meg agreed. "An' I'll tell 'im you sends you' love."

"Awright," said Lottie, turning back to her flowers. She did not even ask whether she might come, and for some reason that pricked Meg's heart. She would never let her daughter onto Mister Sutcliffe's land; not while she had breath in her body. And she ought to be glad that Lottie just accepted this, instead of asking uncomfortable questions or, worse, attempting to defy her mother's edict. Yet somehow it saddened Meg that her little girl took the separation from her father so much in stride. When Lottie had been small, their little family had been so close: gathering together every Sunday to eat and laugh and play together. For man and wife living on two different plantations, she and Peter had managed very well to give their daughter a sense of having two present parents. It was all that a pair of slaves could hope for.

Meg cut across the pasture to the tobacco barn, and hesitated for a moment before opening the door. From within she could hear the ringing of the hammer as Mister Cullen fashioned another hundredweight box. The finished ones were stacked against the north wall of the barn: some clean and yellow, newly made, and others grey and weathered. The boxes that had been purchased last summer had not all been used: the harvest had proved much smaller than expected. This year, scraping just to get through to selling time, they had not even been able to hire someone to make them, but at least the work of assembling the cut boards took some of the tedium out of the night watches. Meg wasn't as experienced with a hammer as the men, but she could manage if she went slowly.

She opened the door just as Mister Cullen said; "Hand me another: make sure it's a good one."

Meg hesitated, momentarily puzzled, and then she saw that Mister Gabe was sitting beside his father with the box of nails between his knees. He considered the array before him with care, and then plucked up his choice and handed it to the man.

Mister Cullen put it in place and drove it in with four swift swings of the hammer. Then he looked up, following the draft of fresh air from the door, and looked Meg over. "You're going to see Peter," he said.

"Yassir," said Meg, curtsying. "I means… if it all right with you, Mist' Cullen."

"You know it is," he said. He reached for another nail, and the child placed one in his hand. Without taking his eyes from her he felt for the place on the edge of the board and pressed the tip into the soft, fragrant wood. "Don't forget that he's welcome here, too. Whenever you want."

"Thankee, but he can' get 'way this time of year," said Meg. "Mist' Sutcliffe wouldn' stand for it. S'pose there was 'nother of them storms, an' him not on the place? Or a fire, or a high wind."

"You got a good point," said Mister Cullen. "I guess being foreman comes with a price, don't it?"

"Yassir." Meg didn't know what else to say. It was true. Peter had the respect of the other field hands, and a position of responsibility on the plantation. He had a little cabin of his own, and three changes of clothes, and a sturdy pair of boots. But with all that came restrictions that he had not been under in the early years of their marriage. He could no longer come and go quietly, at least not at planting or harvest. He was responsible for maintaining order among the slaves, and was therefore held accountable when disorder arose. And he was worth a great deal more now: so much more that it was impossible that Mister Cullen would ever be able to afford to buy him. Once, when Lottie was small and the first good crop after the disastrous one was in, Meg had harbored a hope that one day the Bohannons might purchase her Peter. Now, with his worth so great and their prospects so spare it seemed impossible.

"What's in the basket?" Mister Cullen asked. His tone was conversational, not interrogative: he trusted his people and did not immediately spring to suspicion as some white men did.

"I been savin' my apples the last three days," Meg said, quietly proud. "An' my breakfas' biscuits from this mornin'. Be a nice treat for Peter, I thought."

He frowned, and Meg was worried that she had misjudged. Perhaps he would not take kindly to her bringing food off the plantation, even if she had only taken from her own ration. Mister Cullen had never before shown such inclination: he fed his people as well as he could, and with almost the same fare the family ate; he did not complain when Lottie ate blackberries she was meant to be picking or grabbed a peach right off the tree. But perhaps this was too much.

"I don't like you depriving yourself," he said. "You got to keep up your strength so you're fit to work. You want to bring apples for Peter, you just ask Bethel to give you some. We got plenty to spare. We can afford to send him the odd biscuit, too. Or something from the garden. Tell Bethel I said it's all right."

Meg's cheeks grew warm. She was ashamed of her initial assumption. "I didn' like to," she said softly. "I know stores is runnin' short."

The pained look that tightened his features made her want to bite off her tongue. "Not that short," Mister Cullen muttered. "Not yet."

There was an uncomfortable silence broken only by the ringing of the hammer as he focused intently upon his work. Mister Gabe looked from his father to Meg and back again. Then he grinned up at the woman. "Look, Meg," he said proudly. "I's he'pin'."

"You sure is, Mist' Gabe," she said, smiling broadly for the child. "I don' know what we'd do if we didn' have you 'round to help."

"Later on we's goin' play," boasted the boy. "Pappy promised. We's goin' chase all I want!"

"That's right, son," said Mister Cullen, a little absently. His attention was focused on squaring the corner of the box, and his eyes had the keen flinty focus they always exhibited when he was fixed upon the task of the moment. Still, Meg could see the mist of weariness within them, and the stoop of his shoulders. She wondered how he would find the energy to go charging after his tireless son, however much he might wish to. But that wasn't her business, and it wasn't her place to say anything. She took a backward step out of the barn.

"I's goin' get 'long now, Mist' Cullen, if there ain't no objection," she said.

"Go on," he said, offering her an affable smile. "Give my regards to your husband."

Meg thanked him again and took her leave, closing the door carefully and striking a straight eastward course. She passed the edge of the cornfield, fallen stalks mouldering in the mud, and skirted the north side of the top field. The tobacco plants had the odd, stripped look that they always assumed once more than half the leaves were gone. They were almost all the way through the prime middle leaves, and the range of quality was enormous. From the bottom field and the western quarter of the large one they had top-quality tobacco that would fetch an excellent price. The next half of the big field had yielded good-quality stuff that would have been considered worth selling even on a much, much larger plantation. As for the rest, Meg didn't know whether it was even worth picking. But Elijah said that Mister Cullen told him that even if they only got two cents a pound for the tattered and mud-spattered leaves they had to pick it. They needed every penny they could possibly squeeze out of the land.

She tried not to look at the field. She was sick of the sight of it. It broke her heart to see the ruin of their hopes and the ragged remains of Mister Cullen's frantic attempt to bring in a good harvest. Working the other two fields was not so bad, but this one seemed nothing but a waste: a waste of all the work they had put into it before the storm, a waste of the toil to pick what was left, a waste of their dreams and their patience and their worry, and a waste of her master's determination and sacrifice. It was easier not to look.

The pasture grasses tickled her ankles and whispered against her skirts. This was such a pretty stretch of land, here where the gentle rolling rises were painted in green and gold and tawny brown as the different grasses aged or ripened, and speckled with the bright blossoms of the autumn wildflowers. Here and there a little tree was growing, thin and supple as a pickaninny on the windswept hillside. Walking through this charming, open space Meg could almost forget that once all this land had been tilled and fruitful, filled with thousands of dollars' worth of tobacco worked by many hands. She scarcely recalled when the land had been in cotton: as Mister Cullen's father had aged more and more of the earth had been turned over to tobacco instead.

She came at last to the edge of the young woods, which had been left to go wild before she was born. It was a quiet place, cool and peaceful on a Sunday when the songs of the Hartwood cotton hands could not be heard. It had none of the tangled overgrown crowdedness of the stand of old forest between the Bohannon and Ainsley properties. The trees were all still in their young growth, tall though many now were, and the squirrels and birds and jackrabbits that lived here were eager and bold. Meg stepped over a stump where someone had cut a tree for fuel or fence-rails, and moved down the small, winding path that took her to the edge of Mister Cullen's land.

She emerged from the shade of the trees into the vast stretch of the Hartwood cotton. Looking around to reassure herself that there was no one nearby, Meg climbed over the low fence that marked the edge of the property and stepped between the rows. She gathered her skirts close to her legs so that she would not unwittingly dislodge any of the boles, and picked her way carefully through the field. The cotton plants had a dusty, sun-bleached smell, and the earth between them was almost firm despite the nightly rains. The mud was always less in a cotton field, because the plants did not hold water as tobacco did. The water sank deep into the earth or dried up in the morning sun, instead of showering down all day from broad green leaves.

Soon Meg came to the section that had already been picked. The slaves on the Sutcliffe plantation had fixed quotas to gather, and that meant that haste rather than precision was valued. Some of the boles had not been picked clean, and gossamer strands of cotton fluff danced in the faint east wind. When the first pass through the field was finished, the slaves would have to go back and glean these leavings – and woe betide the one who could not make his measure with what was left. Meg was glad that Mister Cullen eschewed such false measures of productivity. He liked a job done properly, even if it then got done more slowly, and he valued care over quantity. So long as his people worked diligently and well, he didn't complain about the day's yield.

Between the cotton and the slave quarters stretched the vast acres of yams and potatoes, drawing nearer and nearer to harvest. Meg skirted around the nearest field, not wanting to risk treading on the little hills with their precious treasure. She supposed it didn't matter so much to Sutcliffe or his slaves if a few sweet potatoes got crushed beneath a careless heel, but on the Bohannon plantation the whole family, white and black, was watching the yams with anxious eagerness. They had been without that staple of the Southern diet for so long that Meg almost could not remember how they tasted anymore, and without the yams they would face a very hungry winter. Sutcliffe could surely buy up whatever he needed if something went wrong with his food crops: Mister Cullen could not.

The smell of the quarters came to Meg's nostrils before she could even see the smoke from the cooking fires against the sky. It was the smell of cornbread and stewed pork, of cabbage and onion and collards boiling; the smell of dirty clothing and stale straw ticks, of unwashed bodies crowded into too small a space; of wormy logs and wet tarpaper and rusted old tools. The latrines were too near the cabins, and too few for the people who needed them, and the sharp pong of human waste was not quite masked by the bland smells of dinnertime. The smell of lye soap was strong upon the air, and on the sagging clotheslines between the cabins dripping, patched and ragged garments hung: the women had spent the morning doing the week's washing that could not be done at any other time during picking.

The cabins themselves were dreary little structures. Where the ones in the Bohannon quarters were built of sawed boards on stout wooden frames, with proper sills at windows and doors, these were made of rough-cut logs chinked with chips and mud. The bark had been left on when they had first been constructed and now, decades later, it was peeling and curling and in some places missing in great patches that gave the squat huts a dejected piebald appearance. Most of the chimneys were made of daubed twigs instead of brick or stone: they were prone to catching fire, and they did not keep a good draft. The roofs were meant to be of shake wood, but they had been inadequately maintained over the years and were patched with tarpaper and oilcloth. They let in the rain. For windows there were nothing but coarse holes sawn in the log walls and covered in winter by squares of scraped rawhide: no shutters, no curtains, not even a sill on which to cool a loaf of cornbread. Some of the cabins did not even have doors: ragged sheets of canvas pegged over them provided the only modicum of privacy. Almost all of these were pulled back now, to let out the heat of open-fire cooking or to catch whatever fresh air they could.

There were few people to be seen. The women were cleaning up after the noon meal, and anyone who could would be sleeping. There were three little children squatting in the dirt and drawing with sticks: two girls and a boy. All three were naked, for their only frocks were drying on the clotheslines, and their golden-brown bodies told Meg that they were at the very least half-siblings. Their mothers, poor little girls that they were, were nowhere to be seen.

An old uncle was sitting in the door of one of the cabins, puffing at a pipe full of rabbit-tobacco. He squinted aged eyes at Meg and nodded in greeting. She smiled for him. She was well known here; she had been a regular visitor for twelve years. Two boys, a year or two older than Lottie, went running past her wearing nothing but flour-sack drawers: no doubt bound for the swimming hole. Their bodies were already roped with the muscles of young field hands: they worked the cotton.

In the doorway of the next hovel sat a young man, feet planted wide and arms crossed over his knees. His head was bowed low, but Meg recognized him at once: Pait, nineteen and newly married to seventeen-year-old Minervy. He was a thin, rangy boy with well-muscled arms and shoulders but lean legs and ribs that showed starkly with the skinniness of boyhood. These ribs were heaving shallowly now, and as Meg drew near she could see why. His back was a mass of bloody wheals, some of them crusted over but far more still weeping thin, bright blood. Hastily Meg knelt beside him, planting a motherly hand across his brow.

"Pait, honey, what happened?" she murmured soothingly, not really expecting an answer.

Pain-dulled eyes shifted to her, and his heavy lower lip quivered with the effort of forming words. "Meg," he said. "Ain't nothin'."

"It a beating," said a young woman, coming out of the shadows of the cabin with a wooden bowl and a stained but clean rag. Minervy was small and delicate of bone, with a way of moving that reminded Meg of a frightened foal. One hip clung to the sawn edge of a log in the doorway, as though to anchor her from being swept away, and her soft, frightened eyes flicked to Meg's. "They beat him."

"But why?" asked Meg. Pait was a good worker: Peter said he was one of the best, for his age.

"Say I come up short," huffed the boy, flinching as Minervy dabbed at his flayed back. "Two pound light. Thir-irty-nine strokes."

"When?"

"Yest'day," said Minervy. "Ain't no way he come up short: them scales mus' have been crooked."

Meg felt sick. It was a wonder that Pait was even well enough to sit up, after a whipping like that. She stroked his clammy cheek and set down her basket so she could curl her fingers around his hand. He squeezed tightly as the cloth moved over an especially sore spot. Minervy was moving as gently as she could, but the pain had to be terrible. Meg had never been whipped in her life; not even once. Oh, her ma had given her the odd swat on the rump with a spoon or a corn-stalk when she got into mischief, and once when she was fourteen Bethel had slapped her for talking back, but to be struck by a white person? To be tied to a post and beaten with a strip of braided leather until it raised blood? Meg could not even imagine what such agony and humiliation might feel like.

But even if Minervy suspected the beating was unjust, it wasn't wise to come out with it as she had. "You shouldn't say such things," Meg whispered. "Never know who's listenin'."

"Don' care who listens," Minervy protested, hoarse and tearful. "My Pait ain't never come up short in his life. He been a full han' three years now: pickin' like a growed man. It ain't right. Ain't decent. It ain't."

"But surely there no reason for you' overseer to do such a thing," Meg protested in spite of herself. It didn't make sense. Crooked cotton scales were not unknown, but because slaves always picked onto the same scales they didn't ordinarily run into the problem of coming short. If a scale was rigged to weigh five pounds light, a slave just picked a hundred and five pounds a sack out of habit. There was no sense in changing a scale's calibration without warning – unless an overseer wanted to entrap a slave for some reason.

Minervy's eyes were on her, and Meg's heart suddenly fluttered. The girl's expression was one of absolute desolation; of horrified, helpless despair and an even more ghastly guilt. Minervy felt she was responsible for this, and it was tormenting her.

"Oh, no," Meg whispered, understanding. "Oh, Pait, you didn' _say_ nothin', did you?"

She didn't think he had. The boy had more sense than that, but even more irrefutable was the fact that if he had, he wouldn't be back in his cabin being tended by his wife. If he had, he would be in chains in the little room off the woodshed, waiting to be sold off the place. It had happened before.

"No ma'am," Pait panted. "I didn'. I ain't no fool. All I done… all I done…"

He was cut off in a stifled cry as his young bride wiped away a plug of begrimed cruor from one of the deepest slashes. His knuckles were an unhealthy grey where they gripped his forearms, and his eyes were watering with the pain. Minervy withdrew her hand hastily, trembling and aghast with remorse. She looked down at the rag, now red with blood, and choked on a half-sob.

"Oh, Meg, could you… I can't… I can't hurt him no more."

Meg slipped carefully around the huddled body in the doorway and took the bowl and cloth from the girl. The water was warm, but not too hot: just right for bathing a torn back. She knelt down and set gently to work. There was no sign of the other slaves who shared the little hovel, but of the corner of her eye Meg saw Minervy's daughter sitting on the pallet in the corner. She was wrapped in a ragged old blanket to hide her washday nakedness: at five she was too conscious of her modesty to run outside with the little ones. She was watching the proceedings with eyes so wide that the whites glowed like silver rings in the gloom, and her tawny skin was pale. Meg turned to smile at her.

"Don' you worry, honey," she said kindly. "Your pa's goin' be jus' fine."

The child only looked on in frightened silence as Meg bathed her new stepfather's back. Pait was very brave, but the whipping was a bad one, and by the time Meg was finished he was half-swooning with the pain. With Minervy's help Meg got him to his feet, and he managed to shuffle the four steps to the straw tick on the floor. The little girl scuttled out of the way, clutching the blanket around him, and the two women settled Pait on his stomach with the corn-husk pillow beneath his cheek. Minervy stroked his brow and murmured soft comforts to him, and Meg stepped outside to fling away the bloodied water.

"Let 'im sleep if he can, honey," she said to Minervy as she came back in. "You gots any mallow root?" The girl nodded. "Let 'im chew a piece, then, an' mix up some cornmeal mush for supper." She looked down at the battered boy on the thin pallet. "I's goin' speak to Peter 'bout gettin' him on the sick list tomorrow. He ain' goin' be fit to work."

"I kin look aft' him, Ma," the little girl piped up. "While you's in them fiel's. Fetch 'im water an' such-like."

"Good girl," Meg said softly. "That's just what you'll need to do."

She wanted to say something more to comfort Minervy, but she couldn't do it in front of the child. Gently she took hold of the young woman's thin arm and drew her towards the doorway. Minervy shifted as if to resist, but she did not. Resistance had been stripped out of her long ago by cruel white hands and an old man's unholy passion.

Out in the sunshine, Meg led the girl into the shelter of the clothesline, well away from the gaping window-hole. She put one hand on a thin shoulder, and used the other to tilt up the shamefacedly tucked chin. "This ain't your fault," Meg said firmly. "You hear me, chile? This ain't your fault."

"He was waitin' fo' me," Minervy said tremulously. Her eyes were brimming with tears. "Thu'sday night it were my turn. Pait waited. Waited fo' hours when by rights he shoulda been fas' asleep. He hided in Miz Sutcliffe's 'zaleas 'til I come out, an' he brung me home. We mus' have been seen. It my fault, awright."

"No, no," Meg murmured, gathering the girl into her arms and pressing her head against her shoulder. Poor little child, her mother dead ten years and her father sold off to Alabama, her sister just as beaten-down and violated as she was. Meg rocked her gently, trying with all her might not to think of her own little girl. "No, honey, it ain'. It ain' your fault: jus' bad luck, that what it is. Jus' mis'ble bad, sad, wicked luck."

Minervy sobbed, but only once. Then her arm crept up between her body and Meg's and her thumb flicked away her tears. She didn't have much crying left in her: she had spent it all years ago. For a time she let Meg hold her, and then she straightened and drew out of the older woman's grasp. Her worn-out washday dress was rumpled, but she did not seem to notice. She fixed a brave look on her face, and she said; "I thankee, Meg: I truly does. D'you really think Peter can get 'im on the sick lis' for a day?"

"Sure he can," Meg promised. She knew she would be putting her husband in an awkward position. If Pait had been targeted by the overseer at the master's instruction, it might even be dangerous to attempt to give him a day to rest. But Peter was the foreman, and the sick list fell under his remit. He could argue that Pait was too valuable a field hand to risk damaging any further. She reached to squeeze Minervy's hand. "You wan' me to stay with you a while?" she asked.

The girl shook her head. "Tabby jus' gone to fetch water. She be back direc'ly."

Meg didn't know whether Tabby, who was twenty-one and almost mute, would be much comfort to her sister, but she could appreciate that the little family did not want a neighbor intruding on their misery when even their housemates had withdrawn out of courtesy or fear. She saw Minervy back to the door and took her leave, but not before giving her two of the apples she had brought for Peter. The handsome red fruits would be no comfort to Minervy or to Pait, but they would do the child some good.

_*discidium*_

Cullen woke up gently to the stirring of slender fingers in his hair. He blinked sleepily to clear the cobwebs from his eyes, and found himself looking up at Mary's fond smile. He was lying on his side with a feather tick beneath him and a wall against his back, and for a moment he didn't remember where he was or why. Then he felt the weight atop his left arm and smelled the downy baby-scent of his son, and smiled.

"I fell asleep," he said. His mouth felt soft and very warm: a sign of a deep, rejuvenating nap.

"You fell asleep," Mary confirmed. Her plait was coiled over the shoulder of her nightgown, and the light of the candle she held made her skin shimmer gloriously. She was beautiful.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he asked. He remembered now: tending to the horses and mules with Nate, the tasks made easier because on Sunday they could be done before sunset; then coming in for an early supper with his wife and son before bringing Gabe up to bed. It was a rare treat, not only for the boy but for Mary and Bethel, when Cullen could be the one to slip on the small nightshirt and listen to the little boy's prayers, and sing softly to him before leaving him to drift off on his own. Only this time Cullen hadn't left him: he had stretched out on top of the bedclothes just to keep him company until he fell asleep. He had intended to go downstairs after that and sit with Mary in the parlor for a while, but it seemed that the long days and the heavy labor, compounded by the rigors of an afternoon of keeping pace with a small child, had caught up to him.

"I'm waking you now," whispered Mary. "Can you get out of there without disturbing him?"

"I can try," said Cullen. He reached around Gabe's front with his right hand and cupped it under the child's cheek. Gently he lifted his head just enough that he could slip his arm out from under the boy's body. Gabe cooed softly as Cullen eased him down, then rocked briefly back against his father's chest before rolling to sprawl on his front. This gave Cullen a little extra space to inch down towards the footboard, propelling himself with his elbow. Once he was safely past his son's feet he sat up and slid to the edge of the bed. He paused there, still seated, and smoothed the bedclothes he had rumpled. Then he got carefully to his feet. He moved out into the hallway and Mary followed him, swinging the creaking door all but closed behind her.

"What time is it?" Cullen asked. He felt better than he had in weeks. His headache was almost gone, and the muscles of his back were much the better for having been pounded by Gabe's sturdy little feet earlier that evening. He had spent the entire day with his son, forgetting his troubles for a time in the convoluted delights of conversation with a three-year-old. It had been a good day.

"Time to go out to the barn," Mary said. "Are you going to wear that?"

He was still in his second-best day clothes; he had not troubled with the good ones because they had not gone in to church. He looked down at the rumpled vest and grinned. "Might as well," he said. "A little smoke and sawdust won't hurt 'em."

Mary nodded. "Do you want your coat?" she asked. "It's cool tonight."

"Won't be in the tobacco barn," Cullen said. Impulsively he curled his hand around the back of her head and kissed her, once on the lips and once on the dainty brown birthmark on the side of her throat. "I didn't mean to make you get up in the middle of the night to fetch me."

"I'll be asleep again in no time," she promised. "Bethel said she would leave you some custard in the kitchen, as you missed your dessert."

It was her turn to kiss him, lightly on the cheek, and then she gave him the candle and slipped away into the shadows of their bedroom. Cullen found that he wanted to follow her, and he grinned. Nothing for months, and then twice in one week? He really was feeling better. Maybe it was the relief of being able to settle back into the normal rhythm of life after two weeks' invasion from the North.

In the kitchen he found custard, as promised, as well as half a pot of hot coffee. He put on his boots and with the cup in one hand and the little dessert dish in the other he navigated the door with care. The waxing moon lit his way to the tobacco barn, and he nudged its door open with his shoulder. It had a latch, but that was only used during the rest of the year: it wasn't necessary at curing time, when the fires were constantly attended.

"Uneventful night, I hope, Meg?" he asked as he came in to the orange glow. He turned to smile at the woman, and stopped, taken aback. "Where's Meg?"

Elijah was sitting on the old crate, hammer in one hand while the other adjusted the angle of a board. Three nails protruded between his wizened lips. He set the hammer on his knee and swept them out so that he could speak. "Didn' show up to relieve me," he said, shrugging indifferently.

Cullen's brows knit together. "That ain't like her at all," he said.

Again Elijah shrugged, more expansively this time. "Been a long time since she gone over to Hartwood. Mos' likely jus' los' track of the time. I don' mind: got me the res' of the night to sleep."

"What about the cows?" asked Cullen. If Meg had not yet returned from visiting Peter – and he could certainly understand a couple in that situation losing track of the time – that meant she hadn't been in to milk the cows.

"Nate saw to 'em," said Elijah. "Sees to 'em every Sunday to give her a break."

"Does he?" This was surprising. Not so much because Nate was doing it, for he was sweet on Meg and often went out of his way to make her lot a little easier, but because Cullen had not known about it. With so few Negroes on the place, he thought he knew just about everything that went on, both publicly and privately. Apparently he was mistaken.

"You know that boy been carryin' a torch for her since the day she let down her skirts," said Elijah. "How Meg never knowed it I jus' can't say." He shifted the board another quarter-inch and drove in the last two nails in rapid succession. Then he set the hammer on the half-finished tobacco box and got stiffly to his feet. "G'night, Mist' Cullen," he grunted.

"Goodnight." Cullen waited until the door was closed and then sat down to eat. The custard was flavored with blackberries, quite likely the last of the fresh ones, and it made for pleasant eating. Supper had been more than six hours ago, and breakfast was still a long way off. Ordinarily he hated the chilled misery of the middle shift, but tonight he fell rested and well. He had slept an extra three hours, more or less.

It was when he reached the end of his coffee and picked up the hammer and another sawn board that Cullen's unease finally caught up with him. It wasn't like Meg to come back late. For one thing, Sutcliffe's overseers did not take kindly to alien slaves lingering around the place at night. They didn't seem to have much sympathy for a man and a woman who wanted to spend a little intimate time together after a long week. But then again, overseers worked hard at cotton-picking time, too, and they might be too tired to care – or abed with their own wives or women. What sat wrong with Cullen was Meg shirking her shift. He didn't mind it much himself, so long as it was not a common occurrence and the fires did not go untended, and Elijah had seemed happy enough to lengthen his suppertime watch into the night for her sake. But it was so _unlike _Meg, who was so devoted to her duty, to forget her work. It was unlike her, too, to put her own pleasure or her husband's before Elijah's rest.

He shifted uncomfortably and set to work placing the nails. He wondered whether he ought to go down to the quarters and see if she was in her bed. If she was, he could put his mind at ease and save the questions for the morning. But what if she wasn't? He wouldn't very well go over to Hartwood in the middle of the night to roust her out of Peter's bed. He couldn't leave the tobacco fires that long, and it wouldn't be fair to wake one of the others to take his place. And anyway Meg was probably perfectly all right; probably drowsing in the arms of her man right now, enjoying a togetherness she was usually denied. Surely that was it: that was the only reasonable explanation for her absence. Wasn't it?

Cullen couldn't think what could possibly go wrong with an arrangement that had been working smoothly for a decade, and yet somehow he couldn't shake the eerie feeling that something _was _wrong. He turned the box and laid the next board, but his mind was not on the work. It just wasn't like Meg not to come home.


	37. Missing

**Chapter Thirty-Seven: Missing**

Cullen woke abruptly from a shallow and troubled slumber. Something was not right. Then he heard the clatter of the stove lid below, and rolled onto his back cautiously, so as not to drag the bedclothes off of his wife. Scrubbing at his eyes, he slipped his left leg off the edge of the bed and tried for a moment or two to recall why he had cause to awake in a panic before his reason caught up to his instinct and it came back to him. Hurriedly he got out of bed and snatched up his clothes. He stepped into his trousers and tugged on his shirt as he slipped into the hallway and hastened down the stairs. His boots were by the front door, and he dragged them on so quickly that the stiffened leather creaked in protest.

Bethel was at the stove, tilting the frying pan with one hand to spread the small dollop of lard while she stirred the hominy with the other. He was across the kitchen before she could look up, and had his hand on the doorknob before she spoke.

"Where you goin'?" she asked. "You ain't had you' breakfas'."

Cullen shook his head. "I got to get down to the quarters," he said. "Meg didn't turn up for her watch last night."

Bethel frowned. "That ain' like her 't all."

"I know," said Cullen. "I need to know if she got home all right."

"You goin' lay her out?" asked Bethel suspiciously. "She ain't see'd her man in weeks: mos' like they jus' lose track of time."

"That's my hope," he said. "And no, I ain't goin' lay her out. I just… I want to make sure she's home now."

His inclination was to stride out swiftly into the predawn darkness, but somehow he could not move. Bethel was holding him with a hard, searching gaze. "What you goin' do if she ain't?" she asked.

Cullen's head shook narrowly. He felt again the unfounded dread, and his helplessness against it. "I don't know," he confessed softly. "What do I do?"

Bethel sighed wearily. "Sen' for the patrollers an' tell 'em you got a runaway."

He frowned, flummoxed. "Meg wouldn't run," he said. "If she ain't back it's because something happened to her. She'd never leave her girl behind."

"How you know she did?" asked Bethel. "When you las' see'd that chile?"

This possibility had not even occurred to Cullen. He tried to recall when he had last laid eyes on Lottie. She had been passing by the barn while he and Gabe were playing hide-and-go-seek: she had caught sight of the little boy through the hayloft hatch when he sneezed, but hadn't spoiled the game. Surely he'd seen her since then, hadn't he? He wasn't sure. She was free to do as she pleased on Sundays, and he had been too much occupied with his precious time with his son to take notice of her.

"Yesterday afternoon sometime," he said. "You?"

"While you was at supper: she come to fetch the fiel' hands' food," said Bethel. "Long time since supper."

"I don't believe it," said Cullen. "Where's Meg got to run to? What's she got to run from?" He treated her well. He had always treated her well. Surely she wouldn't betray his trust in such a fundamental and unthinkable way.

"The tobacco," said Bethel. "That what she got to run from. She wouldn' be the only one would run from it if he could, neither."

There was the strange portentous note in Bethel's voice that always meant she was making some larger point of great significance, but Cullen was to distracted to take note of it, much less attempt to decipher her meaning. "I can't believe she'd run."

"Easy 'nough to check," said Bethel. "If she down there fixin' breakfas' you know she jus' los' track of time. If Lottie in her bed, mebbe Meg got herself hurt comin' home by night. If they both gone, you'll know."

Cullen hesitated for a breath or two, struggling to say something intangible that was pressing to get out but could not quite manage it. Then he shook his head again, tightly and swiftly, and hurried out into the darkness.

The moon had set and dawn was still over an hour away, but he had walked the paths of this plantation since babyhood and he did not need sight to bring him down to the stand of willows and through the well-worn path to the quarters. He came out behind Elijah's cabin, only a vague black shape in the starlight, and found the corner of Meg's with an outstretched hand. He felt his way to the door and hesitated. If Lottie was asleep he did not want to wake her. Meg herself might still be sleeping, if she had come home late. But there was an unspoken law that the master did not simply force his way into the dwellings of his slaves; not without cause. Gently he rapped upon the door. There was no sound from within, and no light showing through the crack at the head of the stoop. He felt for the latch-string and found it, but that didn't mean anything. What cause did his people have to pull in the latch-string at night? They knew they could sleep safe in their beds; they trusted each other and they trusted him. Hoping that this was not a betrayal of that trust, he tugged gently on the string and heard the soft grinding as the latch lifted.

He stepped into the cabin, breathing lightly and treading still lighter. The air was hot and close: the shutters were closed and the cookstove was burning. The glow of the embers showed through the vents: someone had laid a banked fire so that it could be easily stirred up to cook the morning meal. As his eyes adjusted to the faint redness of the room he could see a mound beneath the coverlet on the broad lower bunk. He drew near and, fearful that his resolve might fail him, hastily lifted the blanket.

The motion exposed Lottie's rangy young body, shift stretched across a skinny back and legs tangled in the sheet. One arm was crooked over the top of her head, and the other splayed out towards the wall over the vacant stretch of ticking where Meg usually slept. Cullen could see the dip in the straw where her hip belonged, but there was no sign of Meg. His hand began to tremble, and he willed it to be still. Then he spread the rumpled edge of the quilt and lowered it gently over Lottie again.

He had just released his hold, fingers hovering as if to will the completed motion to be innocuous enough to allow the girl to sleep on, when Lottie stirred, rolled over, and sat up.

"Ma?" she mumbled sleepily.

"No," said Cullen. "Where is she? Do you know where she is?"

Lottie yawned enormously and turned a fist against each eye. "Mist' Cullen?" she said. "What you doin' down here in the middle of the night? Missus Bohannon, she ain't taken poo'ly, is she?"

"It ain't the middle of the night; it's nearly dawn," Cullen told her. For some reason he felt compelled to whisper, though there was no cause. "Do you know where your ma is?"

"Nawsir," said Lottie, shaking her head. "She didn' come back fo' supper, an' she weren't back yet when it come time fo' bed. I thought she goed straight to the tobacco barn: it were her turn to take firs' watch. Didn' she come home for that?"

"No." Cullen's back molars ground against one another as he tried frantically to think what he ought to do. There was no way that Meg had run: even if she could somehow find it in herself to betray him, she would never leave her child. That meant that either she was still over at Hartwood, or some misfortune had befallen her on the way home. It was less than a mile from the Sutcliffe slave quarters to the Bohannon dooryard, and Meg had walked the way countless times over the years. But even familiar land could be dangerous in the dark. She might have turned her foot in a gopher hole, or struck her head on a low-hanging branch in the wild acres at the border of the two properties. She might have got herself turned around somehow and wandered off-course; Meg would have sense enough to stop and wait for dawn if she lost her way. It was even possible that she might have run afoul of a bear, though they weren't often seen in the settled areas anymore. She might be out there somewhere, in Sutcliffe's cotton or the pasture or the tobacco, hurt and frightened and alone.

Cullen could not bring himself to think of the other possibility. It was too outrageous, too hateful and spiteful and wicked even for Abel Sutcliffe. But he remembered the day in July when his aristocratic neighbor had come upon him in the tobacco, and how his eyes had raked lasciviously over Meg as she stooped with her wet skirts clinging to her legs and backside. Cullen closed his mind to that. With she-slaves enough of his own, surely Sutcliffe would not lay hands upon another man's property. And anyway Meg was older than he liked them, wasn't she?_ Wasn't she_?

"Mist' Cullen?" Lottie's voice was timorous now. He could see her wide eyes glinting in the faint stove-light: she was staring at his shadowed face, doubtless frightened by his lengthy silence. "Mist' Cullen, is my ma all right?"

"I don't know," he said. "I hope so. I'm going to go and see if Nate's had word from her. He's up in the kiln now. I don't want you to worry, now. Can you lay on breakfast for yourself and Elijah? He'll be up soon and he's bound to be hungry."

Lottie's shoulders squared. "Yassir," she said in a deliberately firm and grown-up voice. "Yassir, I can do that. I ain't a good cook like Ma, but I can boil an egg or two."

He was about to laud her when he reconsidered. The plan was ridiculous. The child was bound to be anxious, and he didn't want her waiting around in an empty cabin and worrying herself into a state. He was trying hard enough to cope with his own mounting unease: he couldn't be saddled with a panicking pickaninny. "Never mind that," he said. "You get dressed and shut up them stove vents. Then go to the house and tell Bethel to get on some food for you and the men. You tell her I said you should help her, and you do what she says."

"I allus do what Bethel say, Massa," Lottie chuckled. "She liable to wear me out if'n I don'."

This blunt assessment surprised Cullen into a grin. He knew what it was to be on the receiving end of Bethel's chastisement, after all. "Good," he said. "Tell her Nate and me are going to go and take a look; see if we can't work out where your ma is at."

"Yassir," Lottie agreed, bobbing her head vigorously. Cullen started for the door, halting when she added; "Who goin' watch them fires?"

He bit back a curse at his forgetfulness. "I'll wake Elijah," he said. "Time he was up anyhow."

He left Lottie to get herself out of bed, and hurried down to the old man's cabin. He raised his hand to knock, but the door suddenly vanished inward and the grizzled head of the erstwhile foreman appeared in its place, backlit by an old tin lantern. "Meg ain' back yet, Mist' Cullen?" he asked.

Cullen shook his head. "Fetch some pine knots and get up to the tobacco barn," he said. "I need you watching the fires while Nate and I start searching. Near as I can figure she must have hurt herself coming home in the dark. That make sense to you?"

"Yes, Massa, I reckon it do," Elijah said slowly. "On'y…" He stretched his lips over his sparse teeth and exhaled through his nose.

"Only what?" The words came out too harshly, and Cullen flinched as the old man's head drew back a good inch.

"On'y ain't it more likely one of them Hartwood overseers give her a hard time?" asked Elijah. "She ain' welcome over there after dark, an' it no secret Mist' Sutcliffe don' like you none. Good way to make trouble for a man, makin' trouble for his folks."

Cullen's stomach clenched and did a slow, uneasy roll. Then it was not just his imagination running wild: worries about Meg running into trouble on Sutcliffe's land had occurred to Elijah as well. "I can't go over there at this hour," he said hoarsely. "Anyhow if she is somewhere between here and there, hurting, we got to get her in out of the chill. We'll check the way she should have taken first, and once it's light I can go over to Hartwood and ask after her."

The corners of the old eyes wrinkled as Elijah considered this. Then he nodded. "I s'pose you's right at 'bout that," he said. "I's goin' fetch them torches, then. Be 'long direc'ly."

_*discidium*_

With her basque neatly buttoned and her hair smooth and tidy, Mary surveyed her candlelit reflection with quiet satisfaction. Behind her the dawn was showing pink in the window, and she felt ready to face the new week with a smile. Yesterday had been such a lovely day. Cullen had looked positively reborn as he played with Gabe, and he had found a way to fulfill his promise to teach the child new chasing games without wearing himself out running after a fleet-footed boy. Mary supposed that hide-and-go-seek was really more of a _hunting_ game than a chasing game, but it satisfied the same instinct in a boy and Gabe had enjoyed it immensely. He was too small to realize that his father wasn't really looking very hard for him at all, or that Cullen had known almost from the first exactly where he was hiding. After the initial successful foray into the hayloft, Gabe had returned there no less than three more times, much to his father's amusement. Each time Cullen had made a greater show of searching improbable places, and each time he had loudly and theatrically proclaimed his defeat.

So energized and boisterous had Gabe been after his string of victories that Mary had not expected him to settle down for his nap at all, but here too Cullen had worked his magic. He was held in such awe by their son that he could inspire Gabe to do almost anything at all, and he had come back down after only fifteen minutes in the nursery to declare that the boy was sleeping peacefully. Then he had settled in his rocker beside her, reading aloud from _Harper's Monthly_ while she patched the seat and left knee of Gabe's oldest play pants. They were almost too small to be worn, but not quite, and if mending them once more spared wear on his other clothes the time was well spent. The cloth from the Christmas barrel was a boon, but Mary wanted to save it for Cullen. All but his two good pairs, one day and one evening, were wearing hard, and he would soon be in patches himself. Once they had a little money they could take the cloth to the tailor in Meridian and have some trousers made to the latest fashion. There was enough cloth for four pairs carefully cut, Mary believed, if she didn't take any for Gabe.

When their son had arisen from his nap Cullen had settled himself on his stomach on the veranda and coaxed Gabe to walk up and down his back. Not that it had taken much coaxing: Gabe saw it as a game, and giggled uproariously as he did it, dancing a little from foot to foot whenever Cullen could not quite keep back his moans of relief. Mary had watched as the lines at the corners of his mouth and across his brow had lost their strained tautness and his breath had come deeper and easier. She only wished that Gabe could do something about his father's stiff and aching shoulders, for she feared her own attempts to work out that tension with her thumbs were inadequate. Cullen spent six days a week working his muscles to their limit: an hour's gentle manipulation could only accomplish so much to relieve that.

Nevertheless it had been obvious from Cullen's carriage and from his unadulterated good cheer at supper – taken early so that Gabe could eat with his parents – that both his cares and his pain had been lessened. It eased Mary's own worries to see him smiling and playful; he had had so little to smile about these last weeks. And the sight of him crowded into the little bed, curled around his son while he slept, was one that she knew she was going to treasure until the end of her days.

She thought of it now, as she quietly opened the nursery door on its creaking hinges and glided across the floor to draw back the curtains. Gabe was on his stomach again, arms akimbo and brown curls falling on the pillowcase. It would be time to clip them soon. Cutting Gabe's hair was always bittersweet: every trimming reminded Mary of that first one, just after Christmas. Gabe had mastered the use of the chamber pot and, as his pappy had promised at Bethel's suggestion, he had been breeched. Mary had found it quite emotional enough to lay aside the pretty little frocks for small shirts and trousers, but the cutting of his luxuriant curls had made her weep with pride and with the strange sense of loss that came from knowing her baby was now a boy.

He was getting older every day, too. They would be celebrating his fourth birthday this winter, and Mary could scarcely believe it. The thought made her want to gather his little body into her arms while he was still small enough to fit in them, but she restrained herself. Let him wake up gradually to warm sun on the pillowcase: he was the only member of the household who could enjoy that simple luxury.

Mary slipped from the nursery and pattered lightly down the stairs. She paused to open the front door, drinking in the cool morning air. The sky was streaked gloriously with painted clouds in orange and crimson and violet: one of those spectacular Mississippi sunrises that were her compensation for the brilliant New York autumns she had left behind. Though today marked the beginning of the fourth week in October, the trees were still green and the grass golden instead of brown. The flowers were still abundant: a thing unimaginable to a Northern mind. Only the magnolia was starting to show the first tint of orange: it was always the first to turn, just as it was the first to blossom. Mary surveyed the vista of her home and smiled before turning back into the house and making for the kitchen.

The commotion began as she passed into the dining room. There was a clatter of boots and banging furniture, the ring of a pot and the heavy sound of someone setting down a full pail of water. Then suddenly a phalanx of voices were all speaking at once: Nate's deep baritone, rumbling quick and angry; Elijah's ordinarily level timbre disjointed and unsettled; Bethel's stern, questioning tones; Lottie's unwontedly shrill exclamations; and Cullen, speaking very rapidly and very fiercely through the clamor until at last, just as Mary opened the kitchen door, he raised it above all the others and roared; "Y'all hush now, and _listen_!"

The silence was almost deafening. Five pairs of eyes, four brown and one blue, all riveted upon the master. Mary noticed only incidentally that his clothes and person were in disarray: the knees of his work pants, clean last night, were now stained dark with grass and dew, his shirttail was tugged halfway out, and one suspender was twisted as though it had slipped and been hastily dragged back. There were two dead leaves caught in his hair, which was wild and tangled and damp with perspiration. There were smears of pine tar on his hands. But all this was taken in only vaguely: she was looking at his face. He was very white, the muscles of his jaw and temples knotted with the effort of concealing some unspeakable worry. His eyes were hard, but beneath the shell of determination she felt certain he was terrified.

"Listen," he said again. His voice was lower now, but very firm. He looked at Bethel. "We found some footprints in the mud near the fence heading towards the darkies' quarters, but none coming back for a hundred yards in either direction. Near as I can see she didn't come that way, and I can't think why she'd go by the road."

Mary opened her mouth to ask what was going on, but Cullen had turned on Lottie and was speaking again. "She's likely all right: no cause to worry or jump to conclusions. I'm going to go over there and ask around, see if I can find out what's going on. But first thing's first," he said, turning now to the men; "we got to see to the stock. They got fed early yesterday on account of it being Sunday, and they're late getting fed now. Me and Elijah will see to the barn: Nate, you go out and milk them cows before they burst."

"I can see to the horses an' mules mysel', Mist' Cullen," said Elijah. "You get on over there an' fin' our girl."

Cullen shook his head. "It'll get done quicker if we both do it, and I aim to take Bonnie with me. If I'm invading Sutcliffe's plantation, I sure as hell want to do it coming from the road on horseback. Get on now: hurry up! The quicker we're done, the quicker I'll find her."

"What 'bout breakfas'?" Bethel asked, coming so quickly upon the end of his sentence that she was almost – but not quite – talking over him. "Ain' a one of you had a bite to eat."

"Breakfast will keep," Cullen said. His eyes darted to the other two men, and then passed hastily over Lottie's anxious face. "We couldn't choke nothing down now anyhow." He drew an expectant breath, and when nobody stirred, said; "_Move!_"

Nate bolted for the back door, and Elijah followed hastily. Cullen would have strode after them, but Marry hurried forward and grabbed hold of his arm. "What is it?" she asked, breathless with imagined horrors. "What happened?"

Cullen's gaze flicked to the child, who was pressed against the corner of the kitchen table and still watching him wide-eyed. "Meg didn't come home last night," he muttered. "She went to visit Peter at Hartwood, and she didn't come home. We searched the route she should have taken across our land, but I don't dare climb over that fence the way things stand between me and Sutcliffe. If he has… well. Never thought I'd hope so hard to find one of my people lying in the woods with a broke leg."

There was something that he wasn't saying; she could see it in his eyes and hear it beneath words that were terrible enough. He had hoped to find Meg with a broken leg? What could possibly be worse than that? And if Cullen feared to cross onto the neighbor's land any way but by the road, why had he allowed one of his slaves – one of his people – to do so? Or was his caution new, spurred on by Meg's disappearance? That was the only explanation that made sense, but Mary could not think what Meg might have to fear from Mr. Sutcliffe. Whatever it was, it was plain that Cullen was fighting back some awful dread. Surely, surely he could not think that Meg might be dead?

Mary felt certain she was going to take faint. Her knees trembled so that the ruffle of her pantalets tickled her calf, but she locked them and straightened her shoulders. "I'm certain it's just a misunderstanding," she said, astonished at the calmness of her voice. "You'd best go and finish quickly with the stock so you can put all our minds at ease."

The tiniest of grateful smiles tugged at the right corner of his mouth. "Right," he said. "Look, no sense you all waiting to eat. Go ahead." Then he added, very quietly; "Try and make sure Lottie does, all right?"

Mary nodded and Cullen hurried out into the yard. She watched as the door swung closed, hiding his path from her view, and then turned as calmly and as capably as she could and put a hand on the child's shoulder.

In an instant Lottie's arms were twined tightly around her chest, squeezing against the whalebones. "M-Missus Mary?" she stammered. "Is my ma goin' be all right?"

Mary cast an imploring eye at Bethel and saw to her dismay that the older woman looked utterly overcome. Whatever had happened, whatever there was to fear, it was so far beyond Bethel's experience that she could not muster the quiet strength and competency that had made her the mainstay of the family for decades. Mary felt her own fear rising again, but she forced herself to breathe calmly. She put her hand on the crown of Lottie's head.

"I'm sure she will," she said. "I'm sure of it. Don't worry. Mr. Bohannon will find out what's happened, and he'll bring her home straight away."

"But he said he want her leg broke!" Lottie cried, her voice rising shrilly. "He don' think she tried to run, do he, Missus? My ma wouldn' run, not never! She wouldn' do such a thing!"

"Oh, Lottie," Mary breathed. The girl was frantic and was not thinking about what she was saying, but her words spoke to something more sinister than fright. This was the great evil of slavery: that a child should fear that the man who had lodged and fed and protected her all her life might wish her mother deliberately hobbled for attempting to run away. That such a notion could even enter into her head, born of half-whispered horrors perpetrated on other plantations, was deplorable. "Lottie, no. That isn't what he meant. He meant that he had hoped to find her, because even if her leg was broken she'd be safe in her bed now and we'd know she was safe. He knows your mother would never run away; why, she couldn't leave you, could she?"

"No!" Lottie sobbed. "An' she wouldn' leave Mist' Cullen, neither. She allus say we gots to be good niggers an' work hard to pay him back fo' lookin' aft' us so well."

Mary did not want to hear this either. She had long ago come to an uneasy entente between her firmly held belief that the system of slavery was inherently poisonous, and the reality of her life with these loyal and hard-working people for whom her husband felt genuine affection and responsibility. It was not that he did not deserve their love and dedication: it was that both would mean so much more if only they were freely given. If Meg, or Elijah, or Bethel, might stay or go of their own accord, instead of being fettered here by law, their desire to stay would be far more precious. And somehow Cullen, so insightful in other ways, just did not understand that at all.

"You need to sit down and eat something," Mary said soothingly. There was no other way to distract herself, and the poor child was trembling. "That's the best thing you can do to help everyone right now. We all need to keep up our strength."

She guided Lottie over to the bench and pressed her down. Lottie tried to wriggle away and to stand up again. "It ain't fittin', Missus," she protested.

Bethel cleared her throat, finding her voice at last. "It ain' for you to argue with Missus Mary," she scolded. "She tell you to sit, you sit." She was piling hominy on a plate, and she took a fried egg off of a warming dish. They had been using tomato preserves in place of gravy, and Bethel added a generous portion of these along with a fresh biscuit, and set the food down for Lottie.

The wholesome smells seemed to bestir the child, for she took the fork she was offered and began to eat. Mary stood beside her with a consoling hand on her shoulder for a minute or two, before she realized that Bethel had filled a plate for her as well. "You bes' eat up, too," she said. "Worrisome news ain' no way to start the day."

Mary shook her head, realizing all at once that there was something else that Cullen would need if he was going to ride over to Hartwood. He could not go demanding to know the whereabouts of his slave dressed in coarse work clothes, already soiled and disheveled. "I'm going to fetch Cullen something to change into," she said. "Mr. Sutcliffe seems the sort to put great store in such things."

Bethel's expression changed from one of addled worry to one of enormous respect. "So he do," she said. "Mist' Cullen sure did fin' hisself a clever lady."

Mary smiled weakly at the compliment and hurried from the room. She took the vest and trousers that Cullen had worn yesterday, one of his finer shirts, his silk cravat and his watch. She was hurrying back towards the stairs when her skirt snagged, caught in a small hand. She turned, only just remembering to fix a cheery expression on her face, to meet Gabe's steady but somber gaze.

"Mama?" he said. "I woked up. I hearded shoutin'."

"Yes, dearest," Mary said, disentangling his fingers from her skirt so that she could hold them herself. "I'm afraid we were very noisy, weren't we?"

"Pappy shoutin'," Gabe murmured. His distress was made obvious by his poor articulation of his thoughts. "Why?"

"Just to quiet everyone down," Mary reassured him. "They were all talking at once, and no one was listening at all. There's nothing to be afraid of, darling. Pappy just needs to go to see the neighbors; that's all."

"Charlie 'n Leon?" Gabe's expression brightened. He coughed shallowly and asked; "May I come?"

"No, dearest; the other neighbors," Mary said. "They haven't any children to play with: only grown up girls."

"Oh." Gabe wrinkled his nose to show what he thought of that. Then he cocked his head to one side. "Why you gots Pappy's watch?"

"He needs to wear it," said Mary. She shifted the bundle in her arms and let the timepiece slip through her fingers, gripping the very end of the chain so it swung near Gabe's nose. "Why don't you hold onto it for me? You can give it to him when he's put on his waistcoat."

This duty pleased Gabe, and he took hold of the watch with care, gripping it in one hand and slipping the other out of Mary's fingers to gather up the chain. He followed her down to the library with the dignity of a royal page carrying the queen's favor to her champion.

_*discidium_*

Bonnie had been fed first, and she was just finishing her breakfast when Cullen left the stable. As soon as she was sated, Elijah would saddle her and bring her up to the front of the house. Ordinarily Cullen preferred not to ride just after a horse had eaten, but it was a short journey and he would not let her gallop however she might want to. But before he went, he had to do something about his clothes and his hair.

If Meg had been detained by one of Sutcliffe's overseers, Cullen would have to go in looking the part of an indignant planter whose slave had been unjustly waylaid. If it was Sutcliffe himself who was responsible for her absence, Cullen had to be dressed well enough that he could not merely be dismissed when he demanded satisfaction. Southern affairs of honor were not, so far as he knew, customarily fought over slaves, but if that whey-faced bastard had dared to force himself on Meg then Cullen intended to kill him, and the only way to do that without arousing the wrath of the law was under the pretext of a duel.

Never in his life had Cullen seriously considered taking the life of another human being, and he told himself that he was not truly considering it now. He was not, because it was ridiculous to think that the man, however bereft of morals and decency, might do such a thing. There was no law to prevent him from pressing himself on his own slaves, not even the half-grown girls for which he had such an unnatural fondness. But there just about had to be _something_ on the statutes of the State of Mississippi against raping another man's servant. The thought of it, of even the vaguest possibility that Meg might have fallen into the spider's clutches, left Cullen sick with dread and shaking with impotent rage. If it truly had happened, he knew he would have no peace in this life or the next unless he buried a bullet in Abel Sutcliffe's brain.

He tried to smother his anger. He was letting himself be riled by a possibility he did not really believe – he _could _not really believe might come to pass. Just as likely, he tried to tell himself, there was some reasonable explanation for Meg's absence. He hadn't given up hope of an ill-starred encounter with a gopher hole: if she was lying lame and faint in the cotton, it would put her out of sight of the property line. The plants were five feet tall and densely spaced. It was possible, damn it. It was possible.

He cut across the front lawn despite the impressions left by his heavy work-boots in the overgrown grass. Someone would have to mow it soon, if anyone could possibly be spared for a morning. They were losing time as it was, and as Cullen leaped up onto the veranda without troubling to use the stairs he had the sense that he had forgotten something important. He nudged the boot jack out from under the bench with his toe and levered off his boots. He had just sprung sock-footed onto the second carpeted step inside the door when Mary appeared around the corner from the parlor.

"I have your clothes in here," she said. Her eyes were anxious but her manner was perfectly calm. He loved her for that. Everyone was in such a state of agitation, and he was trying so desperately to keep his own mind from wandering off into the weeds of the worst possible scenarios; it helped him cling to his own composure to see Mary so steady and capable. He swung down off of the staircase and followed her into the parlor.

She had chosen just the garments he would have picked himself: dignified and genteel, but without the pretention of his best clothes. Sutcliffe knew more than Cullen wanted him to about the straits of the plantation, and he would laugh at him if he dressed too finely. But equally would he scorn him if he turned up in his work clothes. It was harder to ignore breeding if poverty was made less obvious. Hastily Cullen shucked his pants and tugged off the rough cotton shirt, and let Mary button the fine one for him while he tucked it neatly and fastened the suspenders to his trousers. Gabe was sitting on the sofa, bouncing eagerly and holding Cullen's watch, but the gravitas of his elders kept him from speaking. He was growing up, thought Cullen. Even just a few months ago he would have kept up a steady stream of pattering observations and piercing questions.

Mary tied his cravat deftly, and had just turned to reach for the vest when both she and Cullen stiffened at the unexpected clatter of heavy wheels on the drive. Cullen did not stop to think that he was unshod and only half-dressed. He was aflame with the haste and anxiety of the morning and he rushed out into the entryway, coming around the stairs and freezing for a moment at the incongruous sight before him. A heavy prison wagon was swaying up the drive: high board sides topped with a cage of iron bars. It was the sheriff's Black Maria, pulled by a team of sturdy dray horses with two men on the box. For a moment that was all that he could see, but then his heart leapt to his throat and his body jolted forward onto the veranda as he recognized the Thoroughbred prancing proudly beside the ungainly vehicle, and the cold-eyed rider in the dove-grey suit.

Dimly he was aware of Mary coming up beside him, upright and dignified as a bold little clipper drawing up before a battleship, but his eyes were locked with Abel Sutcliffe's and the world seemed to narrow to the width of their mutual loathing. The older man was sneering in an ostensibly cordial manner, and he reined in his horse just short of the gatepost.

"Good morning, Bohannon," he said coolly. "I was hoping I might find you here instead of out in the fields. I've found your runaway."


	38. Irresponsible Ownership

_Note: Horribly, I did not make any of the legal statutes up. Not a single one. They were all found in Mississippi law at the time._

**Chapter Thirty-Eight: Irresponsible Ownership**

"Runaway?" Cullen parroted, not quite comprehending.

One of the men perched on the high seat of the wagon handed his rifle to the driver and climbed down. The motion drew Cullen's eyes and he realized with an uneasy lurch that it was Sheriff Brannan himself: a stern grizzle-haired man and a longtime crony of Abel Sutcliffe. He strode around to the back of the wagon and unlatched the stout wooden door, reaching in towards the floor. There was a frightened whimper and a rattle of chains, and the sheriff dragged his captive across the floor of the cage. She fell out onto the packed earth of the drive, a wretched cringing figure who tried vainly to shrink away from the man towering over her. Brannan swooped down and seized the chain of the shackles clamped to her wrists, and hauled imperiously upon it. Meg, struggling to get her feet under her, was dragged upon her knees for three steps before she managed to get up on her left leg. But her foot landed hard upon the soiled hem of the petticoat she was clumsily trying to clutch to her waist with one fettered hand, and she fell again.

"Stop!" Cullen commanded, his voice working more quickly than his mind. He was staring in numb horror at his faithful slave, unable to grasp what he was seeing. Meg was half-naked. The ties of her petticoat had been torn, so that she had to hold the garment to keep it from slipping down to bare her legs. Her shift had been slit up the back, and one shoulder seam was torn. The other hung far down her upper arm, and she was trying frantically to keep her breasts covered with the ragged, bloodstained remains of the garment as the sheriff tugged on the chain between her wrists to force her up from out of the crumpled, quaking heap into which her body had fallen. Her back was torn and glossy with blood, lash-marks livid and raw in the sunlight. Her eyes, ordinarily so calm and clear, were wild with pain and terror, and there were tear-tracks down her dirty cheeks. She was dazed and terrified, and did not quite seem to understand where she was or what was happening.

Brannan smiled cheerfully at Cullen's sharp exclamation. "This your nigger, then, Mr. Bohannon?"

"She's mine," Cullen said hoarsely. He wanted to run to her, to fend off the man who was clearly causing her such terror, but he seemed rooted to the spot. He could hear Mary's shallow, horrified breathing beside him, but she too appeared incapable of motion. "What the hell did you do to her?"

Meg's huge, desperate eyes found him and she gave a little cry, jerking involuntarily against the chain and causing Brannan to yank it closer so that she was tugged up towards him. Her precarious hold on her petticoat slipped, and the garment puddled about her knees. "Mist' Cullen!" she cried plaintively. "Mist' Cullen, please, Massa…"

The sheriff drew back his free arm and slapped her backhanded with such force that she fell on her side in the dust, bound hands still immobilized and flying from her torso as she tumbled. Her whole body tensed and a harsh, strangled cry of torment tore from her split and bloodied lips.

"Let her go, damn you!" Cullen found the mastery of his legs at last and bolted down the veranda steps. He closed the distance between himself and his woman in four swift strides, and wrenched the chain from Brannan's grasp. Hastily he dropped to one knee, letting Meg's bruised wrists curl in towards her body. He put a hand on her bare arm just below the shoulder, and she shrank instinctively from his touch. "Meg," he said gently. "Meg, what happened?"

"I found her skulking around my quarters," Abel Sutcliffe drawled lazily. He was watching the spectacle from atop Napoleon with something like detached amusement. "Obviously a runaway."

Meg, her senses returning to her at least far enough that she realized an ally was at hand, was scrabbling to push herself nearer to Cullen. Her hand clutched at his ankle, callouses snagging on his uncovered stocking. "Massa, please," she whimpered. "P-please, I didn' run. I didn'!"

"Hush," he whispered, bowing his body forward as if was not too late to shelter her from harm. The chain tugged at his fingers as she moved still nearer to him, and he stared down in consternation before thrusting it from him in disgust. It clattered to earth, affording Meg enough range of motion to drag the ruined chemise a little higher over her exposed chest. Cullen glared up at Brannan. "Get these damned things off her," he snapped. Trying to soften his tone, and failing, he said; "Meg, who done this? Which one of 'em beat you?"

The tremors ripping through her deepened. Her legs were curled under her now, and her spine was rounded low so that her head was pressed almost to her knees. The blood from her torn back had soaked her shift, and beneath the long rent it clung to her body, showing every contour of buttock, hip and thigh. She might as well have been stripped to the skin. She looked more like an animal than a woman, cowering in the dirt and weeping, shaking with agony and terror. Cullen knew that he had to do something, but for a horrible, indeterminable span of time he could only stare at the awful specter that had been his good, loyal Meg.

Around him the world went on. Sutcliffe smiled sanguinely. "I did," he said. "Under the law, I'm entitled to inflict ten lashes upon any slave found on my land without written leave from her master."

Cullen's eyes travelled up and down Meg's spine. The marks of the lash were deep and cruel, pitted here and there with dark holes in the flesh from which the blood welled in quivering domes before coursing down in lurid rivulets. Some of the marks were crusted with clots: hours old already. Others were fresh. Hastily he counted. "This here's more than ten lashes," he snarled.

"I gave her a few licks myself," said Brannan. "Figured I'd make a start and save you some of the trouble."

His tone made it plain that he expected Cullen to thank him. Glowering up at the man, Cullen wanted very much to rise and square off against him. At the same time, however, he did not want to leave Meg cringing at his feet. His hand found her arm again and he cupped it as consolingly as he knew how. He could not speak the words of comfort he longed to, for the three men were watching him: Sutcliffe coolly triumphant, Brannan satisfied with a job well done, and the deputy on the wagon seat dispassionately observant.

"Of course you have to punish her," Sutcliffe cooed. "The law compels a man to discipline his runaway slaves. Isn't that so, Sheriff?"

"That's so," said Brannan. He put his hands in his pockets and added with far too much of a predetermined air; "Seein' as how I'm here, I might as well bear witness. Whipping's the usual method, Mr. Bohannon, for a first offence. Where's your pillory?"

"Pillory?" Cullen spat. "I ain't got no pillory. And I'm not whipping this here woman: ain't she suffered enough?"

"But the law requires it," said Sutcliffe in mock dismay. "If she's a runaway, you've got to punish her. Where do you keep your whips? Oh, yes. You don't ordinarily hold with flogging, do you? Some nonsense about niggers respecting masters who grub in the dirt with them more than they respect masters who'll give them a few licks when they need it. Never mind, Bohannon. You can use mine: what else are neighbors for?"

From his saddle horn he lifted a coiled lash and handed it down, leaning low to reach. Cullen's hand closed of its own accord on the loop of leather, and he stared transfixed at it. It was a bluejay: a long, braided whip forked like a serpent's tongue into two long tails. Each of them was knotted every three inches along its length: it was these knots that had left the deep pits in Meg's flesh. The leather was dark and shining with wetness, and as the thongs rolled in Cullen's grasp he saw that his fingers were stained red. Convulsively he flung the instrument of torture from him, scrubbing his hand against the front of his trousers.

"She ain't a runaway!" he snapped, fixing eyes on the sheriff. "She had my leave to be off my land to visit her husband. He's foreman over at Hartwood." He turned his smoldering glare on Sutcliffe. "You know that."

"That's absurd, Bohannon," said Sutcliffe, all affronted innocence. "She didn't have any papers authorizing her to be off your land. Slaves aren't free just to come and go as they please, you know. They need your written permission. Under the law."

"That's ridiculous," Cullen protested, but his wrath was suddenly tempered by a cold fear. Was that true? He knew slaves needed written leave to go to town on their own, or to travel far abroad from their master's lands, but surely they didn't need it just to go to the next plantation! It hadn't been necessary before. For years Meg had simply slipped back and forth over the fence to see her man, an amicable agreement between neighbors.

But there was nothing amicable left between him and Sutcliffe, he realized with horror. There was no longer any reason for the man to cheerfully look the other way when the letter of the law might allow him to make Cullen's life a misery and to prey upon a woman innocent of any offence but belonging to a despised neighbor.

"No, it's the law, all right," said Brannan. Rocking back on his heels like a child called upon to recite before the school, he added; "_The owner of any plantation, on which a slave comes without written leave from his master, and not on lawful business, may inflict ten lashes for every such offence_."

"I asked her to produce her papers," said Sutcliffe in an infuriatingly reasonable tone; "and she was unable to do so. And naturally, Bohannon, fornicating cannot be considered lawful business. Begging your pardon, Miss Mary."

He tipped his hat, looking towards the house. Cullen's head whipped back over his shoulder. He had almost forgotten that his wife was witnessing all this. The sight of her was almost as unbearable as looking at Meg. She was white with horror, eyes wide and wounded, and she clutched the pillar at the head of the stairs as if she would fall if she did not. Her lips were trembling and she seemed utterly incapable of speech or motion. Cullen's conscience tore at him. He didn't want Mary to see this; not his sweet, loving, kindhearted Mary. He had tried so hard all these years to shelter her from the ugly things that happened when a man was too venal and godless to do right by his people. And now she was witnessing this abomination of justice on the very threshold of her home.

"She wasn't fornicating!" he exclaimed, blurting out the first protest that rose to his lips. "He's her husband, damn you! They've been married twelve years now!"

"I wouldn't know anything about that," said Sutcliffe. "Slave marriages have no legal standing, as you're well aware. All you've been doing all these years is putting your mare to my stallion without a stud fee. Again, ma'am, begging your pardon."

Suddenly Cullen was on his feet after all, only peripherally conscious of the way Meg's body jolted at his sudden motion. "You miserable son of a bitch."

He would have sprung forward and flung the smug wretch down from the saddle, but Meg still had a desperate hold upon his leg. Instead he squared his shoulders and tossed back his head defiantly. "You got no right to whip my people," he said. "You've looked the other way for years: you got no right to change your mind now."

"Legally that just isn't so," said Sutcliffe soothingly. "I've every right, haven't I, Sheriff?"

Brannan nodded. "The law's clear, Mr. Bohannon. Without your written permission that nigger has no call to be off your land, unless on lawful business. Carrying letters, delivering freight, fetching a doctor, such-like stuff."

"I sent her with apples," Cullen blurted out, seizing the first thing that sprung to mind. He pointed fiercely at Sutcliffe. "She was on an errand for me with a gift for his foreman. This here's an unlawful whipping, and I want him charged for damaging my property!"

He couldn't say what he hoped to achieve with this. He only knew that he wanted to turn the tables and to make the man pay for what he had done. The sheer spiteful hatred of the act repulsed him, and only humiliation would answer for it.

But Brannan was frowning at him, nonplussed. "You sent a gift to his foreman."

"Damn right I did," Cullen declared. "Delivering freight: lawful business."

"I'm afraid I just don't find that believable, Mr. Bohannon," said the sheriff. "And it don't explain what she was doing lingering about the place for hours."

"And it's my unfortunate duty to inform you that if that _was_ the business you sent her on, she didn't carry it out," Sutcliffe said, pursing his lips in a saccharine satire of regret. "I have it on good authority that she gave those apples to a certain worthless field hand and his girl instead. Still," he added with a languid shrug; "it's your place to punish her for that. If she wasn't running away then we don't need to bear witness to you whipping her. Surely you'll take his word on that, Sheriff? That he gave her verbal leave, even if he neglected to authorize it in writing."

"Why yes," said Brannan, grinning unpleasantly. "Yes, Mr. Bohannon, if you'll swear she had your permission to leave your land I'd be happy to concede she's not a runaway, and excuse you from the obligation – laid out under the law – to beat her for fleeing. Are you willing to swear to that?"

"Course I am!" Cullen said. Away to his left he hear the sudden indignant snort of a horse drawn up unexpectedly. He glanced sidelong towards the stable and saw Bonnie, tugging against Elijah's firm grip on her lines. The old man had stopped dead at the ghastly scene before him, and as Cullen watched he saw the expression of startled horror slip hastily into one of studied impassivity. Elijah was no fool. He could smell danger on the air.

"She was off your land with your knowledge and permission?" Brannan clarified needlessly. "You knew she was at Hartwood: you let her go there specifically, even though you didn't give her written leave. You consented to her wandering over there at large to bring some apples to her lover and spend time with him."

"Her husband," Cullen corrected stubbornly. "They was wed by a travelling preacher twelve years ago: paid him myself. They's married in the sight of God, even if the law don't acknowledge it."

"I need you to confirm it, legally speaking," said the sheriff. "Then I can go ahead and dismiss the charge of running away."

"You damned well better dismiss it," Cullen growled. "She was off my land with my knowledge and permission. I knew she was at Hartwood. I let her go there specifically. Would have given her a damned paper, too, if I'd thought for a minute this hateful bastard would give her trouble over it! Twelve years she been going over there, and never a word of complaint from him, and now all of a sudden—"

"You permitted a slave to go at large without specific lawful business to transact on your behalf," said Brannan carefully.

"Yes!" Cullen was exasperated now. Why was the man being so particular about this? He had to see to his woman: get her out of those chains and into her bed, get her covered up decent and have Bethel take a look at that back. Send Nate to fetch the doctor, tell Lottie her mother was home. Try to explain all this to Mary, whose anxious eyes he could feel on the back of his neck. He didn't have time for this nonsense. They had dismissed the notion that Meg was a runaway quickly enough the first time, moving on to the ludicrous assertion that Sutcliffe had the right to beat her because she wasn't carrying a written pass. Why were they suddenly hung up on the exact words Cullen had to say so he didn't need to whip her?

"Well!" The note of triumph in Sutcliffe's voice sent a thrill of unease through the nerves of Cullen's neck. "There you have it, Sheriff: that's a clear confession. He permitted his Negress to wander at large under her own will and discretion, unrestrained and unsupervised and without assigned lawful labor to carry out."

Brannan took his hands out of his pockets and dusted them together. "Why yes, Mr. Sutcliffe, I believe that right there is a clear confession. Don't get much clearer than that, can it, Bill?"

The deputy shook his head and sent a stream of tobacco juice arcing out into the grass at the edge of the drive. "Nawsir, Mr. Brannan," he said. "Don't get no clearer than that at all."

_*discidium*_

In the last moment before the ghastly scene before her erupted into chaos, Mary was still struggling to make sense of what she was seeing. Cullen, bootless and half-clad, facing off against the immaculately-dressed Mr. Sutcliffe and the county sheriff. Meg, flung at his feet like the woman taken in adultery, wrapped inadequately in the rags of her shift with her back torn and bloodied. The whip, coiled like a viper in the dirt with Meg's blood drying upon it. The ominous mass of the Black Maria, the deputy with the reins in one hand and a loaded rifle slung over the opposite arm. The rattle of the chains, the thin wretched gasping from the brutalized woman, the malice and the panic and Cullen's desperate bewildered attempts to rebuff their accusations against his slave. It had the surreal quality of a nightmare, as if the quiet fabric of life had been torn away to reveal a writhing mass of maggots beneath. Mary could not move, could not speak, could scarcely breathe in her horror.

"Don't get no clearer than that at all," said the deputy with the unmistakable relish of a lawman who sees a case laid neatly out before him.

"Just what I thought," said the sheriff. With a swift, bold motion that many men would not have dared to make, he bent towards Cullen's knees and grabbed hold of the chain between Meg's wrists. He dragged her up from her curled, defensive pose with such ferocity that she screamed, high and hoarse, as her shoulders dragged upon the flayed flesh of her back.

At almost the same moment a thin shriek came from behind Mary, and Lottie flew out of the house. "Ma!" she screamed, trying to fling herself down the steps. At the last instant Mary found the capacity for motion at last and flung her arms around the girl's chest. Lottie thrashed, fighting her and beating upon her breast with small, trembling fists. "Let me go! Let me go! That my ma! She hurt! She hurt!" she wailed.

Meg was struggling against the sheriff's attempt to drag her from her master, and Cullen reached out to seize the man's arm. They scuffled briefly, drawing too near the Thoroughbred. The horse's hooves clattered dangerously near to Meg, who was on her knees and trying to pull away from the stranger who had her hands pinned in place by his grip on the shackles. Sutcliffe scrambled to get hold of the reins, calling out anxious commands to the startled animal. The deputy, seeing his boss suddenly manhandled, dropped the lines on the seat beside him and raised the rifle. A choked, horrified cry tore the air as the weapon was leveled on Cullen, and Mary realized too late that it had come from her own throat.

"Get your hands off her!" Cullen was snarling, still struggling with the sheriff and apparently oblivious of the firearm trained upon him. "I told you! She ain't done nothing wrong! That summbitch whipped her for my mistake, and that might be lawful, but you got no right—"

"She's under arrest!" snapped the Sheriff. He was grappling one-armed with his assailant while trying to skirt out of his reach by dragging Meg between them. Her tenuous grasp on her shift slipped, and it slid perilously low, exposing half of one breast and most of the other. Her bare feet, tangled in her ruined petticoat, kept struggling to find some footing to relieve the awful pressure on her shoulders.

Mary wanted to run to her, but she was still trying to keep a firm hold on Lottie. Then suddenly the child went limp, falling forward over Mary's arms and quaking with sundering sobs. Mary turned her without releasing her hold, and wrapped her in a tight embrace, pressing the head of wiry curls to her basque and trying to shelter Lottie's eyes from the inhuman spectacle before her. "Hush," she gasped. "Hush, Lottie. Hush."

"You got no grounds to arrest her!" Cullen howled. He was incandescent with rage, and a feral bewilderment that radiated a sense of even greater danger. Mary had never seen him so overcome with emotion. He looked capable of any violence.

The deputy's finger moved to the trigger of the rifle. "You want to get your hands off the sheriff," he warned sternly.

"Tell _him_ to get his hands off my woman!" Cullen bit back. His hand closed on the chain of the manacle and he yanked, trying to wrench it from the other man's grasp. Meg's terrified, upturned face contorted in unspeakable misery; she knew she had somehow been the cause of all this trouble, but she could neither comprehend it nor put it to rights.

There was a scuffle of heavy boots in the grass, and Mary turned to see Nate coming around the corner of the house. He pulled up short, his face an awful rictus of horror. Any moment now he would be in the fray as well. Cullen tugged upon the chain again, and the sheriff tugged back. Cullen roared; "Let her go, damn you! I ain't goin' say it again!"

In another instant there would have been bloodshed. The deputy was poised to fire. Cullen's left hand abandoned its grip on the sheriff and closed into a fist. Brannan himself took another dancing half-step, using Meg as a barrier, and reached for the revolver in his belt. Napoleon was still pawing the ground perilously close to the terrified slave. And Nate took three long, leaping strides as Elijah, who was near the fence on the other side of the gate, dropped Bonnie's reins and tried to break into a run to intercept him. Mary could do nothing but stand there, holding fast to Lottie. But then a sweet soprano voice rang out from the doorway behind her, cutting through the air.

"Pappy?" Gabe cried, anxious and frightened but with the clear demanding tone of a child who has never been denied an answer to his questions. "Pappy, why you goin' hit dat man?"

Everyone else froze, but Cullen whirled, losing his hold on the chain and forgetting his intention to strike the sheriff. His sock-clad foot thumped against Meg's knee as he turned, but both were too far gone to feel it. His face was suddenly stripped bare of its hard lines, the fight gone from his stare and the defiance from his jaw. His eyes widened in surprise, and his mouth hung briefly agape as he fixed his gaze upon his son, standing with one small hand on the doorpost. The other still clutched the silver pocketwatch. His expression was one of worried confusion, his little bow mouth downturned in a frown and his eyebrows knit together high above the bridge of his nose.

Suddenly the combative tension drained out of Cullen's body. His heels, lifted in a pugilist's stance, dropped to earth with twin soft _thump_s. His fingers opened out of their fist. His shoulders lost their belligerent squareness and slumped a little. And he shook his head as if emerging from a daze. "I ain't, son," he croaked. "I ain't goin' hit him."

"Wise decision," said Brannan, recovering his power of locomotion before anyone else. "As I was about to explain when you attacked me, Bohannon, this woman is under arrest. She'll be compelled to appear before a Justice of the Peace so that you can answer for permitting your slave to go at large."

Cullen pivoted slowly back to him, his expression hardening as he turned. Mary's heart was in her throat, fearing that her husband would be rash enough to lay hands upon the sheriff again. That was in itself a deed worthy of arrest. "No," he said, with something like a bitter chuckle. "No, she ain't going nowhere except to her bed. You beat her for a runaway when she weren't one, Sheriff. You done enough."

Sutcliffe finally had control of his horse, now that the two men were not fighting right under the beast's nose. He tossed his head as if to restore his composure, and said; "The law clearly states—"

"That you got a right to give ten lashes to an innocent woman for want of a piece of paper," Cullen said caustically. "I heard you. But the law don't give you the right to presume a slave a runaway just because she's off her master's land. Maybe it'd be reasonable if you'd found her down in Meridian or hiding in the woods, but she wasn't. She was less than a mile from this spot right here, visiting her husband." He fixed steely eyes on the sheriff. "That sound like reasonable cause to assume she's a runaway, Mr. Brannan?"

The sheriff shifted uncomfortably, fiddling with his watch-fob. "I was informed she was a runaway," he huffed.

"Not by me you weren't," said Cullen coldly. "The law might say you can take any white man's testimony, but courtesy says you got to check with the owner before assuming a slave bolted. I made no report of a missing woman: you was acting without my knowledge or consent. Now you got an election to win. Lots of folks 'round here let their darkies go visiting. Think they'd like to know you whipped one for a runaway without even speaking to her owner?"

Brannan's mouth worked uneasily for a moment, and then he glanced at Sutcliffe. Mary wasn't certain, but she thought she saw the planter nod. Then the sheriff took a key from his left vest pocket and shifted his hold up the chain to Meg's wrist. "I don't have to take her into custody," he said. "She'll have to be bound over to appear, but you're right I don't need to take her now."

"Fine," Cullen spat. He watched with unyielding eyes as first one shackle and then the other was opened. As soon as the second one sprang and Meg's arm fell from it she scrambled on all fours away from the men, bolting like a frightened doe towards the fence. Nate flew forward to meet her. He had his shirt off, and he held it up to cover her chest. She hugged it to her body and let him help her onto trembling legs. Mindful not to touch her bare and bleeding back, Nate held her close with one arm across her front. His dark eyes were tender and he turned very gently to steer her towards the back of the house.

Mary shook her head convulsively. "This way," she whispered, flicking her chin at the front door. She held Lottie still tighter as her mother, leaning heavily against Nate's shoulder, picked her quavering way up the steps and into the house. Gabe watched, grey eyes enormous, as the bloodied woman passed him. Then he scurried across the veranda to cling to Mary's skirts. Lottie's arm slipped down from where it was pressed to Mary's breast, and cupped the crown of the little boy's head. Mary's arms were still filled with the girl, trying desperately to contain her pain and sorrow.

The sheriff studied at the manacles in his hand, twisting his wrist so they rattled. Then he looked up at Cullen, an unpleasant gleam in his eyes. "The law permits," he said with relish; "for me to arrest you instead."

_*discidium*_

They had trapped him. Cullen saw all at once how perfectly they had trapped him. Neither Sutcliffe nor Brannan had ever believed Meg to be a runaway. They had used it as an excuse to abuse her beyond what the law permitted for her actual infraction. And they had used it as a threat to draw out of Cullen the clear admission that he had permitted her to leave his plantation with neither supervision nor lawful business. And once he had admitted to that, they had both a justification for taking Meg into custody and a firm charge to lay upon him. He had to answer for allowing her to go at large, and the sheriff had a right to arrest his woman for surety of his appearance in court. Or, so it seemed, to incarcerate him in her place.

Cullen's heart blazed with frustration and self-loathing. They had led him right into the snare, and he had not merely followed but actually charged in at full tilt. In his horrified rage at seeing Meg so ill-used, he had been unable to think of anything but revenging her hurts on the man who had caused them. In his eagerness to corner Sutcliffe he had allowed himself to be outflanked. Obviously the two men had colluded beforehand on this strategy, and worse still it was painfully clear that Sutcliffe had known all along how Cullen would react. That he had proved so easily manipulated was the final humiliation.

"You ain't arresting nobody," he protested pugnaciously. It was the only protestation he had left. "I'll give you my word I'll appear, and Meg too: that'll just have to serve."

The deputy, who had lowered the rifle after Gabe's unexpected interruption, raised it again and edged to the near side of the wagon seat. Brannan grinned.

"Ordinarily you might do that," he said. "I've certainly been known to take the word of a gentleman and let it rest at that. But the truth of it is, Mr. Bohannon, you ain't behaved like much of a gentleman. Manhandlin' an officer of the law is a serious business, and while I ain't got a mind to charge you for it, seeing as you were understandably distressed and no real harm was done, it does tend to make me doubt your reliability. A gentleman's oath I'll take, but not the promise of poor white trash."

Cullen's eyes flew to Sutcliffe, glowering from beneath his brows. The wealthy planter was sitting languidly in his saddle, smiling benevolently down. Oh, they had definitely colluded, all right. Those were Sutcliffe's words, not Brannan's. The sheriff had neither the audacity nor the imagination for such things. His hatred flared again, but his strength was spent. He felt only the weariness of defeat dragging at him.

"What about a surety?" Mary spoke up suddenly, and Cullen twisted to look at her. She was standing with her back to the porch-pillar, Lottie hugged tightly to her and Gabe affixed to her skirts. So inelegantly encumbered and clad in her simple workdress without even a hoop, she ought to have looked like a poor farmer's wife, but her bearing and her serene expression made her every inch the lady. "A sum of money put up against my husband's appearance in court. Would that be acceptable?"

He could have gone running to kiss her. She was such a piercingly intelligent woman; level-headed and clever. How many wives would even be able to speak with dignity in such a situation, much less light upon a proposition that had eluded him entirely? He wondered suddenly how Mary even knew about such things.

Brannan plucked at his whiskers. "Well, now, what sort of a sum did you have in mind, Mrs. Bohannon?" he asked.

In spite of himself, Cullen cringed. There it was. Brannan thought she was offering him a bribe, not an earnest legal alternative to incarceration. What money they had might have been enough for an informal bail arrangement with an honest sheriff, but it was certainly not enough to placate a man used to taking backhand inducements from the likes of Abel Sutcliffe.

"I have ten dollars in gold that I can fetch right now," Mary said, courageous angel that she was, as though it were a hundred. "No, eleven. Surely that is adequate to keep our woman here with us."

Sutcliffe smiled enormously, showing his teeth to the second molars. Brannan threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Ten… no, _eleven_ dollars! And in gold! Well, ma'am, what about that! There's a pretty surety if ever I saw one. Eleven dollars in gold!"

Hurt flickered through Mary's eyes, but she did not let it show anywhere else. "It seems quite reasonable to me," she said; "seeing as you must certainly intend to have the case put before a Justice of the Peace before the end of the week."

"This week or next," the sheriff agreed. "It's a busy time of year."

"Well, then," said Mary; "as hire for a field hand's is fifty cents a day, eleven dollars so that we can keep Meg here when you intend to hold her for less than two weeks seems more than fair."

The simple logic of this calculation astonished Cullen, and likely would have overpowered the objections of any reasonable man. But Brannan, so it seemed, was not a reasonable man. He chuckled gleefully. "The law don't work that way, ma'am," he said. "I got to take someone into the jail until the court appearance, and if it ain't your girl it's your husband." He looked at Cullen and grinned toothily. "Of course, I _could_ still take the girl, if you'd prefer. Not much chance of that back healing properly in prison, don't you think?"

Again Cullen felt the hand of Sutcliffe in the other man's words. This was not right. This was not justice: not the rule of law on which the nation had been built. But he did not know how to fight it, and he could not rage against it again: not with his wife and his boy looking on. His eyes traveled to the manacles, then to the Black Maria and the armed deputy, and finally to the sheriff's face. He did not dare to look at Sutcliffe, though he could feel the planter's disdainful patrician gaze upon him like a freezing wind off the Hudson. He was defeated in this: there was nothing he could do now to guard his dignity or keep his honor, except to make sure they didn't drag Meg off, torn and tortured as she was, to languish in jail for what was, in the end, his mistake.

He had made this mess, all right. He was the one who had antagonized a dangerous man, not once but repeatedly. He was the one who had continued to allow Meg to pass onto that man's property and thus under his power. He was the one who had not troubled to take a greater interest in the letter of the law, and so protect her from the whipping he might have stopped with a scrap of paper. He was the one who had failed in his responsibility as the master to shelter his people from the dangers of the wider world. Overcome by the shame of those failures, he cast his eyes down to his feet. The soiled stockings, dark with the thin mud stirred up by the morning dew, clung to the ridges of his toes.

"Can I at least put on my boots first?" he asked, hoping that he sounded neither humble nor defeated.

Brannan smiled. "By all means. I ain't a heartless man. Get your coat too if you like: it gets chilly at night in the cells."

Cullen turned and walked with all the dignity he could muster to the foot of the veranda steps. He looked up at Mary, the apology he could not utter within hearing of these men flooding his eyes. She nodded ever so slightly: so slightly that anyone else would have taken it for no more than the bobbing that came with shifting one foot. She adjusted her hold on Lottie so that the child was at her side. "I'll go and fetch your vest and your coat," she said tranquilly. Then, guiding the two children with her, she sailed smoothly into the house and vanished into the parlor.

Cullen sat down on the bench by the door and bent to drag on his boots. He tugged until his feet slid into place: he did not have the spirit to stamp. Faintly from the back of the house he could hear Bethel's voice, undercut by muffled moans of anguish. He closed his eyes against the thought of the shredded skin of Meg's back that had never even known the harmless sting of a riding crop, and wished he could stop his ears against the sound of her suffering. But Brannan was watching him, and the deputy was on the lookout, and Sutcliffe was studying his every movement with ill-concealed glee.

Mary emerged from the parlor with Cullen's vest, and took his second-best coat from the peg by the door, where it sat in case of unexpected visitors. She held each open for him in turn, hastening to fasten the buttons for him herself. It was a simple wifely gesture, doubtless interpreted by the onlooking men as a sign of her devotion, but Cullen knew why she was doing it. She thought his hands might shake, overcome as he was by helpless anger and burning frustration and the bitter gall of defeat. She was right.

_*discidium*_

Mary fastened the last button and smoothed the collar of Cullen's topcoat. Then she stepped back so that he could get to his feet. He stood up smoothly, his expression unreadable. She wanted to say something – anything – to reassure him, but what did one say at a time like this? The three men were watching, and at the gatepost Elijah stood with his eyes downcast. She wondered if the old man was as overcome with numb dismay as she was. She could not quite believe this was happening. Was that man truly going to arrest Cullen, her Cullen, and haul him off to languish in jail until a judge could be found to hear this ridiculous case? Was he truly to face a criminal charge for letting Meg leave his land unattended to go and visit her husband? Was it even possible that such an arbitrary, irrational law existed in this nation founded on the principles of liberty and justice? She could not understand it, not at all.

She tried to think what someone like Verbena Ainsley might say. Something soothing. Something suited to the lady of a plantation. Above all, something dignified. "I shall do my best to act in your place, Mr. Bohannon," she said primly. "I hope I have your confidence."

"Course you do," he said, smiling unsteadily. Then his eyes widened and what color was left in his face drained away to a sickening grey. "The tobacco, Mary," he gasped, strangling on the syllables.

She nodded calmly. "Nate and Elijah will keep bringing in the tobacco," she promised. "You won't be gone long enough to worry."

He shook his head like a specter standing to warn the unsuspecting away from the gates of hell. "The fires!" he hissed. "I forgot about the fires!"

Mary's throat closed. The fires in the tobacco kiln: no one had been watching them. How long had they stood unattended? An hour? Two? If they burned out, that was not such a calamity: they could be set again quickly enough even now to avoid any harm to the batch. But if a stray spark flew up and ignited the dry leaves…

Elijah's head had jerked up at these words, though how he could hear Cullen's frantic whisper at five yards' distance Mary did not know. But he caught her eye, and she nodded to him, and with a speed and agility that should have been impossible for a man of his age he ran off past the house and out towards the rise. Mary tried to look after him, but the bulk of the building obscured the stretch of sky that would have shown smoke from an unwanted blaze. There was nothing she could do to reassure Cullen. She looked at him helplessly, and saw him struggling to hide his dread.

"That's enough love-talk," Brannan said impatiently. "You coming willingly, Bohannon, or do we got to come up there and fetch you?"

Cullen's eyes hardened to twin flints. "I'm coming," he said between gritted teeth. He leaned in as if to kiss Mary's left cheek – the one nearest the house. "Get word to me," he whispered hastily. "All right or not, get word to me: I'd sooner know."

"Yes," she breathed, her lips scarcely moving. Then he tore himself free of her eyes and stumped down the steps. He managed to walk lightly, his head upheld and his shoulders straight. As he drew near to Brannan the sheriff held up the manacles. The corners of Cullen's lips turned up in a smirk.

"That really necessary?" he asked.

"You attacked me," said Brannan equably. "What would you do in my place?"

Cullen held out his wrists and the sheriff slid on the shackles, locking each one and tugging it to ensure it was properly secured. Then he planted a firm hand above Cullen's elbow and led him towards the back of the Black Maria. Cullen halted at Napoleon's shoulder, staring up at Mr. Sutcliffe with cold loathing in his eyes.

Sutcliffe smiled sweetly. "I warned you not to threaten me with the law, Bohannon," he said silkily.

Cullen's body jerked so that the chain between his wrists sang, but he made no voluntary motion of threat. He walked on, letting Brannan shepherd him to the door in the cage. He looked back at Mary, trying to smile, but his face was suddenly stricken with dismay he could not hide.

Uncomprehending, Mary looked around, and she realized to her horror that she was no longer alone on the porch. Gabe, whom she had left with Lottie in the parlor, was once more at the threshold, watching in solemn silence as his father was led away in chains. "Pappy?" he said, his voice this time tremulous but still strong enough to carry across the yard and sting Cullen's heart.

Mary saw the lance of pain, and the awful burn of mortification. She remembered it from another miserable day, not so long ago, and she could hear his slurred and exhausted voice ringing in her ears. _Dammit, Mary, don't let 'im see me like this._ Then Cullen raked up a reassuring grin.

"It's all right, son," he called. "I'll be gone a couple of days: that's all. You mind your mama, you hear?"

"Yassir," Gabe called back. He shuffled forward and seized a handful of Mary's skirt. Her hand found his head and caressed it, but her eyes were fixed on Cullen.

As he stepped up into the carriage Brannan gave him a perfectly-timed shove so that he stumbled, barking his knee on the bench that ran below the level of the wagon box. He sat down hard, the chain rattling as he settled his hands in his lap. Brannan shut the door and latched it, then climbed up beside his deputy. He took the gun, and the other man picked up the reins. The strong horses drew the heavy vehicle in a tight circle to retreat down the drive. This brought the back of the Black Maria to face the house. Cullen was turned on the seat so that his wife and child could see his face, and he raised one shackled hand to wave, still smiling for his son.

But Gabe was old enough to know this was not right. Pappy wasn't riding off on Bonnie, who was standing by the fence where Elijah had left her. He wasn't driving the buggy or the buckboard. He was behind heavy black bars with his wrists fettered together, and a man on the box with a gun. "No!" Gabe shouted with all the might of his child's lungs. "No! No, Pappy!"

And before Mary could stop him he was careening down the steps, bare feet pounding on the drive and nightshirt-tails flapping as he ran after the unwieldy wagon. Cullen stiffened, straightening as if to get to his feet, and his mouth opened in a silent cry of protest, but he was helpless. Mary leapt off the veranda, gathering her skirts in her fist, and ran with all her might to catch her son. She managed to outpace him and swung her arm under both of his, hooking him across the chest. Bent awkwardly, her ribs heaving against her corsets, she quieted his panicked protests.

"Hush, dearest, hush," she gasped. "Pappy's all right. He's going to be fine. He's just going away for a few days. Just a few days."

Gabe settled at last, falling silent and slumping back against her knees, staring in the direction his father had gone. Mary disentangled herself and straightened, keeping a comforting hand on his shoulder. She couldn't stay here with her heart trotting off towards Meridian; she had to get back into the house and see how badly Meg was hurt. Nate had to be sent for the doctor at once. Yes, that was it. The doctor. He could look at Meg's back, and he could advise her. Doctor Whitehead would know what to do.

Mary started to turn back towards the house, and drew up suddenly. Mr. Sutcliffe was still sitting tall and cool upon his Thoroughbred, looking down upon her with condescending pity in his eyes.

"I'm truly sorry to have brought such disarray to your doorstep, Miss Mary," he drawled, his lips puckering as if he were tasting the sugar of his own words. "It was not my intention to cause _you_ any distress. If there is _anything_ I can do to comfort you in your time of trouble, you need only to say, my dear."

Mary wanted to fly at him and claw his eyes out, but she was far too conscious of her dignity, and of Cullen's. She would not behave like an Irish fishwife – or a Cracker, which she supposed from the way people spoke was the Mississippi equivalent. She would maintain her decorum. After all, she had been bred among the social elite of Manhattan, and she knew how to chill a man with the most cordial of words.

"Mr. Sutcliffe," she said, enunciating exquisitely; "I believe that you have done quite enough. Would you like me to call my man to escort you off the property?"


	39. Taken Away

**Chapter Thirty-Nine: Taken Away**

Gabe pressed his back against Mama's legs, arms straight at his sides and fists clamped upon handfuls of her skirts. He could feel how stiff and straight her knees were: she stood like a pillar behind him. Her fingers were just brushing his shoulders now, for she had straightened up to speak to the man on the horse. He was tall and he was old, and although he was smiling and he hadn't touched Pappy, Gabe didn't like him.

"That won't be necessary, Miss Mary," he said in a drawling, syrupy voice. "I know my way."

"Then please depart," Mama said. Her voice was cold enough to make Gabe shiver, and it confirmed his suspicion: the man in the gray suit was not a nice person. Mama didn't like him either.

"If that is your wish, ma'am, I certainly shall," the man said. His eyes widened a little as if in surprise. "Oh, I nearly forgot." He reached behind him and took a sack that had been slung over the back of the saddle. "Your property, I believe. The dress and shoes the Negress was wearing. You must forgive me for the… incidental damages. They were unavoidable."

Mama took the sack and clutched it, keeping her eyes fixed upon the man. They were very hard, and her face very proud. Gabe thought she was angry, and trying to hide it. He knew that _he_ was angry. Those bad men had shut his pappy up in a cage and taken him away! The gray-haired one had pushed him, too, and Gabe didn't understand why Pappy hadn't just pushed him back. At least Pappy hadn't seemed scared or upset when they took him, not like he had when he and the gray-haired man had been fighting with Meg between them. Gabe's eyes shifted anxiously towards the house. Meg was hurt. She was hurt and bloody. Those bad men had hurt her, and they had taken his pappy away, and Gabe was frightened.

"If you'd just hand me my whip, I'll be going," the man on the horse said cordially. He sounded very polite, but his eyes were not smiling. Gabe shrank back further into the shelter of his mother's skirts.

"Fetch it yourself," said Mama levelly. She did not move.

"You, son," said the man. Now he was looking at Gabe, and his smile was wider still. "Hand me that whip, there's a good boy."

He pointed at the black thing lying in the dirt of the drive. Gabe's gaze travelled to it. It looked like a great dark snake, coiled in the mud and waiting to strike. It didn't look like a whip to Gabe. His pappy had a whip that he sometimes put in a little cup on the buggy box. It was made of a willow wand, painted with shiny dark lacquer with a tassel on the end. It was mostly for show, though sometimes Pappy would use it to tickle Bonnie's ears so that she tossed her head proudly. There was no use in trying the same thing with Pike: it only made him sneeze. But Pike and Bonnie knew their business, and usually didn't need any guidance from a whip at all.

"Just pick it up and hand it to me," the tall man coaxed. "Go on."

Mama's hold on Gabe's shoulder tightened, and he knew she didn't want him to do it. Pappy had said that Gabe must mind Mama: he had said nothing about strange men on horseback.

"No!" Gabe said stoutly, stomping one bare foot. The hem of his nightshirt danced. "Fetch it youself! Go 'way! Get!"

The man made a choking noise and his face flushed dark. He straightened in the saddle and gathered the reins so tightly that the horse lifted one front hoof in protest. The man's eyes narrowed and he shot a look of fury at Mama. "Delightful," he said chillingly. "Like father, like son, I see." He wafted his free hand disdainfully at the black thing. "Keep it. A gift for your husband, Miss Mary."

Then he turned the horse and dug in his spurs and galloped off towards the road. Mama did not watch him go. She stood very straight and still, holding fast to Gabe's shoulder, until the man was gone. Then her shoulders slumped and she crouched down, gathering Gabe into her arms and hugging him close. She was trembling.

"Mama?" Gabe said, his voice very small and uncertain. "Mama, why dey take Pappy away?"

She pressed her cheek to the side of his head and sighed. "Oh, dearest, he'll be all right," she murmured. Then before Gabe could ask about Meg Mama lifted him onto her hip, tugging his nightshirt snug to keep his bottom covered. Balancing the sack in the crook of her other arm, she hurried up the steps and into the house.

"What 'bout dat whip?" Gabe asked. "Ain't it a present for Pappy?"

"No, Gabe. No, it's not," Mama said. Her voice cracked and she held him still tighter. "Mr. Sutcliffe is only trying to make Pappy angry, and we mustn't let him do it. He's been quite successful enough already."

Gabe tucked his head against Mama's shoulder and coughed. There was a tickle in his throat today. Mama jiggled him, but she could not pat his back with the sack under her arm. She turned into the dining room and let it fall onto the table, then set Gabe down on Pappy's chair. Gabe stood, holding onto the outer spindle of the back.

"Stay in here," Mama said. Her eyes were shifting distractedly between Gabe and the kitchen door, which stood ajar. Mama hastily caressed the back of his head and kissed his brow. "That's my brave boy."

She slipped into the kitchen, and Gabe watched her go. He coughed again, just a little cough, and gnawed on his lower lip. There were frightening sounds coming from the kitchen. Someone was crying, and trying very hard not to. Bethel was murmuring so softly that Gabe could not hear the words. And there was another noise, too; a low, moaning, snuffling, gasping noise that crescendoed as he listened to a sharp little cry.

Gabe shrank down on the chair, lowering his bottom to his heels and then letting his feet creep out towards the edge of the seat. Mama was speaking now, her voice gentle but quavering a little with worry.

"Is it very bad?" she asked. "Oh, Meg…"

"It bad," said Bethel. "Not the wors' I's seen, but bad. Chile ain't never been beat her whole life; allus been a good woman. Why they go an' whup her fo' visitin' her Peter?"

The weeping grew louder and Mama's skirts swished. Then a rough, unsteady voice that Gabe didn't recognize at once spoke up out of another harsh gasp. "Missus M-Mary, I didn'. I didn' mean to do it…"

Again the rush of skirts, and the table creaked. "Hush. Hush, Meg; you did nothing wrong. It isn't your fault. That hateful man. He had no right to beat you, and I don't care what the sheriff said."

"The sheriff?" Bethel said sharply. "What the sheriff have to do with all this?"

"He brought her back," Mama said. "They tried to claim she was a runaway. Where's Nate?"

"Gone to fetch water," said Bethel. "I thought it bes'—" There was hiss of agony, and the old lady said soothingly; "There, honey. There. You try an' breathe, now. Jus' you breathe."

Gabe could not sit where he was any longer. He slid onto the floor, his toes landing soundlessly, and moved nearer the door. Mama had said he was to stay in the dining room, and he had to mind her, but he could at least draw a little nearer. He did not want to be out here all alone. Mama and Bethel were just in the next room, and he would feel safer if he could be close to them.

"She ain't no runaway," Bethel said, her voice now almost plaintive. "Twelve year she been goin' there to visit her Peter: back ev'y time by sundown. What Mist' Sutcliffe go an' do it for?"

"He said she needed a paper, written permission," Mama said distractedly. "She's never needed it before. Cullen… I've never seen him so angry."

"I's angry my own self," Bethel growled. "Ain't reasonable. Ain't human. Here now, Meg honey, you jus' hol' on. This one goin' sting."

The hollow strangled shriek that followed sent a jolt of terror through Gabe's entire body. He wanted to run away and hide, but he could not move. From the other side of the wall there came a frightened whimper, and Mama's skirts swished again. "Lottie, wouldn't you rather go and sit in the parlor?" Mama asked. "You don't need to watch this."

"No'm. No," Lottie choked out, trying to swallow her sobs. Gabe's innards twisted. He had never heard Lottie cry. "I's goin' stay right here. She my ma. I's goin' stay with her."

"You go on an' do what Missus Mary say," said Bethel. "Your ma got her 'nough worries without you watchin' this."

Lottie's voice quavered. "B-but…"

"Please," gasped Meg thinly. "P-p-please go…"

"Go and sit in the parlor," Mama said consolingly. "You might even lie down on the couch and have a rest. It's been such an awful morning."

Gabe sprang back just in time as the door swung open and Lottie came out of the kitchen. Her face was wet with tears, and she had an old cotton handkerchief balled up in one hand. Her nose was running and her eyes were red. For a moment she didn't seem to see him, standing just out of sight of the gap in the door. Then she was down on her knees, drawing him further into the shelter of the dividing wall.

"Hush," she whispered. "I ain't goin' nowheres neither."

"Why Meg hurt?" Gabe asked, keeping his own voice as low as he could. In the kitchen, Bethel was giving Mama instructions. The sound of pouring water followed, and the stove-lid rattled. "Why dem bad men hurt Meg?"

Lottie's whole body shuddered and she shook her head convulsively. "I don' know." She sounded like she was going to burst into tears again. She drew Gabe down into her lap and rested her chin on his shoulder, hugging him tightly and rocking back and forth. "I don' know."

There was a sound of boots and the back door rattled. Something heavy was set down on the floor. "Col' water."

The deep voice belonged to Nate. Gabe heard the clink of a dipper against a tin cup, and the footsteps moved towards the table. "Meg?" Nate's voice wavered uncertainly. "Nice cool water, jus' up from the well."

"Drink, honey," Bethel coaxed in just the tone of voice she used with Gabe when he was sick. "It goin' help that sore head."

Meg's ragged, creaking voice lifted a little in surprise. "How you know I gots a sore head?" she panted.

"That come with a whuppin'," Bethel said gently. "Ev'y one I's ever see'd, when it over they gots a sore head." She hesitated, and then asked, in an uncharacteristically humble voice; "Missus Mary, you think mebbe we could dose her? I know them powders is for the white folks, but this here chile in pain."

"Of course we could!" Mama exclaimed, sounding almost eager to be able to help at last. "I'm ashamed I didn't think of it myself." The dish-dresser rattled. "How much do I give her?"

"Jus' 'nough to cover the bottom of a spoon," said Bethel. "Then a dollop of sorghum t'make it go down easier."

Meg breathed sharply again, and Lottie's body jerked beneath Gabe. It was as if her mother's every pain was echoed in her body. She hugged him tighter still; almost too tight, truth be told, but Gabe did not protest. If it made Lottie feel better to squeeze him, he could be a little man and bear it. She was frightened and she was hurting. If his mama were the one all bloodied and torn, Gabe knew he would be frightened and hurting, too. Angrily he thought that if it had been _his_ mama, maybe he would have just kept quiet and let Pappy hit the bad gray-haired man like he had wanted to!

Through the gaping door came a cough and a shallow wheeze, and the tin cup rattled against Meg's teeth as someone held it for her to drink. "There. I know it taste like poison," said Bethel; "but you's goin' feel the good of it."

Mama drew in a deep breath, and Gabe could imagine her straightening her back and smoothing her skirts. "Nate," she said in a calm voice that comforted Gabe tremendously; "I need you to run out to the tobacco barn and make sure that Elijah is all right."

"Lord ha' mercy, the fires!" Nate cried, and in Gabe's ear Lottie gasped in horror. "We plumb forgot them fires!"

"Yes," said Mary. "Please go and see that everything is all right. It must be, surely, or he would have come for help. Mustn't it?"

"I wouldn' count on that," Bethel said darkly. "He know we gots trouble here. Ain't Mist' Cullen gone to he'p him?"

There was an awful silence, and Gabe felt his arms and legs begin to shake. Bethel didn't know. She didn't know they had taken Pappy away. She had been inside the whole time, first looking to breakfast and then taking care of Meg. She didn't know: nobody knew but him and Mama.

Mama was trying very hard to keep her voice steady: Gabe could hear the strain in it. But still it quaked and quailed. "Cullen is gone," she said. "They took him. He's been placed under arrest for allowing a slave to go at large without legitimate business. The sheriff wanted to take you, Meg, but Cullen wouldn't let him. He… they took him."

"Took him?" cried Bethel. The note of panic in her voice was worse than anything else Gabe had heard today. Bethel was always so strong, so calm and collected and brave. Now she sounded wild with fright. "Where they took him? Why?"

"Th-the county jail in Meridian, I presume," Mama said unsteadily. "He'll be brought before a Justice of the Peace, and Meg will have to appear as well. I… I offered a surety, but the sheriff refused. Nor would he take Cullen's word. I think… I think that's the worst of it for him. That, and not knowing what's going on at home. Nate." Her voice hardened again into one of level command. "Run and see that all is well with Elijah. Then I need you to ride at once for Doctor Whitehead. Tell him that Meg is sorely wounded, and that Cullen is in trouble. Tell him he must come at once. Tell him…"

Her voice trailed off, and Nate spoke. "Ain't no white doctor goin' come look at a nigger, Missus," he said. "Mos'ly niggers jus' ten' to themselves, or the missus do what she think bes' for 'em."

"I don't know what to do for a flogging!" Mama cried, suddenly shrill. Then she inhaled slowly and said, more serenely; "I'm the mistress, Nate, and what I think best is for Meg to have a doctor. Doctor Whitehead _will_ come; I'm sure of it. Tell him that Mr. Bohannon is in trouble and we need him at once. Tell him we need – I need – his help."

"I's to saddle up one of the mules?" asked Nate.

"No. Take Bonnie," Mama said. "Surely you can ride Bonnie?" There was just enough of a pause for a nod or a shake of the head. It must have been a nod, thought Gabe, for Mama went on; "She's tethered to the fence, and she's ready to ride. She's much swifter than a mule: she'll get you there quicker. Go as fast as you safely can. And… you must somehow find the means to get word to Cullen that the tobacco is fine and that we're taking care of Meg. I don't know how you'll go about it… perhaps the doctor will know?"

"We doesn' know the tobacco fine, Missus Mary," Bethel warned.

"It is fine. It must be," said Mama. She sounded breathless. "A fire now… I think a fire would break us."

"Missus, I can' take that horse," Nate said. His voice was very low, and very grave. "Folks see me on Mist' Cullen's prize horse, they goin' think I stoled it an' ran. What to stop them haulin' me back same as Mist' Sutcliffe did Meg? Who goin' fetch the doctor then?"

"I'll write you a pass," Mama declared, suddenly vehement. "The sheriff said that Cullen ought to have given Meg a pass and sent her on lawful business. Fetching the doctor is lawful business, and so if I give you a note explaining that you have my leave to be off our land with the horse… yes, yes, that's just what I'll do."

Before either Gabe or Lottie could move, the kitchen door was flung wide and Mama hurried past them, so near that her skirt brushed against Lottie's arm. But she was intent upon her mission and took no notice of the two children huddled together on the floor. She disappeared into the hallway, and Gabe heard the distant squeak of the secretary front as Mama opened it. Pappy was always saying that the hinges needed a spot of oil, but somehow he never got 'round to doing it. He couldn't do it now, either, thought Gabe anxiously, because those men in the frightening black cage-wagon had taken him away to somewhere called the countingjail.

Lottie had stiffened against him again, and she was hugging him more tightly than ever. Gabe could hardly even breathe deeply, she was holding him so close. Her chin was up off his shoulder now, and her head raised like a hound perking to the scent of a jackrabbit. She was looking through the kitchen door, now open wide. Gabe twisted, following her gaze, and he stared.

Meg was on the bench, her bare legs curled beneath it and her body bowed low over the table. One arm was curled up against her, hugging a stained work-shirt to her front. The other was stretched out, fingers clawing at the bone-smooth wood of the table as if she could transfer her pain into the piece of furniture if only she pressed hard enough. Her eyes were closed, hot tears squeezing from the corners, and the muscles of her face were knotted in torment. Her cheeks, ordinarily round and kindly-looking, seemed hollow and tense with suffering. Her eyes were sunken in, with great circles beneath them so black that they were startling even against the deep brown of her skin. Her headcloth was gone, and her hair was wild and tangled with blood. Her lips were swollen and purpled, and there was blood on her teeth where she had bitten them. Her back, curled into a tortured hump, was a mass of deep cuts and wheals and dark, bloody pits. Bethel was dabbing at the lowest of these with a rag stained carmine with blood.

Meg was almost naked, too: her shift was torn right up the back, and it hung loose to show her ribs as they strained to draw breath against the pain. The shirt she was holding didn't really cover her breasts, not from the side. And with the bench rucking up the bloodstained hem of the shift her legs looked so long and bare. Gabe had never seen a lady's bare legs before; he knew that wasn't right.

Neither Bethel nor Meg had noticed the children, but Nate had. He was standing by the door, and his eyes had found them. Gabe couldn't tell what he was thinking. He had taken off his shirt so that Meg could cover herself, and the thick, ropey muscles of his chest and stomach stood stark beneath his skin. He was very stiff and tense, but he did not look angry and Gabe was glad. He thought Nate looked sad, so terribly, awfully sad that he could not really feel anything at all.

Bethel looked up from her ministrations and frowned at him. "You get 'long to that barn!" she said. "If they's trouble, Elijah goin' need you. Missus Mary can give you that pass when you comes back fo' the horse. Git!"

"Yas'm," said Nate. His finger twitched towards Gabe and Lottie. "But you's got—"

"Go on: git!" Bethel scolded. She sounded stern, but Gabe thought she was only trying not to be frightened. Nate seemed to understand this, too, for he did not argue further. He nodded and stepped out through the back door, and for a brief moment Gabe could see him trotting off in the direction of the kiln.

Left alone now with Meg, or so she thought, Bethel set down the cloth in the basin of bloody water and crouched beside the younger woman. She reached up to brush matted curls from the slick, clammy forehead, as gently as she would have done for Gabe. He was glad that Meg had Bethel to care for her: Bethel was the very best person to have with you when you were sick or hurting or scared. The strong, slender dark hand cupped Meg's cheek and turned her head gently so that Bethel could look her in the eyes.

"You tell me now, honey," Bethel said. Her voice was firm but very low, so that Gabe could only just make out the words. "Did that old man touch you?"

Meg's face contorted into a mask of shame and she made a tiny whimpering sound deep in her throat. "Beat me hisself, he did," she confessed miserably. "Said his overseer like to be too gentle. Said he goin' teach the nigger b-b-bitch fo' trespassin'."

"Honey, you know that ain't what I mean," said Bethel. Now she sounded stern, almost angry. "Did he do wrong by you? Did he take what no man, white nor black, got a right to take?"

Meg shook her head spastically, opening up one of the lacerations across the base of her neck. It began to bleed again, but neither woman seemed to notice. "He made 'em strip me," she choked out. "S-strung me up, an' he loo-ooked. He put his han'…" She gestured with her curled arm, fingers cupped and shifting towards her right breast. The shirt slithered from her grasp and puddled on her lap. "An' he s-squeezed. Said… said… bu' then he took the whip…"

She sobbed wretchedly and buried her face against her arm, drawing in the other to clutch at the back of her head. Her back shook and shuddered, and bright new pinions of blood showed.

"Shh-shh," Bethel crooned. Carefully, so very carefully she rose up and drew Meg to her, caressing her head and hugging her shoulder, but careful not to touch even one of the terrible wounds. She kissed the crown of Meg's head and swayed a little to rock her. "Shh, honey. You's safe now. He can' touch you here. Missus Mary ain' goin' let no one hurt you no more."

"But Mist' Cullen… M-Mist' Cullen been took!" wailed Meg. Her hand clutched at Bethel's apron. "It my fault he gone… what he goin' say to me? What he goin' do?"

"He goin' do what's right," Bethel said fiercely. "That one think you can 'pend upon. Mist' Cullen goin' do what's right."

"What do you think, Bethel?" Mama came hurrying into the dining room, a piece of the good writing paper held carefully in both hands. The ink was still glistening wet. "_Know all who read this that the bearer, one Nate by name, has been sent forth on lawful business in Meridian at my behest and with my leave. He has been entrusted with the Morgan mare Bonnie, to speed his journey and facilitate his swift return with Doctor Whitehead. I pray, do not delay my servant on this urgent erran— _Gabe!"

The two children tore their eyes at last from the tableau of suffering before them and looked up at the lady. Mama's face was very white, and her eyes sharp with dismay. Hastily she set the letter on the corner of the table, and bent to gather Gabe out of Lottie's arms. She hoisted him onto her hip and then cupped her hand under the girl's elbow and drew her to her feet as well. "Come along," she said hoarsely. "Neither of you should be watching this. Come. Gabe, you can play in the nursery while Mama helps Bethel. Lottie, you must stay with him. I know that you want to be with your mother, but until she's been properly cared for it really will be easier for her if you're not at hand. Come, darling: I know you want to be with her, but it isn't right."

And Mama whisked them out of the dining room and up the stairs, but not before Gabe cast one last anxious look over her shoulder at Meg, bare and bleeding and tortured, in Bethel's strong arms. He coughed quietly into Mama's hair. He wished those men hadm't taken his pappy away.

_*discidium*_

The cuffs were too tight. The shackles were made to keep a woman's hands from slipping through them, and they pinched Cullen's wrists. It was ridiculous that such a small irritant should be foremost in his mind at a time like this, but it was. He supposed that was because all the rest of it was too much for him to cope with just at present. Brave, dignified Meg made feral and wretched by pain; Sutcliffe tall and patrician and sneering atop his proud horse; Mary, witnessing the entire awful spectacle; and Gabe…

That was worst of all. Bad enough for his son to catch him so irrational with rage that he had actually come within a breath of striking a sheriff. But for Gabe to see him arrested, hauled away in chains like some kind of criminal – that was unbearable. Would he understand, would Mary be able to make him understand that his pappy wasn't wicked; that he was guilty of nothing but ignorance of the law? He had not known that he needed to send Meg with written permission to visit Peter. It had never even occurred to him. His father and Abel Sutcliffe had come to a mutual accord on the matter, as planters were wont to do in such situations, and Cullen had simply been fool enough to think the arrangement could continue. He had never really expected Sutcliffe to make trouble for Meg just to get at him, but he realized now that he should have.

Meg was simply too easy a target: vulnerable under the law, powerless to protect herself. Sutcliffe could strike against her without anything to fear either from the sheriff or from public opinion. As much as Cullen wished to believe otherwise, he knew that he would never be able to make their peers see that Sutcliffe had done wrong. Maintaining order among the darkies was simply too important to the Southern way of life: no one would condemn a man for whipping a Negro he believed (or professed to believe) to be off her master's land without permission. Maybe, just maybe Cullen might be able to explain the truth to Boyd Ainsley, but no one else would even try to see his side of the matter.

There was going to be a scandal over this, too, he thought as the Black Maria swayed drunkenly down the hill towards the edge of town. The law regarding slaves going at large permitted the taking of the slave in question as a guarantee of the master's appearance in court out of courtesy to the slaveholder. The provision allowed a man to put up human collateral for the charge laid against him, and so to continue on with his everyday business with a minimum of inconvenience. The law was intended to let a slave be taken in her master's place, not to allow a master to take the place of his slave.

When word spread that Cullen Bohannon had done precisely that, the county would be abuzz. He had raised eyebrows before, with his rakish youth and his Northern marriage, with his disregard for stolid convention and with the affront of actually working his own land, but all of those things the Mississippi mind could stretch itself to understand. Boys would run wild, especially boys without a mother's gentling hand. The heart did not always make allowance for the state in which a woman was born. Every community had _someone_ who questioned the way that things had always been done. And if a man had a choice between laboring in the tobacco or seeing his child go hungry, there was no choice at all. But to let himself be placed under arrest when the law and the sheriff would have been satisfied with a field hand… that was inexplicable. Alien. It smacked of abolitionist sentiment, and in these times that was very dangerous.

It was what Sutcliffe had intended, of course. The stark simplicity of the man's plan forced Cullen to admit a grudging respect for his intellect. First he had ensured that Meg was injured grievously enough to rouse Cullen's rage and pity in equal and substantive measure. He couldn't have done that under the provision that allowed a man to take ten lashes off a trespassing slave: he had to plant the notion of a runaway in Brannan's head so that he would beat her too. Ten lashes last evening, Cullen thought, and a night in terror and pain to reduce Meg to little more than an animal, and then the sheriff's flogging in the morning so that she was freshly bloodied and ready to make a spectacle. Then to threaten Cullen with the ghastly prospect of having to whip one of his own people, for the law required a man to chastise his runaways; Sutcliffe knew, of course, that Cullen would deny she had run and would declare, truthfully, that he had allowed her to go. From there it was but a short step to confessing explicitly, at Brannan's insistent prompting, that he had sent her off willingly, knowingly at large, and was therefore guilty under the law. And Sutcliffe must surely have known that Cullen would not allow Meg to be taken in such a state; could not, in fact, have allowed her to be taken at all for his folly and his mistake and his crime. So here he was, a pair of slave manacles digging into his flesh, about to be hauled through the streets of Meridian in a cage.

For a fleeting moment Cullen considered sliding down off the bench to crouch on the floor. It was an unworthy impulse, and he quashed it. It would be humiliating to be seen like this, but it would be much more shameful to try to hide. He lifted his foot, bracing his boot against the opposite bench, and affected an indolent posture with his shoulder against the bars. His fingers stretched of their own accord, trying to relieve the pressure that was starting to give them a purplish cast. The movement caused the chain to rustle, and he forced himself to be still. Forced his expression to remain impassive as the first pair of curious eyes turned towards the spectacle of a prisoner being hauled into town. Forced his head to remain high when someone at the edge of Main Street called his name.

The jailhouse was on the far side of the tracks: a two-storey stone structure with bars on the lower windows and muslin curtains fluttering from the upper ones. Deputy Sheriff Dayton kept the jail: he and his family lived above. The driver pulled the prison wagon to a halt before the stout oak doors, and he and the sheriff climbed down and came around to the back of the vehicle. The deputy held the rifle while Brannan opened the door.

"Are you going to come peaceably, Mr. Bohannon," he asked, far more loudly than necessary; "or do we need to come in there and drag you out?"

"I'll come peaceably," Cullen said calmly. He put down his boot and stood, forced to stoop by the low roof of the cage. He stepped down onto the street, his balance upset as the sheriff seized his forearm. He stumbled but kept his expression neutral and bit down the urge to struggle. It wouldn't do anyone any good, least of all him.

A small curious throng had gathered, but the one sidelong glance he spared them showed Cullen no familiar faces. Of course that did not mean he hadn't been recognized: recent financial troubles notwithstanding, he came from one of the old and wealthy families on whose prosperity Lauderdale County had been built. As his Scots ancestors had known their overlords, the small farmers and trappers and tradesmen of Meridian knew the planters.

A laughing voice, half-jeering and half-amiable, confirmed his suspicion. "What's this, Sheriff? Against the law to marry a Yankee now, is it?"

Cullen attempted a good-natured grin, but wound up merely baring his teeth thinly as he was led up the steps and into the narrow, stuffy corridor that cut the jail in two. The deputy dragged the door closed, shutting out the inquisitive onlookers, and Cullen was tugged sideways into an office with two windows looking out on the street. Deputy Joseph Dayton was leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk. He sat up hurriedly as his boss entered, the chair legs crashing down onto the floor. He was thirty and balding already, and as he recognized the prisoner his face broke into a good-natured but lopsided smile that kept his lips clamped tightly on his pipe.

"Cullen!" he exclaimed. "What're you doing here? Your past crimes caught up to you at last? I always said you had the luck of Lucifer, but maybe I'm wrong."

"Seems you are," said Brannan coolly. "Mr. Bohannon here has been arrested for permitting one of his slaves to wander at large. He'll be a guest of the county until a judge can sort it out."

Joe frowned. He and Cullen had been at school together for five years, before Joe had been obliged to leave formal education to learn his father's cabinetry trade. Cullen, older and in any case a natural ringleader, had been very much admired by Joe in those days. "Hell, Sheriff, why'nt you just bring the slave?"

"She weren't in no fit state," Cullen said before Brannan could answer. "I need her healed up quick so she can get back to work: all hands needed at harvest time."

Joe, who had never owned a slave, nodded at this. "They can spare the master easier, I guess," he said. He dipped his pen and made an untidy scrawl in the booking ledger. Cullen supposed it was meant to be his name. "What about bail?"

"Set it at fifty dollars," said the Sheriff with a note of vengeful delight. "Maximum allowable fine for the offence."

Joe noted this, and chuckled. "I guess you'll be out by the end of the day, hey, Cullen?"

Apparently he had not heard the all-too-accurate rumors about the Bohannon finances hovering on the brink of bankruptcy. "I wouldn't count on that, Joe," Cullen said. "Can't spare fifty dollars any more than I can spare my woman."

"You might have to," Brannan said gleefully. He did not take his predatory eyes off of Cullen as he asked; "Dayton, who's got this week's session?"

"Justice White," said Joe. "Should be an easy day: he always hurries things along so we can all be home for supper."

Cullen's spirits rose just a little. George White had quietly stepped up into his father's seat as a Justice of the Peace three years ago. If he was hearing the case, Cullen had a chance for justice: their personal amiability aside, George took his duties very seriously and would be unlikely to be swayed by prejudice. Or bribes.

"Hmph." Brannan tugged at his whiskers. "It'll have to be next week, then. Put him on Justice Graham's docket."

"I got a right to a speedy trial," Cullen said.

"It ain't a trial: just a hearing to fix your fine," Brannan said. "And if eight days ain't speedy enough for you, you can write to the President and complain!"

Cullen's wrath rose and he turned to square off against the older man. "So I got to sit here eight days instead of one so that you can put me up in front of a judge who's friendly with Abel Sutcliffe?" he hissed.

Brannan laughed and clapped his shoulder with such force that it was almost painful. "Watch yourself, Bohannon: that's some skinny ice right there. 'Sides, it's only four days extra: White's got the Friday session. Give you time to make arrangements for counsel, if you want to go and stand on your rights."

The other deputy sniggered. "Counsel for a misdemeanor?" he said. "That dog don't hunt."

"Oh, but Mr. Bohannon has a _right_ to counsel," the sheriff declared. "Ain't that so, son? Course, I don't see the county approvin' to pay for it. Maybe you can find a lawyer will take ratty tobacco in trade?"

Chortling to himself he strode from the room, leaving Cullen alone with the two deputies. Joe was watching him warily. "You got any money or valuables you want to leave in my charge?" he asked.

Cullen almost let out a bark of sardonic laughter at this, but managed to rein it in before it came out as more than a snort. "None," he said. "I left the house unexpectedly."

"Why'd you let your nigger wander off?" asked Joe.

The angry tirade he was longing to inflict on someone almost choked him, but Cullen kept it back. Joe was just doing his job, and the man with the rifle would quite likely be happy to club him with it if he waxed belligerent. He shook his head instead and said; "It was a misunderstanding."

"Sheriff whipped her, huh? Took her for a runaway?" Joe asked. "Must be bad, if you'd sooner sit in jail than have her in here. My Sarah's a good nurse, you know, if you want to change your mind."

"No." Cullen's teeth were set, and he wished that Joe would stop trying to be so damned considerate. He needed to get this over with before his temper got the best of him.

"Awright. You got any sicknesses; cough, cold, dysentery, the like?" asked Joe.

"No."

"Any lice? Flees? Worms?"

"No."

"You want board?" Joe asked after he had noted these answers.

"How much is that?" said Cullen warily.

"Two bits a day, payable upon release," said Joe.

Two dollars, Cullen thought grimly. Two dollars to keep him fed for the eight days awaiting trial, on top of whatever penalty Mr. Graham decided to mete out in court. That it could not apparently be more than fifty did not comfort him much: fifty dollars was quite beyond his reach. He screwed his eyes closed and tried to focus only on the immediate worry. Two dollars for board at the jail, or two dollars to have the doctor look at Meg.

"No thanks," he said.

Joe nodded. "Visitors can come in between noon and two," he said. "Any food or other comforts they bring are subject to inspection: I usually do that. They ain't allowed to bring you spirits or matches, but chewing tobacco's fine and if you ask nice one of the kids'll fetch you a light for your pipe. And no pitch gum. The womenfolks have to scrape down the cells again, they're liable to lynch me."

"Understood," Cullen said. It sounded fair enough, except of course that he could hardly expect anyone to come into town just to bring him food. He wouldn't want them to. They'd have their hands full just running the plantation in his absence. It might be days or even weeks before Meg was well enough to work: how long did a whipping like that take to heal? Cullen knew that some of his neighbors put their darkies back in the fields the day after, but surely not after such a savage flogging as Meg had suffered.

"That's that, then," said Joe. "Get him out of them chains, Mark, so he can take his coat off."

Cullen frowned. "Take my coat off?"

"Sure," said Joe. "Waistcoat, too. You want 'em fresh for court, don't you? I'll keep 'em safe here. Even get Sarah to brush 'em down for you, as a favor between friends. Come on, Mark: ain't got all day."

The other deputy reluctantly propped the rifle against the wall and dug out the key to Cullen's cuffs. The manacles sprang open with the force of the compressed flesh beneath them, and almost instantly Cullen's hands were afire with the tingling of returning sensation. Hot blood flooded back up his arms, and the cold creep of fresh stuff trickled into his fingers. Instinctively he reached to rub his right wrist where the iron had bit deepest. Then he realized the two men were watching him: Mark disdainful and Joe concerned, and he forced his hands down to his sides.

"Your coat," Joe reminded him.

Cursing silently, Cullen fumbled with the buttons that Mary had fastened so deftly. His fingers were numb and clumsy, and it took him far too long to undo coat and vest. He shucked them hurriedly and handed them to Joe, who smoothed them and hung them on the last of a row of pegs, many of which held similar garments in varying degrees of disrepair. Cullen's well-worn second-best frock coat looked positively pristine in comparison to its ragged neighbor. Men of his class, impoverished or not, were not frequent patrons of the county jail.

Joe led him out into the corridor, which intersected with another running the breadth of the building. They passed the two secure cells with their stout wooden doors. These were used to isolate violent prisoners or to hold those guilty of the most serious crimes: treason, sedition, murder, rape of a white woman. Next came a general cell with bars all across its front. Inside, curled on the bare shelf bolted to the wall, was a thin woman wearing two ragged dresses layered atop each other. The stink of gin was strong on the air.

"All right there, Madge?" asked Joe.

"When you goin' let me get?" she whined. "I gots chil'ren to see to!"

"Your big girl's a better mother'n you'll ever be," Joe said good-naturedly. "Just you sober up, an' I'll let you go. Poor thing," he added to Cullen as he moved on. "Can't hold her liquor, can't keep from trying. Got six little ones at home: the oldest ain't but thirteen. Farms three acres up your way, or used to. Gov'ment will take it for taxes next year."

"No husband?" asked Cullen.

"Hanged him last spring," said Joe. "Horse-thief. Nag he stole weren't good for nothin' but the glue-pot, but he stole it just the same. This here's you."

He halted before a cell identical to the last, save that instead of a single occupant there were six men sprawled about a space not much bigger than Bethel's little room. One lay flat on his back on the shelf. One was curled up under it. Another occupied the far corner, knees up and head down. A boy, hardly more than fifteen, was lying on his stomach on the stone floor, drawing in the grime with his index finger. Another, barely conscious, was slumped against the bars near the bucket and dipper of drinking water. He too reeked of drink. The sixth was relieving himself into the befouled pail provided for such a purpose. They were all white, of course. The Negro cells were down the other end of the corridor.

Cullen tried to keep his disgust and discomfiture from showing, but he could not quite help shooting a questioning glance at the deputy. Joe shrugged helplessly. "Them's the ones awaitin' their turn in court," he said. "I got to put you in there with 'em: Sheriff knows we're friendly. Can't afford to show no favorites."

"Of course not," Cullen said. Joe took a ring of keys from his gun belt and found the appropriate one. He unlocked the door and motioned for Cullen to step in. Reluctant but resigned he did so, his nostrils tightening against the stench of his cellmates.

"Hey, Sheriff! Where's our dinner?" the man under the cot demanded.

"Ain't even eleven o'clock yet, Edwards," said Joe cheerfully. "And I ain't the sheriff. You'll get your dinner at one, same as always."

The man muttered some unintelligible profanity and Joe closed the door. He did not let it slam or rattle, sparing Cullen the awful finality of that sound. "You need anything, just shout," he said. "Somebody'll hear you."

Then with a reassuring grin he walked away. Unable to help himself, Cullen stepped forward, gripping the bars and trying to look after him. It was useless, of course: all he could see was a sliver of the hallway and the two men occupying the opposite cell. Both were sleeping, spooned together to fit on the single narrow bed. Both had overgrown beards and the gaunt, pasty look of long-time prisoners. Waiting to be hanged, he thought, and a chill ran up his spine. At least he was lucky not to have that waiting for him. Sutcliffe would have tried it if he could have.


	40. The Perfect Snare

**Chapter Forty: The Perfect Snare**

Meg was resting quietly. She wasn't asleep – Bethel didn't know how the poor child would be able to sleep, the pain she was in – but the anodyne powder had taken effect and she was peaceful now. It had taken the combined efforts of the two women to get Meg from the kitchen to Bethel's bedroom, for the strength had gone clear out of her legs and she could not help them. Missus Mary had cut away the tattered shift and they had put her to bed naked, covering her legs and buttocks with a quilt but leaving her riven back exposed. Bethel had bathed the wounds as best she could with tepid water, wiping away dirt and gore and bits of moldy hay, but she was afraid to do anything more. In the old days when Miss Caroline's family had spent summers on the plantation away from the unhealthy stews of summertime Charleston, Bethel had witnessed her share of whippings. The overseers had always chosen some unfortunate slave for the task of rubbing down the victim's wounds with brine: salt mixed with water 'til it was thick as porridge. They claimed it helped the wounds heal faster and kept infection at bay, and Bethel didn't know about that. What she did know was that slaves so used had always shrieked louder at this treatment than at the flogging itself. She didn't have the strength to inflict such anguish on Meg: she would wait and see what the doctor said.

Nate had been gone nearly an hour already: he would be coming into Meridian just about now. After Missus Mary had taken the children upstairs, Bethel had washed the blood from Meg's face and given her a cold compress for her swollen lip. She had split it right in two, biting down against the screams. Poor brave Meg: she had tried not to let that man know how he had hurt her. Her wrists were bruised and blackened where her weight had been hurled upon the shackles. Her toenails were ragged from trying to keep a grip on a packed-dirt floor.

There was still blood in her hair, tangled in the long, wiry curls that were usually so neatly hidden by her headcloth. When she was strong enough Bethel would offer to wash her hair for her. It would be some time before she would be able to lift her arms so high without pain. Now Bethel gathered the tumbling tresses and twisted them around her hand, making a loose knot which she laid upon the pillow where the flyaway strands could not catch upon the raw wounds. With the back of one finger she stroked Meg's cheek.

The younger woman moaned softly, her tongue flicking against her lips. Her eyelids fluttered and she looked up at Bethel. Because she did not move her head from the pillow, this motion exposed a large expanse of the white of her eyes, and Bethel swallowed a gasp of consternation. There was a lurid carmine blotch beside her left iris, like blood caught beneath the film of her eye. Hastily she schooled her features and tried to smile comfortingly.

"Jus' you rest, honey," she said. "Doctor goin' be here in 'nother hour or so, can Nate fin' him quickly. Jus' rest."

They had coaxed her to eat a little: the abandoned breakfast hominy liberally mixed with warm cream and a spoonful of the precious last of the store sugar. Food to comfort an empty stomach and put a little strength back in her. She hadn't had anything to eat since Sunday dinnertime, just before she went to see her husband.

"Peter," Meg whispered hoarsely. "What Mist' Sutcliffe goin' do with Peter?"

"I don' know, honey," said Bethel. "Why you think he goin' do anything?" She knew why, of course: the pretext had been that Meg was a runaway, making Peter thereby guilty of sheltering her. The charge would not hold up under law, thanks to Mister Cullen's firm insistence that Meg had not run. But the punishment a man might mete out on his own slave for involvement in such an incident was another matter entirely.

"Try to stop 'em. Mist' Gibbs an' t'other overseer. He try to stop 'em takin' me." Meg's eyes fluttered closed, hiding that horrible red smear. Her ravaged body shuddered. "They took him 'way. They's goin' whup him, too."

Bethel could think of no comfort to offer. It seemed very likely that Peter would be beaten, and badly, if Meg's hurts were any measure. Bethel hadn't tried to count the lashes. She didn't want to.

"There ain't a thing you can do for him," she said. "Them folks over Hartwood way, they'll do what they can. When the massa come home, mebbe he go an' get word for you. You ain't goin' over there no more."

"We wasn' doin' nothing," Meg protested feebly. "We wasn' even doin' nothing. We wasn' f-f-fornicatin'; didn' even kiss. We was too busy, doin' what we could for Pait 'n Minervy, an fo' that chile of Isaac's. She ain' gettin' 'nough to eat now Miz Sutcliffe know she sharin' the massa's bed. Twelve year old…"

She trembled again and tears squeezed out from beneath her tightly screwed lids. "Don' know how they even knowed I was there," she mourned. "Ain't been out that way fo' weeks 'n weeks."

"They's watchin' for you," Bethel murmured. "Somebody watchin'. That mis'ble man been lookin' to make trouble for Mist' Cullen: shamin' him in front the gentlefolks, tellin' sland'rous stories, now this. Now you tore up an' hurtin', an' Mist' Cullen in prison. Wicked, mis'ble, hateful man."

Meg drew in an unsteady, shuddering breath that came out in a thin, drawn-out sigh. "I's so tired," she whimpered, pressing her lips tightly closed against another wave of pain. "Bethel, I's tired."

"Then you try 'n sleep, honey," Bethel said firmly, glad of the chance to say something useful. "Jus' try 'n sleep, an' when you wake the doctor be here, an' ev'ything be better."

"Ain' never been see'd by no white-man doctor," Meg mumbled uncertainly.

"Doct' Whitehead a good man," declared Bethel. "He allus tooked care of Mist' Cullen when he caught sick as a li'l boy, an' he brung him into this world, too. Miss Caroline, she say he the gentles' man she ever knowed. Missus Mary say he kind an' clever," she added hastily. Miss Caroline's memory, so sacred to her, meant nothing to a woman who had been born years after the mistress's death.

"He goin' come jus' to look at a nigger?" said Meg, a note of skepticism bleeding through the weariness.

"He goin' do what Missus Mary ask," Bethel said, with more confidence than she felt.

She sat with Meg a while longer, perched on the edge of the old chair with the cracked spindle. She held one strong, roughened hand, palm and fingers stained dark with tobacco tar, and she watched as Meg's face eased a little way out of its harsh lines of torment. Her stilted breathing slowed and deepened as much as her torn back would allow. At last the hand between Bethel's went limp and the old woman released her hold. She picked herself up and moved silently to the door, lithe as an aged cat. She paused on the threshold, watching lest Meg should stir again. She did not. She was drowsing shallowly, worn out from the nightmare of the last twenty-four hours.

Bethel found Missus Mary in the dining room, standing at a corner of the table. A coarse burlap sack lay before her, its mouth curled back to reveal Meg's worn-out shoes. The shoestrings had been cut and the tongues lolled wide: they had been dragged off forcibly. Bethel was about to protest against leaving footwear on the dining table, when she saw what her young mistress was holding.

Missus Mary had Meg's dress in her hands: the good one that she only wore Sundays and when her other was being washed. The hem was dusty and flaked with dried mud from walking through the damp cotton field, but that was just a common hazard of country life. But Missus Mary had the bodice spread between her hands, each fist gripping tightly to one shoulder, and she was staring at it.

The back panel, broad across the shoulders and narrow at the base, had been cut clear in two, from the collar to the waist. Indeed, Bethel saw, someone had cut into it twice: between the two halves hung a thin strip of fabric a little less than an inch in width. It was joined to its lining only at the top and where the bordering slices ended, and the calico and the plain white cotton formed a limp noose against the pleats of the skirt. The collar was split, the bottoms of the cuts frayed where they had torn wider when someone – two someones – had laid hold of each arm and yanked the garment off of its wearer. The basque was gaping, too: half the buttons were gone and two of the buttonholes torn right through the strong folded edge of the front. Instead of taking the trouble to unfasten the garment properly, two strong men had merely slit it with a knife and ripped it from Meg's body.

"I don't know how to mend it," Missus Mary said. Her voice was hollow, shocked, and Bethel knew that the dress was not the lone cause of her distress. "I could stitch the two halves together again, but it would never fit her properly."

"It a shame," Bethel said, the words heartfelt. It was easier to think about the dress than about its owner, but only just. Meg only had the two dresses now, and this had been her best. The other was limp and tired and old, patched skillfully but obviously at the elbows, with a hem fraying thin. It was streaked with tobacco stains and faded across the back where the sun beat down while she stooped at her work. A woman, even a slave woman, ought to have one decent dress to wear on the Lord's Day, and Meg's was now ruined.

"There isn't enough cloth in the skirt to cut a new piece," Missus Mary went on. She seemed to be talking more to herself than to Bethel. "I could use a different cloth, but it would look so dreadful. I can't make up one of my dresses to fit her: her arms and shoulders are so much stronger, and she doesn't wear a corset." She closed her eyes. "There's the polished cotton from New York, but it just isn't practical."

"No," said Bethel. "No, it ain't pract'cal in the leas'. Don' you think 'bout usin' that cloth for Meg: your own mama chose it jus' for you. Dress made from that be too fine anyhow: Meg, she'd be scared to wear it. Know I would."

"She can't make do with only one dress," Mary protested. "What will she wear on washday?"

Bethel had no answer for this. Her own dresses were equally useless: Meg was a strong girl, and her shoulders and upper arms were firm with muscle from working the fields. They might let out a waist or tuck up a hem, but there was nothing that could be done to broaden the shoulders of a gown.

"How can such things happen?" Missus Mary asked miserably. "How can people be so cruel? How can a man who professes to be a Christian be capable of such hatefulness?"

She was not talking about the dress at all now. Bethel shook her head helplessly. "I don' know," she whispered.

Missus Mary crumpled the destroyed bodice between her hands and bent to bury her face in the fabric. Her shoulders shook with a silent sob. Before she could consider the properness of such an action, Bethel stepped forward and curled her arm around Missus Mary's shoulders as she had longed to do for Meg, bracing her and bearing her up. The slender body turned in towards her and the auburn head drooped against Bethel's neck.

"It's rotten, it's all rotten," Missus Mary choked out. "Everything…"

From the entryway came the rapping of knuckles on wood, and a mild voice called; "Miss Mary?"

She straightened hastily, dropping the rumpled rags upon the table and smoothing her hair. Bethel withdrew her arm and adjusted her apron, noticing only now the bloodstains upon it. There was no time to change. Missus Mary was already stepping around the door.

"Doctor Whitehead, thank you for coming!" she cried, hurrying towards him.

Bethel rounded the door more circumspectly, folding her hands as she had been taught as a girl and lowering her eyes. There was a trick to watching all that went on around a body without appearing to notice anything at all. In her first home it had been essential to a slave's prosperity and survival, and Bethel had excelled. Here, she only ever employed it in the presence of visitors.

The kindly-eyed doctor was standing with one foot on the threshold and the other on the veranda. He had his bag tucked under his arm, and Meg's torn petticoat in his hand. In the other he held a coiled bluejay, its twin knotted lashes dark with blood. Meg's blood, Bethel thought, and her anger rekindled.

"What's this?" he asked, looking distastefully at the instrument of cruelty. "Your man said one of your slaves has been whipped for a runaway and Cullen's in trouble? Miss Mary, what's happened?"

"I won't have that in my house!" Missus Mary said hoarsely, flicking her hand in loathing at the whip. She was very white, and Bethel could see the lace edging of her collar fluttering as she trembled. "Nate!" The broad-shouldered darkie was holding the reins: Bonnie's in his right hand and those of the doctor's horse in his left. "Nate, take it away. I want it burned."

Nate looped the lines loosely over the gatepost and came as far as the top step of the porch. He held out his hand and Doctor Whitehead handed him the lash. "Thank you, son," he said, brushing flakes of dried blood from his fingers. He came further into the house and reached to grip Missus Mary's elbow. "What's happened?" he asked again, far more gently.

"I'll explain as best I can," said Mary. "But Doctor, you must see to Meg first. She's been whipped, twice I think, and it's very bad. I don't… I don't know what to do for her. Please. I know you don't customarily take Negro patients, but if there's any way that I can persuade you…"

"That's only because folks don't customarily call me to see to their slaves," he reassured her, and Bethel felt the same gratitude towards him now as she had when she had stood in the corner of the bedroom and listened to him easing Miss Caroline from life. He was a good man, Doctor Whitehead. "I'll gladly tend to her; of course I will. Where is she?"

"Here," Mary said. "Through here. We thought it best not to try to get her down to the cabin. Doctor, she can scarcely stand…"

She led him through the parlor into the little room beyond, and Bethel followed, silent but watchful.

_*discidium*_

After a while, Cullen's nostrils grew accustomed to the stink. The pong of the honey-bucket, the reek of his cellmates' unwashed bodies, and the sour stench of cheap liquor from the man leaning against the bars all faded into a single low, unpleasant aroma that only just tickled at his nose and hung like a vile taste in the back of his throat. The squalor of the overcrowded cell was far less distressing than his enforced inaction. He could not fetch Doc Whitehead to see to Meg. He could not console his wife. He realized miserably that Mary would have to be the one to tell Bethel he had been arrested. He didn't envy her that conversation. And Nate. Nate would be livid with rage, as soon as Meg was out of danger. Cullen couldn't talk to him, couldn't tell him not to do anything foolish. If his son was frightened, he could not comfort him. If Lottie was distressed he could not calm her. If the tobacco barn was on fire, as it might well be right this minute, there was not a thing he could do about it. The helplessness made so complete by these bars and bare stone walls filled him with awful and impotent anger that turned quickly inward, from Abel Sutcliffe to himself.

Wrathfully he strode back down the length of the cell to the bars that made up the inner wall. Six swift steps, and six steps back. The third was the longest, because he had to stretch over the legs of the boy on the floor. How he could lie down there in the filth and the thin sprinkling of foul straw Cullen did not know, but he seemed oddly content: acclimatized already to his environment. He was a skinny thing, hipbones showing through ragged too-short pants. A Cracker, from the look of it: sallow and pale-eyed, anemic and no doubt undernourished. Cullen wondered what he had done to be locked up in here. Stolen, most likely. Cullen guessed food. Jail was a welcome change, then: board wasn't payable until release, and a man without a care for his word could eat on a lie and worry about the consequences later.

He turned and paced back to the bars. They were rough and rusted: his palms were smeared ruddy brown where he had seized them. He stared at his hands now, at the dark stains under the fresh grime, and he balled them into fists. Discolored nails dug deep in his flesh in a futile gesture that did nothing to ease his frustration. How the hell were two people supposed to bring in the tobacco that four had been struggling to keep pace with? Damn it, they weren't even finished bringing in the best leaves yet. If there was any delay now the quality of the remaining crop would suffer, and he could not afford that. Again he wondered whether the barn full of drying leaves was burning. Mary had said she would get word to him. She had promised.

But it was too soon to expect anything, of course. Too soon. Wasn't it? He had lost track of the time already, but no one had been by to feed Edwards and the others. It couldn't be one o'clock yet, then. He had been put in here before eleven. Yes, it was too soon.

"Will you stop that?" the man in the back corner demanded. "Ain't nowhere to go: why hurry to get there?"

Cullen stopped in mid-stride, a habitual polite apology on his lips. Then he stiffened. Why should he apologize? He had as much right to pace as the boy had to sprawl over the floor, or the man by the bars had to languish reeking next to the communal drinking water. He scowled at his challenger. "My hurrying's my own business. Best tend to yours," he said.

"First-timer," Edwards sang out from under the crude bunk. The man on top of it snorted and rolled onto his other side so that he was facing the wall.

"Not quite," said Cullen through his teeth, resuming his fruitless circuit of the room. He had been in one of these cells once before: the one on the very end of the opposite row. He had been nineteen, he remembered, calling to mind an incident he had not thought of in years. He and a few friends – Boyd Ainsley among them – had been whooping it up at the local watering-hole, and things had got a bit out of hand. Chairs had been thrown, blows landed, and the sheriff had arrived to round up the troublemakers. Cullen had owned up to being the one to throw the first punch, gallantly failing to add that he had been sorely provoked. He had spent the remainder of that night in a cell, and had been almost sober when his father had come to collect him the following morning.

Then, he had been the grandson of a pillar of the community with a bastion of wealth and influence behind him. No charges had been laid, of course, and he had been treated with all courtesy: a clean cell devoid of unsavory companionship, a hot mug of coffee, water in which to bathe his bloodied knuckles. The sheriff at the time had been eager to curry favor with Mr. Bohannon, who had considerable influence with the electorate. Now, the situation was entirely different. Cullen's pride might not regret that he was no longer tied to his pappy's watch-chain, but the practical side of him had to admit that a little influence would have been helpful in keeping him at home where he was needed.

"Mist' Cullen?" a deep voice hissed. "Mist' Cullen, you there?"

The sharp retort that he was damned well going to pace all he wanted died on his tongue as Cullen realized the voice was not coming from within the cell, but from outside the barred window. It had no glass and no shutters: only the iron grating with its narrow gaps that admitted air and light but little else. Hurriedly Cullen bolted back across the room to the window. He could just, by rising on his toes, rest his chin on the sill, but he could not see out. Hurriedly he leapt onto the corner of the board shelf. The man lying on it tried to shove him off but Cullen kicked at him and he desisted. Gripping the bars and pressing his face against them, Cullen looked down.

Nate was standing under the window, looking around in puzzlement. Cullen hissed and he peered up, his dark features melting into relief.

"What are you doing here?" Cullen demanded. The cell window looked out over the jailhouse yard: woodshed, privy, and chicken coop, but also pillory, stocks and whipping-post. There was old blood around the base of this last, and in the center of the yard was the bare space where the old gallows had been. The new ones had been erected on the other end of town where two abutting lots left plenty of room for the spectators that always flocked to a hanging.

"Came to bring you word," Nate said.

Cullen shook his head. "You ain't allowed back here. If the deputy catches you…"

"It were him tol' me which winder," said Nate. "Said you can' have no vis'tors 'til noon, an' I tol' him I cain't wait. So he said he couldn' stop me if I wandered 'round back an' stood under this-here winder."

"That ain't true," said Cullen. "You can't just wander 'round outside a jailhouse talking to the prisoners."

Nate shrugged. "Guess mebbe he meant 'wouldn'' instead of 'couldn'', then. Missus Mary send me. She didn' know how I was to get word to you; said the doctor might know, but I thought, he come down here he goin' have questions for you, goin' wan' see you his own self, an' it goin' slow things down. Meg hurtin' bad, Mist' Cullen. She need him quick."

"Yes," Cullen agreed. "Quick as you can get him there. How bad is it, Nate? Is she going to be…"

He couldn't quite bring himself to say it.

Nate shook his head. "It bad, but Bethel say it ain' the wors' she's see'd. Won' know more 'til the doctor have his say, I reckon, but she strong, Mist' Cullen. Our Meg strong an' she brave. It the shame of it hurtin' her worstest. That an' knowin' she brung this here trouble on you."

"I brung this here trouble on all of us," Cullen said sourly; "and you can tell her that. What about the tobacco barn? Did you check the fires?"

"Yassir," Nate nodded. "They all burned down to ashes, but there weren't no sparks. Elijah set the fires fresh, an' he were sittin' with 'em when I left."

Cullen felt almost sick with relief. The man on the bunk hammered on his ankle again, but he was too overcome with gratitude to take much notice. "Thank God," he breathed. "Way things have gone this year I about figured we had a conflagration coming."

"A wha'?" asked Nate, frowning.

"Never mind," said Cullen. "You go and fetch the doctor. Tell Mary to try and pay him with notes if she can, not gold. Doc Whitehead's usually amenable. And Nate? I don't want Meg out in the fields 'til she's well. I'm relying on you and Elijah to keep pace until I'm free."

"Yassir," Nate agreed, nodding somberly. "When that be, then? When you goin' be free?"

"It sounds like they've got me up in front of a Justice of the Peace next Tuesday," Cullen said. "Meg will have to appear, too. Tell Mary. You'll have to drive her, but see you get written permission. Mary can do that: tell her."

"She know that, Massa," Nate said. From his trouser pocket he produced a creased piece of paper. "Gave me this here so I'd be all right to come to town."

"Good." Cullen nodded, but he was burning with self-loathing. Mary had better sense than he. If he'd only given Meg a slip of paper like that, this whole ugly mess could never have brewed up as it had. "It ain't going to be easy, keeping up with the tobacco with two hands short," he said. "You've got to manage somehow."

"We'll manage," Nate promised.

"Now get on out of here. Find Doc Whitehead and you tell him I need him to look at Meg. Tell him."

"He don' wan' come, I's goin' drag him," declared Nate fiercely. "She tore up bad, Mist' Cullen. Ain't nothin' she ever done deserved a whuppin' like that!"

"I know," Cullen breathed, closing his eyes.

Nate's voice was hard now, and his glowering gaze bored into Cullen's skull. "I warned you," he said. "Months 'n months ago I warned you: ain't no good ever come from whackin' a hornets' nest."

Cullen's lips grew thin, pressed tightly together, but he was in no position to chastise his slave now. Nate had work to do: work that would not wait. "Go and fetch the doctor," he said. "I want you and Elijah back in them fields this afternoon. The tobacco won't wait, and we got to get those leaves out of the bottom field before they're overripe. Top field don't matter so much: let it go if you have to. But bring in the stuff worth selling."

Nate's eyes, unyielding as anthracite, never wavered from Cullen's face as he nodded. "Yassir, Massa," he said. "Yassir."

Then he was gone, trotting along the wall and swiftly out of Cullen's narrow field of vision. He sighed and released the bars, falling back on his heel with his left foot still dangling in open air.

A blow to the back of his right knee made his leg buckle and he came crashing down in an undignified heap on hands and knees. The grit of the floor ground through his trousers and into his palm. His kneecaps burned. "Stay off my damned bed!" the man on the rough cot bellowed.

_*discidium*_

It was like waiting outside the sickroom of a dying loved one, Mary thought. She sat on the récamier with her hands in her lap, fingers gripping one another and twisting, ankles crossed primly beneath the broadly spread skirts of her work dress. How had the day gone so horribly amiss? She had awakened so cheerful, so filled with joy at the sunrise and happiness over Cullen's restful Sunday. She had been so ready, almost eager, to face the week's work. Now her husband was in prison and the house was in an uproar, and one of her people – no, one of her_ slaves_, for that was what they were however she wished to forget it – was lying stripped and bloody on Bethel's bed while Doctor Whitehead looked to see whether she had been permanently crippled, or merely disfigured. It seemed like a terrible dream, but Mary knew it was not.

Bethel was standing in the doorway of her little room, her unreadable back to Mary. Not a sound had been heard from upstairs, but Mary suspected that Gabe and Lottie were crouched at the top of the steps together, ears perked to hear what was going on below. Nate had related to her what he had learned from Cullen before heading off to the tobacco barn to consult with Elijah. Someone had to watch the fires while they were in the fields, but neither Mary nor Bethel could leave the house while the doctor was present, and Mary refused to force Lottie any farther from her mother than was absolutely necessary. The tobacco would just have to wait another hour or two: that was all there was to it.

Cullen was to go up before a Justice of the Peace in eight days' time. Eight days. Mary felt cold nausea rising at that thought. They could not spare him for two days, much less a whole week. And eight days in prison, with nothing to do but sit and worry, would be a torment for him. He fretted over a lost morning spent in buying stores and collecting the mail. He would chafe against captivity. The thought of her fiercely energetic husband confined in a cell made Mary shiver. He would be so wretchedly angry and lost in his helplessness. She knew he wanted to be here, overseeing the efforts to put right what had somehow gone so dreadfully wrong: she knew it because it was where she wanted to be herself. That he wouldn't be able to do anything more than she was doing already meant nothing: he would still want to be here. It would drive him to distraction that he could not be. Eight days! It was unimaginable.

Bethel stepped back, swiftly but smoothly as only a practiced house-servant can. Sometimes, when Bethel did such things, Mary thought she had a grace that the finest London-trained ladies' maids could not equal. It said more about her early life in South Carolina than Bethel's straightforward account of her tale ever had.

Doctor Whitehead came out of the room, wiping his bloody hands on a rag. He had removed his coat, and his shirtsleeves were rolled high above his elbows. He looked careworn and tired, and he approached Mary with a diffidence that terrified her.

"Doctor?" she breathed, dreading what he would say.

He drew up the chair from the secretary and sat near her. His soft eyes drew hers away from his hands towards his face. "She'll be all right," he said. "It's going to take time and gentle care. I've applied a liniment to help prevent infection, and I've dressed her back. I had to pack some of the deeper lacerations with lint. Those will be from the knots." He shook his head. "Damn the man who invented the bluejay."

"Bluejay?" echoed Mary.

"That whip," said the doctor. "It's just about the cruellest tool he could have chosen. Even with the very best of care she's going to have scars that she'll carry all her life. I can't do anything about that, Miss Mary. I'm sorry."

Mary managed not to cry out, but only just. She hung her head and nodded. "Thank you, Doctor," she said. "I'm sure you've done your best for her."

"Go ahead and give her more anodyne if she's in pain," he went on. "The dressings should be changed twice a day: Bethel watched me and she'll know what to do. If she takes a fever or isn't able to walk around by tomorrow evening you send for me again, you hear? She should be fit for light work in two or three days' time, but no lifting of heavy objects and absolutely _no _carrying of anything across the back or shoulders until the wounds have healed completely. She needs a plentiful diet of good, wholesome foods as soon as she's well enough to eat them. Red meat to restore the vigor of the blood: beef would be best, but anything will do. Have you wine?"

Mary nearly shook her head, and then remembered the half-dozen bottles her father had sent. "Yes!" she exclaimed, almost delighted.

"A drink of red wine each night before bed," the doctor said. "That's what I'd advise, anyhow. I know plenty of folks don't approve of such remedies for Negroes, but if you want to build up her strength—"

"We'll give her wine," Mary pledged. "Is there anything else?"

Doctor Whitehead's expression was very sad. "Be gentle with her," he said softly. "She's been through a terrible ordeal. I've never seen a slave so upset by a beating, but then she ain't used to such things, living here. Like a pony who ain't been broke to the bit, poor child. She needs your kindness as her mistress: that's the best thing you can give her now."

Mary was about to protest that of course Meg had her kindness, but she held her tongue. He was giving her advice, she realized, as if she had never dealt with darkies before. As if she were newly come to the county, or young and inexperienced like little Sarah White. He was earnestly trying to be helpful. She inclined her head.

"And the blotch in her left eye: she's just broken one of the small vessels, and it looks much more frightening than it is. Her vision seems to be intact, and the mark will fade on its own. Now," said the doctor, voice growing very grave; "what's this about Cullen being taken away to jail?"

Mary explained as best she could, but she could tell she was not relaying the story properly. As she spoke Doctor Whitehead's brow furrowed more and more deeply with bewilderment, and his kind eyes grew clouded with puzzlement. When she had finished he shook his head.

"That don't make no sense at all, Miss Mary," he said. "The way you tell it, it sounds like Mr. Sutcliffe and Mr. Brannan plotted together just to get Cullen arrested."

"I believe they did!" Mary exclaimed. "Don't you see? Meg has been going over to Hartwood for over a decade, and there's never been any trouble over it until now. Certainly Mr. Sutcliffe could not possibly have thought her a runaway: it's absurd! And the way the sheriff goaded Cullen into saying just those words… they were trapping him into a clear admission of guilt under the law. Then to threaten to take Meg to prison, the state she's in – it was ghastly."

The doctor shook his head. "I don't know, ma'am. That seems mighty spiteful, even for Abel Sutcliffe. I know he ain't fond of your husband, and I know there's been trouble between them. That business with the tradesmen was downright mean-spirited, but—"

"What business with the tradesmen?" Mary said sharply. It was the first that she had heard of this.

Doctor Whitehead sighed. "Mr. Sutcliffe went around Meridian putting a word in the ear of just about every merchant Cullen might need credit from between now and the end of November, talking about how the hailstorm wiped out your crop and you've got nothing worth selling."

"But that isn't true!" protested Mary. "We did lose some tobacco, but what we have left certainly _is_ worth selling. Cullen's been working himself ragged trying to bring it in: he wouldn't do that if it were worthless."

One gray eyebrow arched ever so briefly, but Doctor Whitehead only sighed. "Be that as it may, Miss Mary, I can't imagine even Abel Sutcliffe would do something this cruel. You can't be without Cullen for a week; there's no doubt about that. And he won't stand a week in jail, fretting about everything back home."

"I know," Mary said fervently. "But what can I do? I offered what money we have as surety, and the sheriff refused."

He shook his head helplessly. "I don't know, ma'am," he said. "Ordinarily I'd suggest having a quiet word with his accuser, trying to persuade him to change his mind about pressing the matter, but in this case I know Cullen wouldn't want you to do it. You can't go over to Hartwood, and you shouldn't have anything to do with Mr. Sutcliffe, especially not with your husband from home. You might petition the court to move up his date of appearance, but there's only tomorrow's session and Friday to do it in and it might be dismissed anyway. Eight days' wait ain't so unreasonable, however much it's going to hurt you all. Miss Mary, I'm afraid I don't know what to do."

The tiny hope that Mary had nourished of finding succor from the dear old man who had brought her boy so ably into the world was snuffed out. Doctor Whitehead was just as helpless as she; just as stunned and saddened and bewildered by this spiteful blow dealt in the name of justice. She could see from the stoop of his shoulders how out of his depth he was, and how much it pained him to admit he could not aid her. She thought briefly of the Ainsleys, and wondered whether Boyd might help, but laid by that notion. Boyd simply was not worldly; he would be lost in this perfect snare that Mr. Sutcliffe had made, more helpless even than she and Cullen had proved. There was no one to aid her. If she was to do anything at all, she would have to work out a strategy for herself.

She smoothed her skirts serenely and smiled gently at the man before her. "Thank you anyhow, Doctor Whitehead. And thank you for tending to Meg. Would you take a cup of coffee before you depart? Or we have tea; my brother brought it from New York."

The corners of his eyes crinkled into a tired smile. "I'd admire that, Miss Mary. Thank you," he said.


	41. Meg's Peter

**Chapter Forty-One: Meg's Peter**

The weight of burning rage crushed Nate's ribs and made breathing a labor. He had neither words nor emotions enough to contain it. It festered on his tongue and oozed out of his eyes and filled every muscle in his body with quivering hate. He was filled with wrath and hot, killing spite. And his utter impotence made it all so much worse.

He slipped quietly through the parlor, where Lottie was lying under a brightly-colored quilt on the récamier. The child was asleep at last, her face smoothed out of its lines of distress. Missus Mary had been good enough to give her leave to stay up at the house tonight, and if Nate hadn't been so full-up with wrath he would have been grateful to her. Meg was in Bethel's bed, and where Bethel was going to sleep was anyone's guess and no one's business. Nate certainly wasn't about to ask her. He cast one last look at Lottie, taking some comfort from the child's peaceful countenance, and hurried out of the room. He hardly ever had cause to be in the parlor, and it made him uncomfortable, but he had wanted – had needed – to see Meg once more before he went to his bed, and to do that he had to pass through this place that had always represented the indolence and ease of the white man. Tonight, although it was ridiculous, the room reminded him not of Mister Cullen, who was sitting tonight in a stinking cell in the jail in Meridian, but of the other man; the man in the pale suit on his big, strong horse. The sneering man who had taken a whip to Meg, sweet, kind, beautiful Meg who had never done a wicked thing in her life.

Nate wanted to kill him. He had never wanted anything so much in all his life. He wanted to strangle him, to bash his skull in with a stone, to cut him open like a pig and watch his entrails spill out. He understood now the loathing and the righteous fury that drove men like Nat Turner and John Brown to do the things they had done. He could have happily gone charging on Hartwood and dragged that bastard Sutcliffe from his feather bed and hacked him to pieces on the pristine front lawn for what he had done to Meg.

The beating was bad enough, but she was broken with the fear and humiliation. In the first panic and chaos of her return he had thought only of her bodily hurts, but seeing her now he knew that long after they were healed something deep inside would remain torn, shattered, forever wounded. Her trust in the order of the world was gone: her firm and charmingly naïve belief that if she lived a good life, if she stayed a good nigger and worked hard and remained loving and loyal she would be protected from suffering. Her master had failed to protect her; had in fact, however unwittingly, put her in harm's way. That loss of faith, that loss of innocence, _that_ was what Abel Sutcliffe had done to her just to land another blow in his pointless fight with Mister Cullen.

Nate was surprised that he did not feel more antipathy towards his own master, whose stubborn refusal to coexist peacefully with a dangerous neighbor had set the stage for this travesty. It shouldn't matter that Mister Cullen had been horrified and sickened and enraged by what had been done to Meg. It shouldn't matter that he had done what was only right and just and human and let himself be taken in her place. It shouldn't matter that his worries for her had overridden all his other concerns when Nate had spoken to him through the bars of the jail. Yet somehow it did. Mister Cullen had never meant for this to happen. He knew his fault and he knew his guilt and he did not hide from either. And somehow, strangely, Nate found that he had to respect that.

All his life, it seemed, he had wasted his spite. He had squandered it resenting a man who, when pushed to the brink of desperation, still did the right and honorable thing. He had brewed up reasons to dislike and distrust Mister Cullen when there were monsters like Abel Sutcliffe abroad in the world. Monsters whose crimes perhaps really did need to be purged away with blood.

The dining room was dark. Missus Mary had probably gone to her bed. It was past time for sleeping, and Nate's exhaustion was thick. After the doctor had left, the mistress herself had come down to the tobacco barn to watch the fires so that Bethel could care for Meg and Lottie could stay near her mother. Elijah had explained what to do, and then the two men had hurried to the tobacco patch where they had worked like demons to try to make up for lost time and absent hands. They had failed, of course, but they had still filled several poles with broad, healthy leaves in the prime of their ripeness. Now Elijah was out in the barn, and Nate would relieve him halfway through the night. The good Lord only knew what they would do tomorrow. With six able adults and determined little Lottie, they had just barely been managing to keep the plantation running. Now that Meg was abed and Mister Cullen in prison, Nate had no idea how they would cope. Maybe Meg would be a little stronger tomorrow: strong enough, at least, that Lottie would feel able to take a turn at tending the kiln. That would be something. There was so much to be done this time of year, and so few folk to do it.

Nate moved through the dining room and into the kitchen, and he stopped short. He had expected to find Bethel cleaning up the last of the supper things. Instead she was stirring a large pot of bubbling brine. The table was covered in crockery, and into each earthenware jar Missus Mary was stuffing trimmed okra. The good lamp from the dining room had been brought in to light the work, and the two women were laboring with the same workaday diligence as if it were the middle of the afternoon.

"Missus!" Nate said, caught unawares.

She looked up at him. There were soft brown circles beneath her eyes. She looked exhausted, but she managed a small smile. "Nate," she said softly. "How is she?"

"Goin' try to sleep, ma'am," Nate said, glancing back over his shoulder and wishing he had just crept out the front door in defiance of a lifetime of training. "Ain' so bad now her back been bandaged. Doctor did a right proper job."

It had indeed been easier to see Meg as she was now, with her wounds hidden and her chest covered by the broad bands of linen. It made Nate sick to think of the many times he had imagined seeing Meg's breasts. He had fantasized about it as a young man, dreamed about it in the deep of the night all the years since. He had wanted to see her body, bare and beautiful… but not like this. Never, ever like this. He prayed to God that this wasn't a punishment on him, for yearning after her all these years and coveting another man's wife. Surely God could not be so cruel as to torment Meg just to pass judgment on him.

Missus Mary nodded quietly. "Thank you for taking care of her today," she said. "For bringing her into the house, for fetching the doctor, for letting Mr. Bohannon know we're looking after her as best we can. I don't know what we would have done without you."

"Jus' doin' what's right, Missus Mary," mumbled Nate. He watched her smooth, rosy hands flying from jar to jar, packing them with the vegetables to be pickled. She wasn't like any white woman he'd ever seen before. She was capable and she was brave. She wasn't afraid of hard work, and she wasn't afraid of that bastard Sutcliffe, and she wasn't afraid to take charge when Mister Cullen was gone. She wasn't even afraid to fetch a white doctor to tend to a slave, or to pay out two dollars for the treatment when there wasn't even money for food. She was a good mistress.

"You et anythin' yet?" Bethel asked. "Seem like this whole fam'ly been starvin' themselves today. There cornbread in the box, an' boilt eggs in the pantry. Got cold hominy too, if you'd rather have that, an' radishes." She shook her head and sighed. "I hope they's feedin' Mist' Cullen right. I never heared no good 'bout jail food."

"Ellie, what keeps house for the doctor, she say Miz Dayton a good cook," Nate offered. He had exchanged only a few words with the middle-aged slave while the physician put on his coat and fetched his bag, but those had been among them.

Bethel harrumphed softly, only somewhat mollified. "How Ellie know that?" she asked. "She ever been locked up in that there jail?"

"Please don't speak about it," Missus Mary breathed. Her face had gone quite white again; almost as white as it had been when she stood on the porch watching the master and the sheriff grappling over the shackles with Meg still in them.

"He all right, Missus," Nate said, suddenly anxious to comfort her. "He say we gots to keep this here place runnin' the bes' we can 'til he come home. I's goin' make sure Elijah all right, then I gots to get a li'l sleep 'fore it my turn to watch."

He skirted around the table, head bowed respectfully towards the mistress, and put his hand on the door.

"You take some of that cornbread!" Bethel barked imperiously. She was shaking another cup of salt into the water, stirring vigorously to force it to dissolve. "Don' you make me leave this here stove to fetch it. Cornbread, eggs, radish. You take some fo' Elijah, too."

Nate obeyed her meekly, going first to the breadbox and then into the pantry. Juggling the foodstuffs he was finally able to escape the kitchen and the disconcerting sight of the mistress now divvying up bulbs of garlic among the pickle-pots. The only unfortunate thing was now he really did have to stop by the tobacco barn. Bethel was too distraught with worry over the master to try to divine his thought, and Missus Mary likely didn't know him well enough, but Elijah was sure to suspect that something was up.

Still, he couldn't deny the old man his food. They were all getting little enough of the really substantive stuff at present, and though satiated at the end of a meal were always ravenous two hours later. Nate relished fresh vegetables, and Bethel had a knack for preparing them in a hundred delicious ways, but they just didn't fill a man. He wanted meat, and he wanted it bad. Now that Mister Cullen was away he could try and do something about that himself, but it would have to wait until tomorrow. He had more important work to do tonight.

The glow of the fires showed around the edges of the door of the kiln, and Nate found his way with ease by the light of the low moon. He nudged the door open and the ringing of the hammer ceased. Elijah looked up from the box he was building.

"How Meg feelin'?" he asked immediately, his grizzled brows knit anxiously.

"Ain't so bad no more," said Nate. "Doctor done right by her. But she pow'ful distressed." He set the bread and eggs on the crate beside the old man's hip. "Bethel sen' these."

Elijah chuckled ruefully. "I s'pose she still upset none of us et any breakfas' this mornin'," he said. "Woman don' understand there times when a man jus' can' eat, however he try." He exhaled heavily and cocked his head, peering carefully at Nate's face. The orange flicker of the fires and the dancing yellow light of the battered tin lantern cast strange shadows in the deep wrinkles of age. "What you goin' do, boy?" he demanded suddenly. "You ain' goin' make trouble."

"Ain't intendin' to," Nate said. "Mebbe trouble goin' find me anyhow."

Elijah threw down the hammer and shot to his feet, remembering just in time to duck so that his head did not collide with the tobacco leaves. He sidestepped to the narrow aisle beneath the anchoring rails. One fist rammed against his hip, and the opposite index finger flew up under Nate's nose. "You ain' goin' over Hartwood way to make trouble for Mist' Cullen!" he declared viciously. "That boy had 'nough trouble this day to las' him through to Christmas, an' if you means to go make more, I'm goin' lay you out right here!"

Nate's jaw clamped like a vise, and his shoulders jerked back indignantly. "You jus' try it, an' see what happens!" he snapped. "You ain't foreman no more, an' I gots forty years on you. Jus' try it."

"You a damn fool!" Elijah cried. "What you think they goin' do if somethin' happen to that man? They goin' come here straight away. An' Mist' Cullen ain' goin' be able to take no fall for you like he done for Meg: he in jail, thank God. You the one goin' hang. Or mebbe they jus' beat you to death right in Bethel's dooryard. How you like that? Meg an' the missus an' them two chillun a-watchin' a posse of crazed white men whup you 'til you got no hide lef'."

"I ain' goin' kill 'im," Nate snarled. "God know he need killin' bad, but I ain't goin' do it. Would have, swear I would if he'd touched her, but Bethel say…" He released a hot, pent-up breath that stirred the leaves over his left shoulder. "Meg tol' Bethel he didn' do nothin' but whup her. That be bad enough, but it ain' worth my hide nor the trouble it'd bring down on the family to kill 'im over."

"You can' lick 'im neither," said Elijah. "Nor burn his hay nor bus' up his winders. Ain' a thing you can do won' get traced back here. You got to take it. We all gots to take it. If'n we didn', Mist' Cullen wouldn' be locked up this very minute. If he got take it, you got take it. Ain' nothin' you can do."

"I can sneak into them quarters an' ask after Peter," said Nate. The fight had gone out of his voice, and he felt very small and useless. That was all he could do: go and fetch news for Meg like some scrawny little pickaninny. He couldn't do the things a man ought to be able to do when the woman he loved was outraged, beaten, abused by a stranger. If Missus Mary had had her clothes torn off and her back whipped raw by Sutcliffe, Mister Cullen would have killed him. Could have killed him, and nobody would question his right. But Nate didn't have that right. Meg wasn't his wife, and she was black, and he was black. He was a slave: he didn't have the right to be a man. "I can fin' out what they done to him, I can tell Meg if he 'live or dead. I can do that, at leas'."

Elijah's hand dropped to his side, and the other slipped from his hip. His shoulders slumped and his grey head bobbed in a weary nod. "Yup," he sighed. "Yup, that you can do, awright. But if they catch you, they's goin' whup you jus' the same as they whupped Meg."

"I been whupped before," Nate said defiantly. He pointed back in the direction of the house. "She lyin' up there frettin' hersel' into a state, thinkin' they done beat her man to death. I kin go fin' out if it so, an' I can tell her, one way or t'other. I's goin' do it, an' no fear of whuppin' goin' stop me. You ain' goin' stop me, neither."

"No, I ain't," said Elijah. "Jus' you be careful. Don' take no weapon: not even a stick. They catch you with a weapon, they goin' kill you an' ask questions later. Don' make no trouble. An' come back safe. You's needed here."

He was needed, all right. With Mister Cullen in prison, Nate was the only able young man on the place. He sighed tightly and nodded. "You see I gots to go, Elijah, don' you?"

"Someone gots to," said Elijah. "Don' suppose you'd let it be me?"

Nate shook his head. The older man sighed, unsurprised. Then before Elijah could say anything more, Nate hurled himself out into the darkness and started at a run for the eastern property line.

_*discidium*_

As it turned out, the bars did not admit light and air alone. The cold came in, too. As the night deepened, the temperature in the cell dropped despite the seven bodies crowded into it. Unable to even consider sleep, Cullen stood canted against the wall, shivering in his shirtsleeves and trying desperately to stop ruminating over things he could not change. There were problems enough in the present and worries aplenty in the future without strangling himself in the tangled web of the mistakes of the past. Still he kept coming back to them time and again until he felt he would go mad.

Someone was groaning far down the corridor, from the direction of the Negro cells. The sound was muffled behind a forearm, but Cullen could hear the wretched despair nonetheless. He wondered who was making the sound; man or woman, whose slave and why. For a moment he felt a breath of peace, knowing that at least it was not his Meg suffering in terror and agony in this fetid place. Those raw wounds across her back would have festered already in this atmosphere. He couldn't smell the stink at all anymore, but he knew it was there. He could still taste it, faintly, whenever his tongue touched his lips.

In his anxiety over Meg and his fears about the untended fires, he had forgotten to send Nate with words of comfort for Mary. He wondered how she was coping. He knew she could manage routine plantation business without him: she did it for a fortnight every year when he was in New Orleans. He trusted her judgment and her intelligence and her capacity for creative problem-solving. But he had not left her with routine plantation business. He had left her with two crises: Meg, and the tobacco that had to be brought in steadily without interruption before the top-quality leaves grew too ripe and lost their value. She had known to fetch the doctor for Meg; that was just about all that could be done. But even Cullen did not know what to do about the tobacco. How would she manage? He hoped, he prayed that she would not consider working it herself. Anything but that. He closed his mind against the fearful image of his wife stooping in the mud, soaking her skirts with the noxious dew and soiling her hands with tobacco tar. Anything, anything, anything but that.

Another tremor took him. It was the deep of the night: second-shift time in the kiln. At this time of night his body almost always seemed taken with chills, even in the heat of the three smoldering fires. He knew he should try to sleep. It had been a long day, exhausting despite the fact that he had not really labored at all. He would be irritable and irrational without sleep, and a jail was not a place where a man wanted to be irritable and irrational. He had a knack for getting himself into trouble when he wasn't thinking straight. The present predicament was proof enough of that.

Still he couldn't bring himself to sit, much less find a few square feet in which to lie down. His hips ached and his heels were burning, inadequately supported on the stone floor by his worn-out work-boots. But the ground was filthy and the air thick with foul vapors down there. The man on the cot had not bestirred himself once all day, not even to take his bowl at dinner and suppertime. He had bullied the boy into fetching it for him. At dinner Cullen had not even been able to think about food, but when the others were given their evening meal his stomach had churned unpleasantly. Joe's wife and widowed sister-in-law kept the jail and fed the prisoners, and although the former was a pointless exercise they seemed to do the latter quite well. They had served up a supper of beef stew and cornbread, with tin cups of buttermilk. Cullen's cellmates had all eaten with relish, and only watching the skinny youth at his meal had kept him from dwelling overmuch on his own hunger. That boy was starving, and no mistake. Cullen was curious to know his story, but he knew better than to ask.

He tried again to focus on working out some means of putting right his situation. His slave had been unjustly beaten, and he had been unjustly charged. Well, the charge itself was true, but it had been laid in such a way that it surely had to represent entrapment. There had to be some way for him to salvage justice out of this mess, but Cullen couldn't fathom it. He didn't have patience for learning legislation and legal rigmarole: that was what had put him in this situation in the first place. Sheriff Brannan had made a joke of him requesting counsel when charged with a misdemeanor, but it was starting to seem more and more like a solid idea to Cullen.

There were two problems, of course. He had no means to pay a lawyer, and every attorney in the county had close ties to Abel Sutcliffe. He had read law at university, and although he did not practice – men worth fifty thousand a year in cotton alone did not need to practice anything at all – he was still active and well-respected in the legal community. Cullen supposed he was fortunate the man had ambitions to higher office as soon as his wife's health might allow, and had therefore eschewed to serve as Justice of the Peace himself. Still, he would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Lauderdale County willing to take his case at all, much less to defer the fee until his crop was sold.

For the first time in his life, Cullen regretted that his father had not sent him to the College in Clinton. Every law student he had known at school was now practicing in Alabama. He could try to get ahold of one of them, all right, but the delays in getting approval for an Alabama attorney to practice in a Mississippi court would be worse than simply waiting to see what Mr. Graham might mete out next Tuesday. Jesse Whitehead was reading law, but he had a ways to go before he was admitted to the bar. Another year and a half, Cullen thought. Still, even if he couldn't appear on his behalf he might have some advice as to how to get out of this mess. Maybe in the morning he could get word to Doc and…

"Shit!" he exclaimed, startled by a sudden epiphany.

The man lying nearest his feet stirred and snorted, and the one lying propped in the back corner of the cell mumbled a drowsy; "Shaddup!" Cullen ignored both of them. His mind was whirring with the speed of a millwheel in a flood-bloated creek.

He knew another lawyer, a Mississippi lawyer. He had met him at the Ainsley party. A friend of one of the Ives boys, visiting from Kemper County. He had a small practice in Scooba, and he sometimes took defense work when there was any about. They had got on well, he and Cullen, and at some point in the evening he had said, in the affably offhand and yet deadly earnest manner of young professionals, that if Cullen ever had a bit of legal work to be sure and send it his way. Of course he had likely been thinking about land deals or probate or business contracts, but this here was legal work all right, if he'd consent to wait a while for payment. And a young lawyer with a quiet country practice might: a promissory fee was better than no fee at all.

But what was his name?

Cullen wracked his brain. He could remember every detail of the man's appearance, but his name eluded him. He had been a bit above average height, which was to say a little taller than Cullen himself. Dark hair and a thin, thoughtful face. Slender shoulders and soft, bookish hands. A well-made suit of somewhat inferior cloth; grey kid gloves. Clean-shaven with a pleasant smile and a wry way of lilting his head when someone said something irritating. They had talked about the law, and Ives had given him a hard time about some case involving a trapper and a runaway. Then the other two had gone off in search of liquor, and Cullen and the lawyer had fallen to discussing first legal ethics, and then horses. The man had an eye for good horseflesh, and had admired Pike and Bonnie from afar. He had said Cullen must come north and do a little hunting with him when the season came… but what was the man's name?

The Ives boys would know, of course, but that was useless. Cullen could hardly summon them up to the jail to be interrogated about an out-of-county friend. Mary! The man had danced with Mary, and he had been seated next to her at supper. She would remember his name: she had a knack for names that came from being raised in a city with over a half a million residents. But Mary was six miles away, hopefully fast asleep, and Cullen had given instructions to Nate that the plantation had to keep running at all costs. That meant there was no hope of Mary coming to town, and he had no money on him to pay a boy to run a message out to the plantation. He might send word by Doc Whitehead, but he was reluctant to ask such a favor. Glad though the physician undoubtedly would be to oblige him, Cullen did not want to be beholden for this when there was every chance that he would have to ask an even greater consideration in the very near future.

He could always just have Joe send a telegram addressed to the lawyer in Scooba, but there might be more than one. In any case it was not an auspicious start to a business relationship that had to be built on credit to call upon a friendly acquaintanceship without being able to recall the man's name. He had to remember it, that was all there was to it. John, Jack, James, something…

But the harder he thought, the more deftly it eluded him, as the hours crawled chillingly on towards dawn and his cellmates slept.

_*discidium*_

Nate had given up visiting old friends at Hartwood years ago, when it became simply too miserable to do so. The quarters of the neighboring plantation were a pit of squalor and desolation where miserable people tried as hard as they could to find a little pleasure or happiness in a bitter life. In the past, whenever Nate had felt inclined to think more favorably of his own master and to lay by his old resentments he had thought of this place, and of the miserable downtrodden haunts that inhabited it. This was slavery: this was what the complicity of men like Mister Cullen allowed. And even though the Bohannon slaves were well treated, propping up men like Sutcliffe to work his people to the bone for profit and beat them and starve them and rape them was a sin. That was what Nate believed, and he still believed it even if he could not bring himself to hate his old friend now when he was brought so low by misfortune and still found the strength to do whatever he could to protect his people. Slavery was the sin, and Hartwood was the blight it brought upon the world.

He crept carefully to the edge of the field of yams, restraining the urge to uproot the nearest hill and fill his shirt with stolen bounty. Sutcliffe wouldn't miss them: had no earthly use for them. And there hadn't been yams at home for months now. But that was just envy and foolishness talking. Pilfered yams wouldn't bring the sheriff to Missus Mary's door, but they would bring trouble on the heads of innocent slaves at Hartwood, who would be the natural suspects if the broken hill was noticed.

Silent as a shadow Nate slipped between two cabins, going carefully so as not to trip on a crate or a sawn-down barrel or any of the other trappings of a community that lurked between buildings. He had left his shoes outside the tobacco barn, and his bare feet made no sound. He stepped in something wet and slippery, and grimaced in disgust, wiping his foot on the packed earth. He'd forgotten how it was to have little children running around. Even on happier plantations there was only so much that busy parents and aged caregivers could do to keep them diapered.

Finding the foreman's cabin was simple enough. It was small, but it was soundly built and the windows actually had shutters – a rarity at Hartwood. There was still a little moonlight to steer by, and Nate came up beside the door. He did not climb up onto the half-log that served as a stoop, but reached across the doorway to rap lightly on the wood.

There was a snort and some unintelligible mumbling from within. Nate knocked again, faintly but unmistakably. The puncheon floor, another luxury, creaked as someone stumped across, and the door swung inward on sagging leather hinges. Only just discernable against the faint embers of a tiny cooking-fire was a large, broad-shouldered man with a shaved head. He was tall, but not as tall as Meg's Peter. A friend, no doubt, come to help in a time of need. Nate had not had much hope for the man's welfare, but what little he'd harbored died now.

"Who you?" the man grunted. He sounded groggy and still half-asleep. "What you want?"

"I've come from Meg," Nate whispered. "The foreman's woman. She wants news of him."

"Ain't got no woman," growled the strange Negro. "Man lasts longer 'round here if he keep his hands to hisself, an' to _hisself_, you take my meanin'." He made a crude but very eloquent gesture with one hand.

Nate, who had never known any other kind of pleasure with his heart so perfectly lost, nodded. "No cause to fight with anyone," he agreed. "Peter in there?"

"Peter?" The man snorted and spat into the dust, narrowly missing Nate's bare toes. "Peter don' live here no more. Ain't foreman no more, neither. Massa don' take kin'ly to foreman as cain't ten' they own business."

Nate's throat went dry. He had always been envious of Peter, it was true, but he had never wished him harm. He had never imagined, either, that he might have to be the one to bring Meg news of her husband's death. Was God punishing him for all his sins in one awful day of universal suffering?

"Then he… he dead?" he croaked.

"No." The new foreman's tone lost some of its combative edge. "No, but I 'spects he wish he was. He down in the bunkhouse with the other fiel' hands as ain' got families." He pointed towards the longest of the crude log buildings. "Goin' lay his head there from now on, an' he goin' work like the nigger he be: no more givin' orders an' puttin' on airs fo' him!"

"No," Nate said coldly. "No, that your job now, ain't it?"

"You watch youself, nigger," the foreman warned. "You's trespassin', aft' all. I gots to keep me in good with them overseers."

"No, you goin' let me be," said Nate matter-of-factly. "'Cause them folk you goin' be bossin' tomorrow? They all like Peter, an' they ain' goin' take kindly to no up-'n-comer denyin' his wife word of him. Bes' get back to bed now. Got a new job to git to come morning."

The man bristled, but he knew the truth of what Nate was saying. A discontented workforce could make a lot of trouble for a foreman, and his position gave him no immunity from the wrath of the overseers or the vindictive whims of the master. "Go quiet," he said. "They's dogs about."

"Thanks," Nate said grudgingly. The big man disappeared inside, and Nate set his eyes on the field hands' bunkhouse. He skittered from cabin to cabin instead of cutting across the broad square in the midst of the huts. When he came to the one he sought he groped until he found the door. Instead of solid wood his hand met coarse wool: a blanket was pegged up over an empty hole in the wall. He drew it aside and slipped through even before he realized that his actions had bared a light within.

The long, narrow room was thick with smoke and the stench of sour sweat. Men were lying on the dirt floor, some pillowed on dirty straw and others with moldering blankets. Only one or two had thin sheets over their bodies. Most were in some state of undress. Ragged shirts and threadbare trousers hung on crudely-whittled pegs. The heat of the closed space was awful despite the cold night.

In the corner farthest from the door a feeble light flickered. It was a goose-grease lamp with a twist of linen threaded through a wooden button to serve as a wick. By its light Nate could see the figure lying prostrate upon what appeared to be the only straw-tick in the building. His long legs protruded far off the battered, inadequate mattress, and his arms were curled above his head. His back was a pulpy mass of torn tissue and blood, and his buttocks and thighs were scored as well. His upper arms appeared to have escaped the worst of it: he had been strung up by his wrists, just the same as Meg.

Unlike her, he had not received a doctor's care. Picking his way through the crowded bodies, Nate drew near enough to see the white crust over and around the wounds where someone had been forced to pack them with salt. He cringed, thinking of the terrible pain, and at the same time was grateful that Meg had been spared such cruel ministrations. It was Peter, all right, and sitting next to him with the lamp between two unshod feet was a bare-chested boy. His own back showed the signs of a recent beating, but the wheals were scabbed over and his face no longer tight with fresh torment. As Nate approached he stiffened, hoisting up a crude bone knife.

"Who you? What you want?" he gasped. They were the same words the new foreman had spoken, but the tone was very different. Instead of irritation there was fear and a fierce protective note.

"I's Nate," he whispered, holding out his hands in a gesture of truce. He drew as near as he dared, right up to Peter's limp feet, and crouched slowly. "I's Mist' Bohannon's man. I come to see how Peter be. His woman worried sick."

"You come from Meg?" the boy asked. Nate nodded and the knife dropped four inches. "She awright? They whup her somethin' awful."

"She awright," Nate confirmed. "In a worl' of hurt, but she goin' heal. She concerned for her man, though. Look like he get the worst of it."

The boy nodded. "Massa say he got no right bringin' his whore over here," he said.

Nate stiffened. "You hush that mouth!" he snapped. "Meg ain't no whore: she his wife. They's married by a preacher 'n ev'ythin'! Don' you never say she a whore!"

"I didn' say it, Massa say it," the boy said miserably. The knife was on the ground now, and his limp hand with it. His scarred back was hunched with shame. "He call her a nigger bitch, too, an' he say if she b'longs to poor white trash she ain' got no business on his lan'."

Nate grated his teeth, but there was no use in taking these insults out of the boy's hide. "How you draw this duty?" he asked. "Dangerous business, settin' up with a beaten man out of favor with the massa."

"His Meg helped me," said the boy. "Me an' my Minervy. I's whupped on Sat'day night; Meg, she come Sunday an' she see, wash them sores an' she lef' apples fo' me an' our li'l girl. Mus' be that made them overseers come for her. My fault she been whupped."

"No." Nate thought of the thinly disguised loathing with which the planter had looked at Mister Cullen, and about the angry words they had exchanged in his hearing on the day after the hailstorm. "No, that ain' it. My massa an' yours be fightin'. Sutcliffe do this to get at Mist' Bohannon. Done it, too. What your name, boy?"

"Pait," he said. "I ain't…" He gestured at the slumbering mass of humanity. "I ain't one of these hands. Got me a wife an' chile. Well, she ain't my chile; she Minervy's. Mulatto. You know? But I loves her," he said with fierce pride. "I loves that girl like she my own flesh 'n blood. I's goin' make a good pa for her, raise her up right."

Nate thought of Lottie, who only ever saw her father on the rare occasions when he was able to slip away onto the Bohannon plantation and might never see him again now. He thought of how she turned to the men on the place – to Mister Cullen, to Elijah, to him – for the guidance and example she could not get from Peter. "That good," he said. "Chile needs her a man to look to. Needs her a man to love her when her own pa can'. Won't. You love that girl, hear me? You's lucky to have her."

Pait smiled, a tired smile that made him look far older than his years. He nodded at Peter. "You wan' me to wake him?"

It was on the tip of Nate's tongue to say no, but he reconsidered. Meg would feel better knowing he had actually spoken to Peter, and in Peter's place Nate would want a first-hand reassurance that Meg was being cared for properly. "Wake 'im," he said.

The boy leaned in, careful not to upset the lamp, and shook Peter's arm. "Peter? Peter? Wake up!"

The long, thickly-muscled body jerked, and the man bit down on a howl of pain. The three field hands nearest to him stirred, and one opened his eyes before rolling over and burying his face in his crude bed of straw. Pait hurriedly hushed the flayed man. "Peter, this here's Nate. Come from th' Bohannon place to see you."

Peter's right arm slipped down so that his face could be seen. He had been savagely beaten in addition to the whipping: his cheekbone was swollen and bruised blackly, and his left eye seemed to be puffed shut. His lips were split, and as he parted them Nate could see a tooth was missing from a fresh, bloody socket. "Nate?" he croaked, the word blurred so as to be almost beyond understanding. "Meg? Is she…"

"She goin' heal," Nate whispered consolingly. "Missus Bohannon, she fetched the doctor. The white doctor. He give her a liniment an' he bandage her up. She in good hands, but she worried 'bout you."

"I's awright," Peter mumbled, lying baldly but boldly. "You tell her I's awright. Ain't so bad. On'y… on'y…" His one good eye rolled in its socket, encompassing what he could of his overcrowded new home.

"On'y you ain't goin' be foreman no more," Nate said.

Peter tried to nod, but hissed in torment as the motion stretched the muscles of his upper back. "Shame," he said. "I's the bes' man fo' the job. They's goin' waste my talent pickin' cotton."

Nate forced a thin chuckle. The man was boasting of his prowess as a foreman, even after the flogging he had suffered. "I'll tell her," he said.

"An' tell her… tell her she ain't to come here no more," panted Peter. "Not never, ever again. Never."

"I wouldn' let her nohow," said Nate. "This here place no good for her."

"No good fo' no one," Peter whispered. His eye drifted closed. "No good fo' no one."

Pait put his hand on the man's ropey arm, and looked questioningly at Nate, but Nate shook his head. "Leave him be," he said. "I got what I come for. You do your bes' for him, boy. Meg'll thank you."

He stood up and turned, looking for a pathway through the maze of exhausted limbs. He could not bear this place any longer. The despair was too much for him. He wanted to go home.

_*discidium*_

Even after Meg's broken sobs died away and the house was once again quiet, Mary could not sleep. She had come to bed about midnight, when the last of the okra was pickled, and she had been drowsing shallowly until she heard the creak of the kitchen door and heavy footsteps below. For an awful span of time she had lain petrified in bed, listening to the noise of unfamiliar feet in her house in the darkness and wondering wildly whether it was some agent of Abel Sutcliffe's come to do more harm. But then she had heard murmured voices from the direction of Bethel's room, and she had recognized the low baritone belonging to Nate. When Meg began to weep Mary knew he must have brought news of Peter. She wanted to rise from bed and go to see what the tidings were, but she knew it was not her place to intrude. She could ask Bethel in the morning, but this moment, whatever it was, belonged to the slaves. They might work side by side, black and white; they might pine or prosper together; but they were somehow still separate, divided by lines of race and law and custom. There was no place for her in their pain, as there was no place for them in her anxious sleeplessness. She did not understand why. They had suffered through the awful day together: why could they not comfort one another?

Cullen's absence filled the bedroom. His pillow was cold beside her. The feather tick rode too high upon the ropes of the bedstead. The room was deathly quiet without the gentle rhythm of his breathing. The whole house felt vacant, as if it had been robbed of its heart. Mary lay flat upon her back, staring up at the black vault of the ceiling. She had spent nights alone in this bed before, but this was different. Cullen was not gone by choice or by the necessities of the plantation. He had not left of his own free will to call on a friend on the far end of the county or to transact their annual business in New Orleans. He had not even failed to come home after a night of drinking, as had happened once or twice in their early marriage. He had been taken forcibly from her, and he was locked in a cell in Meridian, and he could not come home to her however he might want to.

She hoped he was sleeping safely tonight. Mary had never seen the inside of a jail, but she had heard awful stories. Prisons were stinking pits of filth and violence and want. Of course a county jail was different than the stony edifice of Auburn Prison or the notorious state penitentiary at Sing Sing in New York, but Mary could not help but worry. Bethel's concern about the food had pricked at her, and she wondered whether he would be warm enough with only his topcoat. It was so cool tonight that she had closed the bedroom window at sunset for the first time since summer began. And even if his physical welfare was assured he was sure to be in a state of agitation and anxiety over the situation at home. He fretted perpetually enough when he was present; an enforced absence would be maddening for him.

Mary longed for the dawn to come. She knew that she ought to sleep, or she would be in no fit state to cope with the new day. She had important work to do, and the argument with Bethel alone would require her to be at her very best. Yet she was wakeful. This vast night with only cares and horrors to fill it left no room for slumber. Restlessly she flopped onto her side, careless of the fact that she dragged the bedclothes with her. What did it matter? Cullen was not there to need them. He had been taken from her.

Two wide eyes glittered in the darkness, and Mary very nearly let loose a scream of alarm. Then she realized that they were almost level with her own, and as intimately familiar to her as any eyes on earth. From the blackness broken only faintly by starlight in silvery orbs, a querulous little voice said; "Mama? I ain't sleepin'."

She lifted the edge of the sheet and opened her arms so that the small, nimble body could climb up into them and burrow cosily against her nightdress. "Come here, dearest," she murmured. "I'm not sleeping, either."


	42. Ain't Fittin'

_Note: This is the first chapter that's given me an opportunity to avail myself of the wealth of information at __www. csa-railroads. com__. Thank you, D. Bright. You are amazing._

**Chapter Forty-Two: Ain't Fittin'**

"No, you ain't." Bethel's voice was hard, but raised in a scandalized note as well. Lottie didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the old woman and Missus Bohannon were just in the next room, and the kitchen door was ajar. She bit down on her buttered biscuit, still a scrumptious treat even weeks after the last of the cornmeal had been eaten, and tried not to listen.

"I am," said Missus Mary quietly. "I have spoken to Elijah already, and it's been decided."

The sky beyond the kitchen windows was still dark. Elijah was out tending to the horses, and Lottie had to hurry and eat so she could relieve Nate in the tobacco barn. She didn't want to leave the house, but Ma said she must. Someone had to tend those fires, or there would be no tobacco to sell. All the enthusiasm Lottie had felt for this most important duty was gone: she only wanted to stay near her Ma, who was hurt and scared and skittish after a beating that Lottie still did not understand. No one had taken the time to explain to her _why_ the neighbor man had whipped her mother, or why doing so meant that he was able to take Mister Cullen away to prison. And no one had explained how it was that Mister Cullen, who had sheltered Lottie all her life, had failed so awfully to protect her ma.

"No. Nothin' been decided: you ain't goin' do it," Bethel insisted. "Ain't fittin', an' Mist' Cullen ain' goin' like it, neither."

Suddenly the biscuit had no more flavor than parched meal. Lottie grabbed her tin cup of milk and tried to wash down what was in her mouth. She had already finished her egg and her hominy and the stewed okra and beans, and she had been saving the biscuit for last. Now she looked at it, golden butter melting over the flaky inside, and she did not want it anymore. She wanted to go back into Bethel's cozy room beyond the parlor and sit with her ma. But she had to see to the fires. It was only about half an hour until dawn. The cows would be lowing, their udders swollen with milk. Nate had to go and look after them because Ma couldn't. She couldn't hardly totter over to squat at the chamber pot, not even with Bethel's strong arms to brace her. Bethel said it was on account of the blood she'd lost: she was dizzy and weak and she felt sick. She needed building up.

Lottie had heard Bethel and Missus Mary last night, too, when they thought she had been sleeping. Missus Mary had given Ma a glass of the red wine that her father had sent all the way from New York, and Bethel had objected that the wine was too fine for dosing sick folks: it was meant for Christmas supper. And Missus Mary had said that it was all the wine they had, and the doctor had told her Ma needed some each night before bed. Then Bethel had retorted that the doctor had said Ma ought to have meat, too, and they didn't have none of that, did they? After that Missus Mary had sounded very sad and worried.

"He may not like it," she was saying now, firmly; "but in his absence I must do as I see fit. The work in the tobacco cannot stop, Lottie is too young to do it, and you are need here to look after Meg. You'll take better care of her than I possibly can; you must know that."

Lottie cast one last look at the biscuit and tucked it into her apron pocket. The butter would soak into the cloth, but she didn't care. She might want to eat it later, and so she had to bring it with her. It was time to be getting out to the drying shed so that Nate could get on with his other work. She didn't know how he and Elijah were going to manage to do much in the fields, with two doing the work meant for four, but she supposed they'd have to find a way. If they had someone to hold the pole they could each pick, she thought: both working opposite rows in the same furrow as Nate and Mister Cullen had done right after the hailstorm when Mister Ainsley's men were helping. Lottie wished she could do it, that she could take her ma's place and help bring in the crop, but she was too small to reach the top of a long tobacco pole without tilting it, and too much tilting would wear on the leaves and maybe even tear them.

Bethel was still arguing with the mistress, repeating that whatever it was she intended to do Mister Cullen wouldn't like it. Lottie didn't like to hear them quarreling, even though Missus Mary still sounded calm and only so very, very firm and determined. They didn't quarrel, not in the usual way of things. The whole world had been upset yesterday morning, and it was still whirling wildly out of control. Lottie was frightened, and there was no one she could confide in. Bethel was terse and worried. Missus Mary was quiet and pale and trying so valiantly to be strong. Ma couldn't hardly talk with her lips swollen up and her throat hoarse from screaming, and she had troubles enough without Lottie's to add to it. And Mister Cullen was gone.

"… understand that it's contrary to convention," Missus Mary was saying; "but there isn't any other way."

"We need a boy on the place, that's what!" Bethel said. "Good strong, sensible houseboy we can trus' at times like this. Ain't no way to run a plantation, two old folks, one man and a woman and a girl-chile."

Lottie did not want to listen anymore. She wasn't a boy and she was no use for whatever it was they were talking about, but at least she could go and look after the fires. She tore open the back door and ran out into the grey predawn dark. Her bare feet whispered through the wet grass. The dew was cold this morning, and it nipped at her toes. Soon she would have to put on her stiff old shoes for the first and last few hours of the day when the air was chilled. She hurried past the henhouse, where the chickens were still scratching at the corn she had given them while Bethel served up her breakfast. They clucked and chattered with one another as if it was just another day and everything was as it ought to be. She wanted to reach in and grab them and shake them until they saw sense. Everything was wrong. The quiet life of the plantation had been turned upside-down. Hard work and simple worries had been replaced with desperate, overwhelming labor and impossible problems, all of a sudden.

Lottie remembered how Mama had come up to find her while she had been picking wildflowers on Sunday, feeling so grown-up and pretty in her new dress. Ma had looked pretty, too, and she'd looked so happy and eager to be going to visit Pa. Lottie wished now that she had tried to get her to stay home. She could have tried. She could have begged, or pretended to be poorly, or even thrown a loud fit like a small child. But she'd been eager for her day of leisure and not at all interested in having her mother around, and she hadn't done it. Lottie guessed that made it her fault, too, what had happened to Ma.

She had reached the tobacco barn. The newly-built boxes were stacked by the drying side, waiting to be filled. Those that had already been packed were stacked in the empty stalls in the stable, where they were safe from the rain. Mister Cullen insisted on sorting the cured leaves carefully, and he always marked each crate with a grease pencil so that he knew which lots were which. He said it made it easier when he was selling, and he got a better price because the buyers didn't need to waste their time and patience trying to tell which boxes were which. Elijah said that selling the tobacco was what Mister Cullen did best; even if he wasn't much good at growing it he knew how to get the best money for the product. Lottie wondered who would sell the tobacco this year, now that Mister Cullen was in jail.

Nate looked up quickly when she came into the kiln. His eyes were shadowed and he looked haggard with worry. "How your ma?" he asked at once.

Lottie didn't know how to answer this question. "Hurtin'," she said. "But I fetched up her other shif' from the cabin, an' Bethel helped her put it on. Said mebbe she be well 'nough to sit up an' eat a proper dinner." She gnawed her lower lip, wondering whether she should say more. Then hastily, before she could change her mind, she blurted out; "But the doct'r, he say she need red meat, an' we ain't got none to give her! How she goin' get well if she don' get what the doct'r say?"

"Red meat?" said Nate. "You mean beef?"

"Don' know," said Lottie. "Bethel jus' say red: chicken ain' no good."

Nate grunted and hefted the hammer in his hand. The box before him was nearly finished. He plucked up a nail and set it, driving it in with three swift strokes. Then he got to his feet and cupped his hand under Lottie's chin. "What 'bout you?" he asked. "How you copin' with all this?"

It was another impossible question. Lottie shrugged both shoulders and said nothing.

"You know your ma ain't done nothin' wrong?" Nate said softly.

Lottie nodded. Her eyes were burning. It was the smoke, she told herself. The smoke from the curing fires.

Nate shook his head. His eyes were sad and strangely numb. "She a good woman. She didn' deserve what happen to her."

She felt her lower lip tremble. "Why didn' Mist' Cullen stop it?" she cried. "Why he let that Mist' Sutcliffe whup her? He ain' s'posed to let folk whup his people!"

Nate looked very tired. "No. No, he ain'," he said heavily. "An' he wouldn' never have 'llowed it had he knowed; that certain. I don' think we can blame Mist' Cullen fo' this. He didn' look fo' it to happen."

"But he the massa," Lottie protested, bewildered in her hurt and trying so hard to understand. "Ain' it his job to look aft' his people?"

"Uh-huh." Nate nodded. "That ol' man done got the bes' of him, that all there is to it. You know Mist' Cullen an' I be brung up together, don' you?"

Lottie nodded, although she had never really thought about it before. She guessed Nate and Mister Cullen _were _pretty near the same age, and she knew they'd both been born on this land: Mister Cullen in the house, and Nate in the cabin she now shared with her mother. They must have played together, the way she played with Mister Gabe.

"Well, I know him," said Nate. "Know him better'n I thought, seems to me now. An' I can tell you he's hatin' hisself for failin' to be the massa your ma needed yest'day. That mos' likely all he doin': sittin' in that jail an' hatin' hisself an' tryin' to work out some way out this mess 'fore the tobacco spoilt an' we all starve."

Cold fear twisted Lottie's stomach. "It really that bad?" she asked breathlessly.

"Will be soon," said Nate. "Mist' Cullen done the figurin', not me, but back in springtime he say if we's goin' get by we needs fifty acres an' we needs 'em to be good. Ain't got no fifty acres no more, an' what we got goin' get worse the longer it sit. I can' pick it fast 'nough on my own, an' somebody got to hol' the pole so Elijah ain' pickin'. Don' know what to do. That the onlies' good thing 'bout b'longin' to another person: free men ain' got no one to tell 'em what they oughts to do, but you does. Mos' of the time, anyhow."

"'Cept when he in jail?" Lottie whispered.

"Jus' so," said Nate. "'Cept when he in jail." He stared vacantly into the middle distance for a moment, then shook himself like Jeb did when he came out of the creek. He looked down at Lottie and gripped her shoulder, and he sighed. "Don' you listen to me," he said. "I's a fool nigger, an' you got no call to be carryin' no grown folks' worries. The tobacco goin' be all right. Mist' Cullen, he goin' be back nex' week an' he goin' tell us what to do. He goin' have a plan: he allus got a plan."

He left her after that, and Lottie sat down to stir the embers, adding some wood chips to one fire and a thin quarter-log to another. She had to be brave and attend to her work. She looked up at the drooping, wrinkled leaves in their neat rows like a strange, grassy roof above her. This tobacco was good, anyhow, and it was her job to make sure it stayed good. The family was relying on her, and she couldn't let the fact she was scared and confused and full of heartache to keep her from doing what needed to be done. Everybody had to do what they could: like Missus Mary had said, there wasn't any other way.

_*discidium*_

At ten o'clock, Joe and two other deputies came and collected three of Cullen's cellmates. Several more were released from the neighboring cell, two of whom were clapped in irons before being led away. They were all bound for the Tuesday session before the Justice of the Peace. Cullen, Edwards, the Cracker boy, and the man on the bunk remained. For a while there was clamor and commotion up and down the corridor: cell doors creaking and slamming, prisoners protesting, a harsh wail from a frightened Negro away down the far end. The deputies gave stern orders and worn-out shoes shuffled on the stone floor. Once Cullen heard the unsettling click of a revolver being cocked, but it was not fired. Then finally there was silence again. In the cell across the way, one of the two men awaiting execution came to lean on the bars, arms dangling out into the narrow hallway. He looked Cullen over and grinned. His front teeth were rotted black, and their neighbors were missing.

"What you in for?" he asked. "Use the cheese fork to eat your oysters?"

"Naw, I killed a man," Cullen said sarcastically. He wished now that he had been wearing a work shirt when Sutcliffe and the sheriff had turned up: the fine cloth of his good clothes just invited heckling. "They got me in here with these others hoping I'll save the courts the trouble of trying them."

The boy, who had taken up the drunk's position by the bucket of drinking water, chortled throatily. "Go on and try it, Mister," he jibed.

Cullen retreated to the far corner of the cell where the two stone walls met. Pressing his aching back to the wall he lowered himself into a crouch to take some of the weight off of his tired legs. He was not sore enough yet to sit down. From the look of the floor, not all inmates were diligent about making use of the slop pail. He had thought that months of wallowing in mud and sweat and tobacco sap had cured him of any hint of fastidiousness, but apparently he was wrong.

"Me, I tried to rob a train," said the toothless man. "I tell you, it ain't as easy as it looks."

"Nobody gives a damn about yer train," Edwards mumbled. He was lying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, one knee bent and the other leg swinging from it.

"Which line?" asked Cullen absently. He hadn't heard anything about a train robbery this year, not even a botched one. He figured the man had to be boasting of something he hadn't even attempted: buried though he was on the farm, that kind of crime was hard to miss.

"Mobile and Ohio," he answered. "Why?"

"Just wondering. Where'd you try and rob it?" He didn't know why he felt compelled to show the man up, but he did. He was in a quarrelsome mood, strained and hungry and short on sleep.

"Just outside Lauderdale. Had to get on at the station: couldn't work out how to stop the damned thing without bein' on it. Woulda managed all right, too, 'cept some farmer got word to the station the train had stalled, an' they came out with rifles. Bastards." He snorted back a mouthful of phlegm and spit between the bars.

"Out of Lauderdale headed north?" asked Cullen. This was actually a more interesting subject than he had first suspected.

"Yeah."

"That there's your first mistake. Ain't but five miles between Lauderdale and Tamola stations, and it's cultivated country," Cullen mused. It was a compelling academic exercise: how would he mount a successful a train heist? "Better to try it between Okatibbee and Enterprise, southbound. Nine miles between stations: stop her around the four mile marker where the woods come up near the track. The late train out of Meridian passes that way 'round suppertime: no one got cause to be out in the wild that time of day. 'Course they'll realize something's wrong when the train don't show up in Enterprise, but then they still got five miles to cover before they get to you. Two or three men could clear out a train in that amount of time, easy."

"Yeah?" The condemned prisoner seemed torn between skepticism and admiration. "How do you stop a train shootin' by at fifteen miles per hour?"

"Wagon on the tracks would do it," said Cullen. "Find a good straight stretch, at least three hundred yards, and put the wagon right at the end of it so the engineer got time to see it and stop. Don't even need to pull off a wheel to make it look broke down: all he'll be thinking is he don't want to hit it."

"You're assumin' I got a wagon," the man pointed out.

Cullen blinked ponderously at him. "You're talking 'bout robbing trains," he said slowly; "and you're confounded by the idea of stealing a wagon?"

The man made a noise of disgust and retreated towards the barred window behind him. His cellmate was tugging loose threads from the torn knee of his pants. Cullen rested his elbows on his knees and looked down at his hands. The streaks of tobacco tar were fading. Today was the third day since he'd last been in the field. It ought to have been a relief, but it wasn't. How were Nate and Elijah managing with only the two of them? The bottom field needed another going over, and badly.

The youth was watching him now, with a look of awed respect on his face. "Say Mister, what _is _you in for?" he asked. "You some kind of outlaw?"

Cullen looked up at him, grateful for the distraction from his anxious thoughts. He put on his best grin. "No, son, I'm a tobacco planter. How 'bout you? _You_ some kind of outlaw?"

The boy shook his head, suddenly flushed crimson. "Nope," he said. "Milked an old woman's cow."

"No crime in that," said Cullen.

"There is if she didn' ask me to do it," mumbled the boy. "And if I took away the milk and drunk it."

Cullen opened his mouth to ask whether the youth was alone in the world, but the ring of approaching boots stayed his tongue. Joe Dayton stopped at the door of the cell and unlocked it. He grinned at Cullen.

"You got a visitor," he said.

Cullen frowned. "Thought nobody was allowed to visit before noon," he said.

"I'll make an exception for this one," said Joe. "Come on: you can talk in the office."

This seemed strange, too, but he stood up and stepped out into the corridor. Joe locked the door carefully and took hold of Cullen's elbow. The grip was more for show than anything, and Cullen moved along beside his old schoolmate. The women's cell was empty now: apparently Madge had sobered up enough to be released. The two men rounded the corner and Joe ushered Cullen into the small front office. He stopped dead on the threshold. Seated in the deputy's chair with her hands folded neatly in her lap was Mary.

"What're you doing here?" Cullen said, aware too late that the words came out sounding harsh and perhaps even irate. He wasn't angry: he was astonished. He hoped she realized that.

Mary looked up at him, her eyes soft. "I came to consult with you," she said.

She was wearing her riding habit: the dark green wool coat and skirt, the dove-gray waistcoat, the creamy shirtfront and the broad-brimmed hat. Her gloves were the glossy leather ones that she only ever wore in the saddle. She had ridden, not driven. "Did you come on your own?" he asked. "All that way?"

She smiled. "You sound just like Bethel," she said. "It's only six miles, Cullen. Pike took it in forty minutes."

He let out a hoarse breath. At least she hadn't tried to ride Bonnie, but she must have been going at a mighty brisk trot to make the distance in forty minutes. He looked over his shoulder at Joe, who was leaning on the doorjamb and grinning. "You need to stand there and watch me?" he asked crossly.

"Guess not," said the deputy indolently. "Get a little farther in and I'll lock the door: that ought to be good enough. If you'll give me your word not to jump out the window?"

Cullen snorted. "I'm only in here on account of a misunderstanding," he said. "You think I'd be fool enough to bolt?"

"If you had anywhere to go, maybe," said Joe. "But a man with property and a family can't just run off, can he?"

"No, he can't," Cullen said. He took two steps into the room and watched impatiently as the other man closed the door. A key turned in the lock and he was alone with his wife. "Why are you here?" he asked hurriedly. "What's wrong? Is Sutcliffe making trouble for you?"

"No. Nothing's wrong, except that you're in here when you ought to be at home." Mary rose, the heavy skirt falling into rich folds. Her waist was trim and pretty above the peplum of the jacket, and Cullen wanted to curl his arm around it. But of course there were more urgent matters at hand.

"How's Meg?" he asked.

"Heartbroken," said Mary. "Doctor Whitehead says her back will heal, but she'll hardly look at me, Cullen. And Nate crept over to Hartwood last night—"

"Damned fool!" Cullen hissed. "Did he get caught? What did they do to him?"

Mary seized his arm as it tensed, her gentle fingers pressing consolingly into the crook of his elbow. "He didn't get caught. He spoke to Peter. It seems Mr. Sutcliffe has removed him as foreman as punishment for harboring a trespasser. They also whipped him quite mercilessly, so it seems."

Cullen had more or less expected this, and he didn't much care. What Sutcliffe did on his own plantation to his own slaves wasn't any of his business. He might revile it, but he had neither the power nor the moral authority to do anything about it. His concerns were for Meg. "But she'll heal," he said, almost pleading. "There ain't going to be no lasting damage?"

"She'll be scarred," said Mary quietly. "And I don't think she'll ever be the same. It's hurt her horribly, Cullen. She's lost something… I don't know. Trust. She's lost her trust in us."

He could not say anything to this. He had no idea what anyone possibly could. He wanted to tell Meg how sorry he was that he had failed her. He _would_ tell her, once he was out of this stinking place. But Mary was right. She likely would never be quite the same after this. A whipping took something out of a person. Sometimes Cullen thought that was what had changed Nate. He had seen the scar, just one long, thin scar across Nate's right shoulder blade. Sometime during those years when Cullen had been away at university, Nate had been flogged: for what Cullen still did not know. He had never asked.

"What about the tobacco?" he asked.

"Nate and Elijah are working the bottom field today," said Mary. "They know what needs to be done."

"Better than I do," Cullen agreed. He rubbed his palm against his beard and wrinkled his nose. Now that he was away from the reek of the cell his nostrils were awakening again, and he could smell the foul miasma that clung to him. He shrugged off Mary's hand and retreated to the other side of the small room, ashamed of the stink. "You came six miles just to tell me that?"

She shook her head. "I thought you might need this." From her reticule she brought the battered old pocketbook. "There's eleven dollars in gold, and a one-dollar bank note still left," she said. "Also sixty-two cents in small coin. I thought… for bail, or for counsel, or… I don't know. Have they set bail for you?"

"Fifty dollars," said Cullen.

Mary blanched. "_Fifty_?"

"Maximum allowable fine for the offence," he recited dully. He shrugged one shoulder and felt the ache of cold, disused muscles bewildered by the absence of heavy labor. "Guess I'm stuck here 'til it's my turn in court."

"A whole week?" Mary said. There was something far too like despair in her eyes now. "You can't sit here for a week."

"Got no choice," he said. "Sheriff declined to let me stand up on Friday. He'd rather have me up before Graham than George White. In his place I'd probably feel the same: George would be too inclined to take a rational view of the matter." An incongruity struck him. "How's there eleven dollars in gold?"

Mary flushed a little, abashed. "I took the dollar Jeremiah gave to Gabe," she said. "I thought if it was needed we could always pay him back once the tobacco money is in."

"I ain't using our boy's money," said Cullen. "You take it out of there right now, you hear me? He's going to want that money in a year or two: going to need a slate and pencil, a reader, an arithmetic book. Damn it, Mary!" He planted one hand on the stone sill of the window and leaned heavily upon it, helpless and befuddled. His mind kept leaping from one thing to the next without regard to logic. "I can't hardly think. Take that dollar back and put it away for him. Would you do that, please?"

"Of course. Of course, if that's what you think best," said Mary. She plucked a coin out of the pocketbook and tucked it back into the little drawstring purse at her wrist. All the while her eyes did not leave his face. "Cullen, have you slept at all?"

"How can I sleep?" he demanded. "This mess here… there's got to be a way out of it. I thought I had a way out of it. I don't know no more."

"Sit down," she said gently. She came and took him by the arm, guiding him over to Joe's chair. "You're white as a sheet. Sit down."

He sat, but only because he did not have the energy to resist her. His legs were unsteady and his hands shook. He rammed them into his pockets, hoping to conceal the fact. Dear God, he was tired! He had slept so poorly after his turn at the fires Sunday night, fretting about Meg's failure to show for her shift. Worrying for good reason, as it had turned out. How long since Mary had awakened him as he lay curled on Gabe's bed? It had to be more than forty hours, didn't it? Close to it, anyhow, and those forty hours crowded with more chaos and worry and catastrophe than should have filled a month. He wanted to sleep, wanted her comforting presence beside him while he slept, but he could have neither. Instead he drew in a deep breath. There was something he had meant to ask Mary, and now he couldn't remember what it was.

She had left his side and was rapping on the door now. There was a click in the lock, and Joe peered in. "Deputy, may I please have a cup of water?" Mary said courteously. Then she added with a demure little smile; "It was such a long ride: six whole miles!"

Cullen didn't hear Joe's answer: he was too busy marveling at his wife. Mary wanted the water for him, and she knew he wouldn't want to admit to any weakness in front of his jailor. She hadn't lied, either, but only allowed him to believe she was thirsty herself. Scarcely a minute passed and Joe was back, a tin cup in his hand. Mary thanked him and closed the door. This time there was no sound of a key in the lock.

"Here, drink this," she said, lifting his hand and wrapping it around the cup. The corner of his mouth twitched gratefully and he obeyed. The water in the cell was stale and tepid; this was clean and cool, fresh up from the well. He drained the vessel in one long draught and sighed.

"There was something I needed to ask you," he said. He tilted his head to look up at her. Her left hand was curled loosely, resting on its side upon his shoulder. Her right moved tenderly to smooth the whiskers on his upper lip. "Hanged if I can remember what."

"It will come to you," Mary promised serenely. "Can they really hold you here until next week? What about your right to a speedy trial?"

"Tried that argument already," Cullen grumbled.

"Is the docket on Friday full?" asked Mary. "They can't just hold you over out of spite."

"We ain't going to be able to prove it's spiteful," said Cullen. "Who the hell will listen?"

"What about legal counsel?" she tried. "A lawyer might know what—"

He sat bolt upright in the chair, so quickly that his head reeled. "That's it! That's what it was!" he exclaimed.

Mary, startled by this outburst, had jumped back half a pace. Her hand pressed against the front of her jacket. "What?" she gasped.

"That lawyer," he said urgently. "The one from Kemper County who danced with you at Boyd's party. What was his name?"

She blinked at him, not quite keeping pace with his manic reasoning. Impatiently, Cullen slapped his fingers against the heel of his hand in a beckoning gesture.

"His name, Mary. Do you remember his name?" he demanded.

"S-Secrest," she said breathlessly. There was anxiety in her eyes. "Mr. Secrest. Why?"

Secrest. Jim Secrest. That was it. Cullen twisted in the chair to look at the desk. Not seeing what he wanted, he pulled open the center drawer. There was a stack of writing paper within, and he took a sheet, spreading it across the blotter while he reached for the pen. He fumbled with the stopper of the inkwell, dipped the nib and began to write.

"I need you to send a telegram," he said as the black cursive spread across the top of the page almost of its own accord. "The telegraph office is down by the tracks. You tell him it's urgent, and you stand there while he sends it. I ain't goin' find a sympathetic lawyer 'round here, and at least I know Secrest takes his defense work seriously. He'll need to be here for the hearing first thing Tuesday morning: don't know what time they'll have me up before Graham. Means he's got to come down the night before: you'll need to put him up." He looked up and grinned at his wife. "Looks like you were right about leaving the straw tick on the guest bed."

Mary's lips curled into a tiny, relieved smile. "You do have a plan," she exhaled.

"Ain't much of one," said Cullen. "He might not consent to do it: I can't pay him 'til the tobacco's sold. And maybe I'm a fool to even try and argue the charge, but if I'm going up in front of Graham my only hope's a sound legal argument. We can't afford a fifty dollar fine, Mary, and they won't let me go home 'til I can pay it. I got to try and fight this. I got to try."

"I understand," she said, and silently he blessed her. He shook sand over the paper, held it out over the floor and blew. The grains flew off in a puff of air, and he handed the sheet to her.

"Go and send it now," he said. "Tell the telegraph operator to send any reply on to me here. Then you get on home, and stay there. Meg's needed in court Tuesday: I don't want anyone coming to town 'til then." He scrubbed at his beard and added; "You'd best come with her. I don't much want you to see me in the dock, but Meg's going to be frightened. Six miles is a long way to ride scared."

Mary nodded, but her eyes were clouded with unease. "Will you be all right?" she asked. "Is there anything else you need?"

Cullen didn't even consider the question: he shook his head reflexively. "Don't you worry about me," he instructed. "Go and get that sent. He's going to need time to think about it."

He hoisted himself out of the chair, his head swimming briefly. It was nothing to the dizziness of tobacco sickness, and he ignored it. Impulsively, forgetting the foul smell that clung to his hair and clothes, he kissed her. She reciprocated warmly, and he had to pull away before he could lean in to devour her. "You done the right thing in coming," he said; "but you need to get home now. The darkies need you to make 'em believe they can keep the place running with two of us useless. You can't show no doubt, Mary, you understand me? Slaves can smell doubt, and it spooks them."

For a moment her eyes hardened and her jaw tensed. Then she seemed almost to shake herself, and she pressed her lips together in tender concern. "You must sleep," she said. "You can't keep on without sleep."

"I will," he promised, though he did not believe it himself. "Go on, now."

She went to the door, folding the draft of the telegram as she did so. She paused with her hand on the knob, looking back at him. Her eyes traveled over his body, and he wondered what she saw. Then, almost as an afterthought, he snatched up the pocketbook from the edge of the desk and hurried to press it into her hand. "You're going to need this," he said. "Pay for the telegram up front, but try not to spend anything more. We ain't got much left."

"What about the money in the bank?" asked Mary.

"Fifteen dollars," said Cullen. "It's got to stay there if it possibly can. I'm going to need to raise a loan to ship the tobacco, and bankers don't like lending to folks who ain't got an account in good standing."

An anxious question alighted on her lips, but she brushed it away with the tip of her tongue and nodded her understanding. "Please," she murmured. "Please, Cullen, try to get some sleep."

Then she opened the door. There was a brief exchange of pleasantries with Joe Dayton, and then Mary was gone. The deputy led Cullen back to his cell, and though he tried again to close the barred hatch with care the ring of the metal resounded like a gong in Cullen's skull. He retreated again to the corner and crouched against the support of the walls, head bowed and breathing labored. It was one hell of a mess he was in, no doubt about that. And the worst of it was that everyone he loved was right there with him in the thick of it.

_*discidium*_

Mary unsaddled Pike herself and brushed him as carefully and thoroughly as she knew how. The patient horse submitted to her inexpert ministrations without complaint and settled happily into his stall to feed. Bonnie, clearly affronted that she had not been the one chosen for the outing, stamped her feet and snorted and was only reluctantly mollified by the thick slice of turnip Mary offered her in truce. She left the stall doors wide so that the horses could wander out into the paddock if they wished, and then went to do the same for the mules. Then she dragged the heavy front barn doors closed and leaned against them, ribs heaving against her corset. She had to compose herself before she went into the house. Bethel had put up such a protest against the idea of riding into town, and Mary could not go into the house looking the least bit ruffled if she ever wanted to hear the end of it.

The truth was that she was shaken. She had not expected Cullen to look tidy and pristine after a day and night in prison, but his appearance had still startled her. It was not the state of his clothes, which though somewhat rumpled were much as they had been when he donned them yesterday morning. It was not even the vile smell that seemed to cling to him and no doubt filled the air of his cell. It was the addled, roving look in his eyes and the agitated and unsteady rhythm of his motion. She wondered if he knew how wild and disordered his words sounded, or how the galloping cadence of his voice made him seem either mad or drunk. She knew it had to be the want of sleep that was taking its toll, and the strain of the past two days, but it frightened her all the same.

She had sent the telegram as he had instructed, without changing a word, but she wished he had not included within it the caveat that he could not make immediate payment. She knew that it was in her husband's nature to be perfectly forthright, and ordinarily that was nothing but admirable, but she feared that the attorney would be put off from taking his case because of it. Mr. Secrest had been a courteous dinner companion, and Cullen evidently thought highly of him, but he was at best a casual acquaintance. He had no incentive to travel the forty-two miles from Scooba to help them, particularly if his fee was to be deferred.

Mary's breath was level now, and she smoothed her expression and gathered up the trailing hem of her riding skirt. It was dusty from the road and flecked with straw from the barn floor, and she shook it vigorously to loosen the worst of the debris. A little untidiness after riding was to be expected, and she was less concerned about what Bethel might think than she was about trailing dirt into the house. As a girl she had never realized what a quantity of labor it took to keep a home clean and neat. Now that she shouldered a good share of that work herself, she appreciated any small effort to keep the outdoors where it belonged.

She stepped into the front hall and was greeted by a pounding of small feet down the stairs and an exclamation in a tone ordinarily reserved only for Cullen. "Mama!" Gabe cried, eager and gleeful and obviously enormously relieved. He paused on the third step from the bottom to sneeze, and then hurried down to his mother.

Mary bent so that he could climb into her arms, one practiced leg hooking around her hip. She straightened, hefting him with some effort. He was getting to be too big for her to carry like this. "Good morning, darling," she said. Looking up the stairs she could see his toy horses scattered on a step about halfway up. He had evidently been waiting there for one or the other of his parents to come home.

"I woked up an' you was gone," Gabe said, twining both arms around her neck and hugging her tightly. "Why you go 'way?"

"Didn't Bethel tell you?" Mary asked as she moved on towards the dining room.

"She say you gone ridin'," said Gabe. "Ridin' all by youself, all de way to town! Ain't fittin'," he added with a frown that was such a perfect imitation of Bethel that Mary almost felt she might one day be able to laugh again.

"I went to see Pappy," said Mary.

The little boy's whole body perked at this, and he looked over her shoulder at the open front door. "You brung him home? Where he at?" he asked.

She wished she hadn't said it. "Oh, dearest, I didn't bring him home. He has to stay in the jail until the judge says he may go," she tried to explain. "I went to talk to him and to see what he needed me to do to help him."

Gabe looked up at her. "You's goin' he'p him?"

"In every way I can," Mary promised. She had reached the dining room table now, and she stopped at Cullen's chair so that Gabe could slither down off her hip. He stood obediently on the seat, but his hands still clutched the broad revers of her riding jacket so that she could not escape him. She smoothed his curls with her palm and smiled gently for him. "You needn't worry about Pappy," she said. "He'll be home with us soon."

"How soon?" asked Gabe.

"A week," said Mary, praying it was true. Cullen's intimation that he might have to remain in prison until his fine was paid had frightened her terribly. With the telegram paid for they only had a little more than twenty-six dollars to their name, and that including Gabe's gold piece that she had been forbidden to use. If fifty dollars was the maximum fine, what was the minimum? There didn't seem to be much chance of Cullen escaping some measure of censure: he had, after all, allowed Meg to go at large. Mary shivered. She still could not quite believe that permitting a grown woman to walk less than a mile to visit her husband was an offence under the law.

Gabe was frowning. "Dat ain't so soon," he said mournfully. "I wants my pappy home."

Mary hugged him tightly to her, the back of the chair digging into her hip as she did so. "We all do, dearest," she murmured. Then she pulled back and smiled for him. "But for the time being you're the man of the house," she said. "Once I get out of these clothes, you can come out with me to pick some beans. Would you like that?"

Gabe's mouth pursed thoughtfully, and his brows furrowed in a shrewd expression Mary recognized all too well: it was just the look that Cullen got when he was trying to strike a bargain. "May Stewpot come?" he asked.

"Only if you don't let him nibble at the turnip greens," Mary said, more because he was expecting a counteroffer than because she was worried about the kitten doing any harm in the garden.

"I won'," Gabe pledged solemnly. His chest twitched as if with a hiccough, and he coughed shallowly. Apparently unconcerned he looked up at her and nodded very gravely. "I won'."

"Then Stewpot may come," Mary said. She glanced at the open door leading to what seemed like a very empty kitchen. "Where is Bethel?" she asked.

"She washin' Meg's back," said Gabe. "I ain't 'llowed to go in dere, Bet'l say." His scowl told Mary what he thought of this edict.

"That's only right," she said. "Meg needs peace and privacy so that she can get well again. You don't go in and trouble her, Gabe, do you hear me?"

"Yass'm," he said, bobbing his head. "I won'. I didn', neider. I minds Bet'l."

"Good boy." Mary kissed the crown of his head and then stepped back a little so that she could open her reticule. While in the telegraph office she had picked up the mail. She had left Cullen's newspapers, of which there were several, because he had explicitly told her not to spend anything more. She half-wished he hadn't: perhaps the papers would have given him some distraction and kept his mind off the worries that were so obviously gnawing at his reason. She realized now, far too late, that she could have brought him three or four of the _Harper's Monthly_ from the Christmas barrel if only she had thought of it. It couldn't be helped now.

From the little silk bag she brought out three letters: two from Jeremiah and one from her mother. They had all been sent postage paid, thankfully. It had always irritated Cullen that Jeremiah ordinarily sent letters at the expense of the recipient, and if his visit had cured him of that Mary was glad. She looked at the bundle of letters briefly, and then moved to set them on the sideboard. They could wait. There was not going to be any truly urgent information in them, and she had no time for the luxury of news from home now. The letters addressed in Jeremiah's hand had been sent from Philadelphia and Bangor: obviously the Tates were safely home in Maine. They were likely, Mary thought with a tiny pang of guilt, letters from Missy. She had promised to write her niece, but that too would have to wait.

"Come along," said Mary, giving Gabe her hand to steady him as he climbed down from his father's chair. "You can put away your horses and fetch Stewpot while I change, and then we can go out and pick those peas."

Gabe nodded, his reply lost in another little, dry cough. Mary's maternal anxieties flared just for a moment, and she calmed them. It was only a tickle in the throat: perhaps he was coming down with an autumn cold. But he was ruddy and hearty-looking, and clearly unaffected. There were so many other worries at hand that two small coughs scarcely even ranked upon the list. She would keep an eye on it, and if it got any worse she could have Bethel dose him with soothing syrup. Gabe adjusted his hold on her hand and marched happily beside her as she swept back into the entryway.

The letters, now forgotten, lay next to the carving utensils in a small patch of sunlight.


	43. An Unexpected Turn

**Chapter Forty-Three: An Unexpected Turn**

Cullen had promised Mary that he would try to sleep, but it was not nearly as simple as she seemed to think. After squatting a while, and pacing again, availing himself of the dubious convenience of the slop pail and taking a dipperful of stale water, Cullen at last surrendered to his exhausted legs and sat down in the corner. He first made an attempt to scrape away the worst of the muck with the side of his boot, but there was little he could do against days or weeks of accumulated filth. Resigned at last to the spoiling of his trousers, he eased himself onto the unyielding stone, leaning to rest his cheekbone against the outer wall. He closed his eyes and forced his mind to be silent and tried his very best to sleep. But exhausted though he was sleep would not come. He kept trying to shift to a less uncomfortable position, each time finding that he had left it behind instead. Then just as he started to dose despite the aches and the unpleasant pressure on hip and shoulder, those who had received sentences of whipping or imprisonment were brought back from the courthouse and there was general chaos for nearly an hour. After that it was time for those inmates who had subscribed to the service to receive their board. Cullen's nostrils, which he had thought were numbed completely by the stench of the jail, awakened to the smells of side meat and corn pone, and his stomach clenched and burbled ravenously. He tried to ignore it, and crossed his arms over his abdomen, turned his face to the wall again and made another effort to sleep.

He did finally slip into a shallow, uneasy slumber, rocking back and forth between unsettling dreams and the nightly noises of the prison. Bars rattled and the crude bunks creaked. Fists beat against thighs in a monotonous staccato, and someone wailed. Once he heard one of the Negroes singing, a low, slow, mournful song about crossing over the River Jordan. That roused him more completely than the weeping had done, because for one startling moment he believed himself at home in his little bed in the nursery, nine years old again and sick with the mumps while Bethel rubbed his back and sang to him. But Bethel wasn't here, and his throat wasn't swollen, and there were no warm quilts to cover him. It was raining. Far away thunder rumbled. It would be wet work tomorrow, picking tobacco in the mud, but he wouldn't be there for it. That thought brought all his cares crowding back, and for a long time he could not rest at all.

Then morning came, and those who had been sent back to the jail to be flogged were dragged out into the yard. Cullen's cellmates crowded to the window to watch, but he retreated to the bars and tried to close his ears against the whistle of the whip and the cries of the convicted slaves. Still he flinched with each blow that fell and could not keep himself from thinking of Meg, strung up in an outbuilding on Hartwood Plantation while Abel Sutcliffe brandished a bluejay before her naked back. The sentences seemed to take hours to carry out, and the crowd of onlookers that always seemed to gather on such occasions jeered and laughed and chatted as if gathered to a festival. But at last it was over, and the convicts returned to their masters, and silence fell over the jailhouse again.

That afternoon, Joe's little girl and his niece and nephew, kept indoors by the rain that was still pattering on the cobbles of the jail-yard, went charging up and down the long corridor between the cells. Cullen's head was aching, and he was more irritable than he would have felt possible, even given his situation. When Edwards started humming tunelessly it was all he could do to keep from marching across the cell and kicking him sharply in the tailbone.

It was as well he didn't, for Joe chose that moment to stroll down the hallway, artfully sidestepping his five-year-old girl as she tore past with an ululation of victory – having apparently triumphed in whatever contest the children were holding. Dayton stopped beside the cell door and leaned his elbows on the bars, looking thoughtfully at the prisoners. Cullen had been leaning under the window, biting down on his patience to keep it from deserting him entirely, but seeing his jailor he straightened.

"Doing the rounds?" he said dryly.

"More or less," said Joe. He frowned. "You sickening, Cullen?"

"What makes you say that?" Cullen snapped, instantly defensive. He was famished and he was dizzy and he had a headache, and besides all that he was just about ready to tear into someone, anyone, for no reason at all, but he sure as hell wasn't ill. Even if he had been his pride would have kept him from admitting it to one of Brannan's men.

Joe shrugged. "Doc's here to see you."

Cullen relaxed a little out of his combative stance. "And I can only see him outside of visiting hours if I'm sickening," he said, understanding.

"Well, I really didn't ought to make two exceptions in as many days, if you know what I mean," Joe drawled. "Sheriff _does_ know we're friendly: could be trouble for both of us if I looked to be favoring you." He studied his fingernails. "But the sheriff don't want prisoners taking sick, neither. If you gotta see the doc, you gotta see the doc."

"I gotta see the doc," said Cullen quickly. He didn't need to lie, either. "My head hurts something fierce, and I've been coming over giddy."

"That ain't good," said Joe lazily. He took the keys from his belt and opened the cell door, standing aside so Cullen could step out. He did not wait to be escorted this time, but strode off towards the office even before Joe could close the door again.

Doctor Whitehead was standing by the window, his bag and a covered basket on a corner of the desk. As Cullen entered he looked up and smiled. "How are you holding up, son?" he asked.

"About how you'd expect," Cullen said noncommittally. "You got news of my people?"

The older man shook his head. "I'm heading out that way in the morning: Miz Sutcliffe's taken poorly again. I'll stop by your place on my way back and see what Miss Mary might need. Give me a chance to check your girl, too; make sure she's healing up like she should."

Cullen curled his lip wryly. "So much for telling Sutcliffe to find a new doctor if he made more trouble for me," he said.

Doc's face crumpled unhappily. "Cullen, that woman's sick. Most likely dying. I can't punish her for her husband's cruelty. She's suffered enough being married to him. I'm sorry. I know I said I'm on your side here, and I am, but…"

"But you just couldn't do that," Cullen said softly. "It's all right, Doc: I never expected you to. I'm sorry to hear she's that bad. Not for that bastard's sake, but for hers and the girls'."

"Abel's taking it hard," said Doc Whitehead. Joe had caught up to Cullen at last and he quietly pulled the door closed to give the two men some privacy. "A lot harder than I would have expected. Don't be too hard on him, son."

Cullen snorted. "He whipped my woman raw and turned her over to the sheriff as a runaway when he knew damned well she weren't," he spat. "He paid off Brannan – or maybe just cajoled him, I don't know: they always been thick as two thieves – to trap me into admitting I let her go at large, which I didn't, Doc. I let her go to Hartwood because I knew she wanted to visit her man. I didn't give her permission to wander all 'round the county on a whim, and that weren't what she were doing, neither."

"Well, that's a good argument to make before the judge," Doc said. "You might make a point disputing the meaning of 'at large'. Just don't you say it in that tone of voice."

At this Cullen shook his head. He was not in the least agreeable today, and he would have argued with just about anything. "I ain't goin' stand up there and try no legal wrangling," he said. "I sent word to a lawyer friend to see if he'll come and speak for me. Let him do it."

The feathered brows knit together and Doc frowned. "How you going to pay a lawyer, son?" he asked quietly.

"Out of the tobacco money, if he'll consent to wait," said Cullen. "If he won't, I guess I ain't goin' have counsel. Still, I got to try it. Ain't got ready money to cover a fine, not if it's more than twenty dollars. And half of that's in the bank."

"I'll cover your fine, if it comes to that," said the doctor unhesitatingly. "You got to get out of here and back on your land."

Cullen was so startled at this sudden proffer of the very thing for which he had been dreading having to ask that for a moment he couldn't speak. He gawked at the man who had seen him through his childhood ills, brought his son into the world, seen Mary through her sickness, been like a father to him in a hundred small ways, and his chest constricted painfully. "Doc…" he croaked inarticulately, his head swinging from side to side of its own accord.

"Don't you try and argue with me," Whitehead said firmly. "We'll call it a loan, and you'll pay me when you can. Not when the tobacco money comes in: when you_ really _can, Cullen. And you never know: might not even need to do it anyhow, if that lawyer friend of yours knows his business." He cleared his throat and said with delicate hesitation; "Son, it ain't Melvin Morris, is it?"

"Hell, no!" said Cullen, almost laughing. No doubt that was just what the older man had intended. "I ain't fool enough to use any local lawyer, much less him. No, it's Jim Secrest out in Scooba. Maybe you met him at the Ainsley party?"

Doc shook his head. "I don't recollect," he said. He moved to the desk and whisked the napkin off the basket. An almost sickeningly tantalizing smell of fresh bread filled the small room, and Cullen's empty stomach lurched. "Ellie sent you some things. She figured they'd be feeding you on salt pork and corn pone, and she didn't want Bethel coming to hunt her down for failing to send a little treat when she's just up the road from you."

Unable to control himself, Cullen hurried over to look into the basket. There was a high, round white loaf, a little crock of blackberry preserves, a pat of butter and some snap peas. He only just kept from tearing into the food at once. Instead he smiled and swallowed a mouthful of thick saliva. "Tell her thanks, Doc. That's awful kind," he said. "I'll be sure and tell Bethel she done it."

"I asked about the basket, but you can't take it down to the cells," said Doc Whitehead. "You're welcome to the napkin, though, to wrap it all up in."

"I'll prob'ly ruin it," Cullen warned. "Ain't too clean back there."

"Go on and ruin it, then. I got more."

Doc spread the cloth on the desk and began piling the peas onto it. Unable to resist any longer, Cullen grabbed a plump-looking pod and bit into it. As the older man looked up in mild surprise he grinned around the half-severed vegetable.

"Mighty good," he said thickly. "Must be just about the last of your crop."

"Just about," said Doc. "Ellie put in too many this year: didn't figure on Theo being away. What she's going to do when Ben goes away I don't know. Smother me in food, most likely."

"Same thing happened when I went away," said Cullen. "Only Bethel was cooking too much, not planting too much. The darkies ate everything we growed: a lot more mouths to feed in those days."

"Yeah." Doc fell silent for a moment, transferring the last of the crisp green pods. "Better to carry the bread separate, I think. Don't want it getting damp: it'll molder on you."

Cullen doubted it would last long enough to molder. He certainly had no intention of letting it. He cracked the loaf and slipped the little square of butter into the breach, then tucked it under his arm. "Would you consider stopping in tomorrow?" he asked, a little hesitant. "Just to bring word how Mary's getting on?"

"Of course I will, son," Doc said kindly. "I know how hard it must be, sitting here when you're wanted at home."

The last of Cullen's frayed patience dissolved. "You'll pardon me for saying it, Doc, but the hell you do," he said harshly. "You never been fool enough to try and farm fifty acres of tobacco with three field hands and had one of 'em laid up in bed while you sit in a jail cell useless and what's left of your crop gets overgrown for want of pickers. You never had to wonder how you were going to get in the yams before the first frost when you can't spare a finger from working the cash crop, or how to plow for your winter wheat when the field's full up with rotting corn stalks. You got no idea how hard it is."

"Maybe not," Doc Whitehead admitted gently. His eyes were still patient, and so piercing with perception that Cullen wanted to turn away. He didn't. He faced him squarely and tried to close the shutters of his own heart as best he could instead. "But I do know how hard it is when you're worried that you can't do enough to help the folks you care about."

He clapped a hand on Cullen's shoulder, gripping it bracingly and yet somehow tenderly. Cullen, weary in the wake of his tirade, did not try to move away. He never would have admitted it to anyone, but it was a comfort to know he had Doc to stand beside him in his troubles. It was a hard burden to carry all on his own, even with Mary to encourage him. He needed a strong arm to catch him when he stumbled.

"I'd best let you go," he said finally, once he was sure he could stand to speak the words. "Folks could be trying to find you to see to sick kin."

Doc nodded. "Well. You just try and get plenty of rest," he said. "That's one good thing in all this: if you can't work, at least you can catch up on your sleep."

Cullen swallowed the sarcastic laughter that wanted to bubble up from his innards. He could have done with a rest, it was true, but this was not at all the sort of rest he needed. His body, still knotted with lingering tobacco-picking pains, was now riddled with soreness from standing too long on a hard stone floor, pacing like a caged animal, and trying to sleep while wedged sitting between two rough walls. His head, which should have been free of the grinding ache of tobacco sickness, throbbed with a fresh misery that he could not explain. And his mind was overrun with grim fretting of a sort he could not have imagined a week ago.

"Sure, Doc," he said. "I'll try it."

This time he was impatient, even eager to be back in the stinking, overcrowded little cell. The very second that Joe was out of sight, Cullen was back in the corner, cross-legged with his food in his lap. He tore off a strip of bread and bit into it savagely, scarcely even troubling to swallow. He paused long enough with the next mouthful to dip a corner into the preserves. Then, realizing that attempting to keep hold of the little pot would be more trouble than it was worth, he laid aside the bread entirely. Using his first two fingers as a makeshift spoon, he scooped up the dark, syrupy confection and ate it neat, devouring the whole half-cup and scraping the sides of the jar quite clean. By that time the edge of his hunger was dulled, and he finished the piece of bread more slowly. He chased it down with a few peas, and then forced himself to stop. This food had to last as long as it possibly could: he didn't know when he might have hope of more. He folded the napkin around its fresh green contents and tucked it inside his shirt. The loaf he settled on his knee, one hand spread protectively over it. Then, satiated at least for a little while, he did finally manage to sleep, leaning into the corner with his head lolling against the outer wall.

_*discidium*_

Bethel was bent over the open oven with a long wooden spoon, scooping drippings out of the pan to baste the roasting jackrabbits. Nate had brought them in at noontime, already skinned and cleaned and ready for dressing. The gamey fragrance of the meat filled the kitchen and made Mary's mouth water. She was still wondering at the field hand's ingenuity. He had laid traps yesterday, he had explained with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. Lottie had told him that the doctor said Meg needed meat, so he had got her meat. The rabbits had been lively, and he guessed there was enough for the whole household.

It had been a long day. Mary had been up in the middle of the night to watch the tobacco fires. The slaves had protested this, Bethel arguing that it wasn't fitting, and Elijah warning her that Cullen would not like it. Nate's sole argument had been that he could stand watch for two, and this was the only one Mary did not try to refute. She knew it was his pride talking, and that if the necessity arose he probably could. But he would suffer for it, and his work would suffer, too. No, she had declared in a firm tone that was unmistakably the voice of the mistress. They would keep to the three-watch schedule, and they would all just have to do without nights off until there was someone else to spell them. She had expected further dissention, but it had not come. Whether this was because they saw the soundness of her reasoning or because they had the habit of obedience, she did not know.

She was slicing parsnips into fine coins for frying and watching the twilight gather beyond the open back door, while Gabe played quietly under the kitchen table. The dry cough was still niggling at him, and now and then he snuffled. He was certainly coming down with a cold, and Mary hoped it would prove a mild one. For all Mary's worries about the Mississippi climate, Gabe had been vigorously healthy since his last case of the sniffles in April. She worried that if he fell ill now there would be no one to give him the care and attention he needed – not without neglecting other essential work around the plantation.

The wooden spoon hit the oven door with a dull _clang_ as Bethel straightened suddenly. A moment later it was lying on the top of the stove, abandoned as she hurried to the dining room door and placed a bracing hand on Meg's elbow. "What you doin' up?" she demanded anxiously. "An' dressed?"

Meg was indeed dressed: she had put on what was now her only frock, and had managed to don but not to tie her shoes. She was standing gingerly and there was a thin sheen of perspiration on her forehead, but her careworn face was set in determined lines. "I's jus' fine," she breathed, taking a careful step into the room. She was watching her skirts warily, lest they should snag on something and drag the garment against her bandaged back. "I's well 'nough to be up an' movin'. Anyplace bu' here, I'd been up yest'day at the lates'."

"You do look stronger today," Mary said encouragingly. It was true, but only comparatively. There was a greyish hue to Meg's dark skin, and her eyes were rimmed with red. The angry blotch in the left one gave her a haunted look. But her split lip was healing and her next step was steady. Still, at Mary's words she stiffened, her face turned suddenly and shyly away.

"Yes, Missus," she murmured. "I's stronger."

"Is your back still hurtin', Meg?" Gabe asked, scooting out from under the table to look up at her.

She smiled at him. "Nawsir, Mist' Gabe. Don' hurt so much no more."

"Is you still goin' live in Bet'l's room?" he queried.

"Hush, lovey," Mary breathed. She was trying to catch Meg's eye, but the black woman eluded her gaze.

"Lemme go, Bethel. I can stan'," she whispered.

Mary set down the paring knife and stood, the bench scraping a little as her calf pushed it back. "Meg, you don't need to be up until you're quite well," she said softly, rounding the table to approach her. "Neither Cullen nor I want you to strain yourself."

"Thankee, Missus, that right kin'," said Meg. "But I can' lie there one minute more. Ain't never had two whole days abed since my girl come: I's like to go out my min' in that li'l room."

"Well, then, you's can cut them parsnips an' give Missus Mary a res'," said Bethel stoutly. "Help me get th' supper on 'fore the men come in from them fiel's."

At last Meg raised her eyes, anxiously, and looked at Mary. "Lottie done tol' me you took my turn in the barn las' night, Missus," she said. "That ain' right. You oughts to have woke me."

"I took Cullen's turn," Mary said. "He wouldn't have wanted you to do it."

"Wouldn' wan' you doin' it, neither," muttered Bethel. "Ain' healthful fo' a lady, bein' out in the night air."

"Missus…" Meg's color deepened and she stared down at her feet. "Missus, I can' chop no parsnips fo' you, not now," she said.

"Of course not," Mary soothed. "You can sit and rest and keep us company. If you're feeling well enough tomorrow then perhaps you can do some light work in the kitchen."

"No'm," said Meg. "No'm, ain' that. I's goin' go milk the cows."

"Milk the cows?" Bethel exclaimed, so loudly that Gabe startled, bumping his head against the leg of the table. The heavy piece of furniture shuddered, but the child did not cry out. He just bit his lip and continued watching the three women, avid with curiosity. "You ain' strong 'nough to go milkin' cows!"

"I is," Meg said, and the set of her jaw was just as stubborn as that of the older woman. "I is strong 'nough, an' I's goin' do it. They like to be missin' me; five milkin' I missed, an' Nate done 'em Sunday like he do, makin' seven." Seeing no sign of capitulation in Bethel's eyes, she turned imploringly to Mary. "Missus, they's goin' think I lef' them. They don' never give so much fo' Nate as they do fo' me. An' with Flora come near her time, we's goin' need them other two givin' much as they can."

She was waiting for Mary to pass judgment on the matter, and so was Bethel. Mary's gaze shifted to the hard, dark eyes of the longtime matriarch, and Bethel shook her head from side to side in clear communication of her disapproval. But there was something in Meg's eyes that stirred Mary's heart. Beneath the raw, wounded look she had borne since the whipping there was another light: a fragile, anxious glimmer of need. She was pleading with Mary. Whether she longed to prove herself useful, or whether she was missing the animals to whom she gave such diligent care all year 'round Mary did not know, but the desperation was obvious.

"We'll go together," she said. "I don't want you carrying full milk pails yet: I can do that. And you can show me how to milk a cow."

Bethel opened her mouth in protest, but then saw Meg's expression of grateful relief. "Yass'm, Missus Mary," she said shyly, bobbing a curtsy made clumsy by her ravaged back. "Thankee; I didn' know how I was goin' tote them pails."

"Can you manage alone, Bethel?" Mary asked. "I know I'm not nearly finished."

"Go on, both of you," the old woman sighed. "Bu' don' neither of you strain youselves."

Mary moved towards the door, Meg following close upon her heels before Bethel could change her mind. Gabe got to his feet. "Can I come?" he asked. "_May _I come?"

"No!" Bethel said shortly. She swooped down, picked him up and set him down on the edge of the table. "You's goin' stay right here with me. The cowshed no place fo' li'l boys. That Flora goin' be ornery, close as her calf be. She might jus' kick you, an' how we goin' 'xplain that to your Pappy?"

Mary hurried outside before she could hear Gabe's inevitable question. It had only been a little more than two days, and already she could not bear to listen to her little boy begging to know when his father would be home. He seemed to think that the more often he asked it, the sooner it would come to pass, and it hurt her.

"This way, ma'am," Meg said unnecessarily, gesturing in the appropriate direction. Mary stepped off the stoop and started out, noticing unhappily how Meg walked four respectful steps behind her. They had never been close, for they saw so little of one another, but it still seemed that a fresh gulf now welled between them and it galled her. Still, there was nothing to do but walk on until they came to the pasture. The cows were on their picket lines where Nate had tied them that morning. Meg went to the first one and pressed her lips together, clearly working up the courage to bend.

Mary crouched swiftly, her skirts billowing around her, and seized the stake. It did not come out as easily as she had expected, but by gripping with both hands and twisting sharply she managed to pry it loose. The dark, sticky earth rained down from the spiked bottom, and as Mary rose, Meg took it hurriedly from her and slipped off the rope. She looked as though she wanted to speak, but she could not quite work up the courage. Offering her a little smile, Mary moved towards the next animal.

They led them down to the shed, Meg holding the rope of the heavily pregnant Flora while Mary led the other two. They were drowsy-eyed and docile enough, obviously eager to be milked. Inside the cowshed they were herded into their stalls, and Mary watched Meg to see how to tie off the leads on the heavy iron rings driven into the walls.

"You can give 'em their feed, Missus," Meg said quietly, pointing at the bin and pail. "Six scoops each."

While Mary did this, Meg slipped out of Flora's stall and took the milking pail to one of the other cows. She stroked her flank. "You allus got touch 'em 'fore you sit," said Meg as she dropped the stool and eased herself stiffly down upon it. She hitched up her skirt so that it did not tug. "Lets 'em know where you at, so's they don' get surprised an' kick you."

She dipped a rag into the cow's trough and wiped down the udders. The beast lowed loudly, and Mary had to force herself not to jump. Horses she knew well and understood. Cows were a different matter entirely. In New York, her family had had their milk and cream delivered every morning by a man driving a white cart. Here, she had always before fetched it from the springhouse, at one clear remove from the living, breathing source. She gave Flora her feed, and moved to watch Meg more closely.

She was petting the cow again, bringing her hand down the spotted belly and under to the udder. She took two teats, the left front and the right rear, and settled her hands firmly over them. Her fingers rippled, tightening one at a time, and two streams of warm, frothy milk fell into the bucket. They rang against the tin like chimes. "Firm bu' gentle, that the bes' way," Meg said. "Nate, I think he squeeze jus' a li'l too hard: makes 'em feel like they's in a hurry. Cows don' like t' be hurried."

There was a mewling from the door, and a kitten, likely one of Stewpot's brothers or sisters, came sauntering into the shed. It picked its way over the dirt floor, which was strewn with clean straw, and rubbed its slender body against Meg's leg. To Mary's wonder and secret joy, Meg actually laughed. For a moment the care and strain was gone from her face and she looked her old self again. "You speckled li'l rapscallion!" she chuckled. "You knows it milkin' time, awright!"

She tilted one of her fists and sent a warm stream of milk shooting over the rim of the bucket. The cat sprang forward, mouth open, to catch it. Meg turned back to her work, shaking her head ruefully. Mary, who had watched all this with wonder, found herself smiling broadly.

"What a clever little thing," she said.

Meg glanced up, her brows lifted in surprise. She had forgotten she was not alone. Hurriedly she looked back at the pail, once more avoiding Mary's eyes. "They's one in ev'ry litter get brave an' go explorin'," she murmured. "Ain' content jus' to sit with them other kittens an' catch the mice as wanders by. Thinks fo' hisself, don' do jus' what the others be doin'. Mos' times them ones finds their way here sooner or later."

"Most times?" asked Mary.

Meg shot her a sidelong look. "Sometimes the fox get 'em," she said. "Ain't no easy thing, goin' you' own way."

There was silence for a while, broken only by the cows' contented munching and the occasional bellow from the one by the wall, impatient for the relief of Meg's practiced hands. Flora, her underside heavy with her growing calf, was quiet. She did not need milking: they had been letting her go dry in preparation for the birth. Meg filled one pail and shifted her feet so that Mary could lift it out of her way, and then started on the second.

"Meg," Mary said at last, unable to bear the hush any longer. "Meg, what was done to you… I haven't had the chance to say how sorry I am."

"Yass'm," Meg said. She kept her eyes fixed on the udder, but Mary could tell she was not seeing it. "I know it."

"It should never have happened," Mary faltered. She had to speak, but she just did not know what to say. "You didn't deserve it."

"No'm. Folk mos' gener'ly don'," said Meg. "'Ceptin' mean niggers what beats on weak 'uns, an' maybe some as sets fire to things or tries stealin' the silver. Ones that ought be sol' off south or locked 'way. T'other ones, they don' deserve it. Not jus' fo' bein' sick or wore out, or sneakin' food 'cause their bellies is hurtin', or waitin' roun' to walk their woman home aft' Mist' Sutcliffe get done with her. Don' reckon I deserved it any more or less'n such folk do."

For a moment, Mary couldn't speak. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Waiting to walk their woman home after Mr. Sutcliffe… after what?"

Meg tried to shrug, hissed in unexpected pain, and inadvertently squeezed the teat in her left hand hard enough to make the cow shuffle her front hooves. Hurriedly Meg reached up to pet her, cooing apologetically. "There, girl. That my good girl. Hush now, I's sorry." She resumed the milking, stripping off the last drops before climbing to her feet. "Ain' no good talkin' 'bout it, Missus Mary," she said. "Talkin' ain' never done no one the leas' bit of good."

"Meg?" Mary said, moving to the end of the next stall. Her heart was fluttering. "Meg, what did you mean?"

Meg looked up at her, once more pleading silently with her eyes. The gloom was thick now, but there was enough light left for Mary to see that. "All I meant was I know I didn' deserve what I got," she said softly. "Mist' Cullen don' deserve what he got, neither. Nor do Mist' Sutcliffe. Ain' a one of us deserve what we got."

She reached to wipe the other cow's udder. "Bes' light the lantern, Missus," she said. "Gettin' too dark to see. The matches be on that beam nex' to it."

_*discidium*_

Now Gabe had taken sick.

Doctor Whitehead had reported that it was just a touch of a cold: a runny nose, a dry, occasional cough. But this assurance did not put Cullen's mind at rest in the least. His boy was sick, on top of everything else Mary had to cope with, and he was sitting here helpless and useless and altogether pointless. He hefted himself off the floor, trying ineffectually to dust the seat of his trousers. He had at last given in to the urge to lie down, too exhausted to care any longer, and after a night of tossing and turning on the ground he was filthy and no more rested than he would have been propped against the wall. He ran a hand through his hair, coming away with loose, matted strands, dirty straw, and clumps of indistinguishable muck. Shuddering, he wiped his hand on the trailing tail of his shirt. It had come untucked at some point during the uneasy night, and he had not bothered to straighten it. There wasn't any point. He would be trapped here another four days and nights, caged like badly-behaved dog and tormented by worries about home.

He was hungry again, too. He had eaten the last of Ellie's bread yesterday afternoon, unable to resist the urgings of his stomach. It was now past noon on Friday. If it hadn't been for Brannan's spite, he'd be in court right this minute waiting to say his piece. At least the cell was empty: the others had all gone off to have their chance at justice. Three more had been brought in over the last two days, again crowding the little space to capacity. One had been released shortly after breakfast once Joe Dayton determined he was sober enough to behave. The others, apparently, were entitled to swifter justice than Cullen himself.

He shuffled across the cell and eased himself down on the bare wooden shelf. It was a relief to be up off the floor, but it did not ease his agitation any. He leaned back so that his shoulder blades rested against the wall. Jail-pains were not as deep or pernicious as tobacco-pains, but they ate at the soul. Every little twinge reminded him that he had been sitting here, worthless to his family and his people, for four days now. And his son was sick. He closed his eyes against the sunlight invading the dreary room. It was thin, pale light, filtering through downy grey clouds. It would quite likely rain again tonight. The cotton planters would be frustrated. Good. He hoped Sutcliffe's head burst into flames with the strain of leaving the crop to stand again.

Cullen's mouth was dry, but he lacked the fortitude to bestir himself to fetch a drink of water. It seemed like he had been perishing of thirst the whole time he had been in here. Thirst and impatience. He had just about smacked Edwards last night, for whistling. The sound had gone through his head like an ice pick. He had cause enough to be short-tempered, but that didn't explain why he felt almost compelled to take it out on everyone around him.

He heard the sound of Joe's boots, but he didn't open his eyes. He didn't expect to have another visitor before Tuesday, not unless Doc Whitehead took a notion to come 'round to check on him again. Cullen hoped he wouldn't. He didn't want the man to see him like this: worn-out, disheveled, no doubt stinking like a privy. How he would get himself presentable for court he did not know. A clean vest and jacket might cover a multitude of ills, but he was a reeking mess.

His nostrils perked, drawn to a scent that penetrated the fog of oblivion they had raised in answer to the foul smells of the cell. He inhaled deeply, but it was no more than a wisp of a fragrance more enticing at that moment than anything else in the world. Not even hot, fresh bread, or sizzling beefsteak, or Bethel's fried chicken could have captured his interest or ignited his yearning more than that scent right there. He opened his eyes and his head snapped towards his left shoulder, his tired gaze focusing on Joe where he leaned against the bars, his pipe clamped in his lips. Again he let out a thin stream of smoke, and again Cullen could smell it.

"Here, gimme a puff of that," he said before he knew he intended to open his mouth. He slid off the edge of the bunk and hurried to the bars. "Let me have some."

"Please?" said Joe, stepping back and gripping the bowl protectively.

Now that he was standing nearer Cullen could almost taste it. He couldn't say why, but just then he wanted a drag on that pipe more than anything else in the world. His dully throbbing temples seemed to agree. Just a mouthful of smoke: that was what he needed to make him feel like a man again.

"Please," he said breathlessly. He had not begged for food. He had not begged for water. He had not asked for somewhere clean to lie, or for a blanket to guard him from the chill of October nights under the open window, or even for leniency to allow him to get home swiftly to his people. But if he had to, he was going to beg for a puff of that pipe. "Please, Joe, let me have a taste."

Joe chuckled and held out the pipe, turning it so the stem faced Cullen. He reached, his arm straining against the bars, and grabbed it, lifting it hurriedly to his lips. He inhaled deeply, letting the smoke fill his lungs, and then held his breath. It was cheap stuff, inferior even to his crop of last year. But it tasted sweet and savory upon his tongue and it warmed his chest and as he let out the slender ribbon between his lips he could feel his headache quieting. He sighed, then inhaled again, relishing it.

The deputy watched, clicking his tongue. "Hell, I never took you for much of a smoker," he said.

"I indulge now and then," Cullen mumbled, smoke spilling over his teeth. He took another deep breath through the pipe. The tobacco embers in the bowl blazed. "Damn it, that's good."

"Ain't really," said Joe. "Can't afford the good stuff this time of year. Waitin' for the crop to come in so the price'll drop. Then I'll get me a few ounces of prime tobacco and _really_ enjoy it."

Cullen wasn't really listening. He was clinging to the sensation of the smoke in his throat, his nostrils, the deepest recesses of his lungs. He had forgotten about his grumbling stomach and his sore rump. The headache was gone. He was thinking more clearly than he had in days. Even the tremors in his hands seemed to have stopped, or at least eased up considerably. He took the pipe from his lips and looked at it. How long since he'd last had a smoke? That night he and Tate had argued out by the paddock fence, he thought. He didn't smoke much in summertime anymore, except when social occasions called for it. Didn't feel the urge. But hell, he felt it now.

"You goin' give that back anytime soon?" Joe asked as Cullen took another long draught. "I didn't just come out here so you could commandeer my pipe, you know."

Cullen was abashed, embarrassed by his show of avarice, but not so ashamed of himself that he didn't take one last deep breath of smoke before handing the pipe back to its owner. "Why _did_ you come, then?"

"You got to come with me," said Joe. "You been called up."

"Called up where?" Cullen asked.

The other man laughed. "Court, o'course, where else? Justice White sent word: he's gonna be done early today, so if there's anyone waitin' for Tuesday's session he can take 'em now and save me the trouble of housin' them over the weekend. And that's just you. So come on and get your coat."

He unlocked the door, and for a moment Cullen could only stare at it. The pipe might have cleared his head, but this was a little too much to take in. "Court? Me?" he said. "But my counsel ain't here. My woman… she's back on the plantation. I thought…"

"Don't be such a damned fool, Bohannon!" Joe laughed. "Come on and hurry up, before he changes his mind. You _want_ to sit in here another four days?"

"No," Cullen said. He stepped over the threshold and Joe took hold of his arm, leading him down the corridor at a quick stride. He ducked into the office, leaving Cullen in the doorway, and grabbed his coat and waistcoat from the peg.

"Here, put 'em on," he said. "I'll walk you down myself." He leaned up the stairwell beside the door. "_Girls!_" he bellowed. "I'm goin' down to the courthouse! Somebody get down her and mind the place!"

There was a cantankerous but muffled reply and a sound of pounding feet. Cullen looked down at the garments in his hands, still bewildered. "Can I at least wash my face first?" he asked.

"No time!" Joe said cheerfully. "Bailiff will need to sign you in and sort out your details. You wanted to wash your face, you shouldn't have dallied about, smoking. Come on; hurry up; get movin'!"

He opened the front door of the jailhouse and shoved Cullen out into the street. He stumbled, managing to catch himself but not to make sense of what was happening. He fumbled with his vest, trying to get his arms into the right holes, as Joe hurried him up the street towards the stately brick edifice of judgment overlooking Meridian.


	44. Summary Justice

**Chapter Forty-Four: Summary Justice**

A clerk took Cullen's name, age, and place of residence, and conferred briefly with Joe Dayton concerning the charge. Then Cullen was led away to a room adjacent to the court, where those waiting to be called were gathered. There were eight of them in all: five white men, two Negroes and a woman. There were no benches, no bucket of drinking water, no conveniences of any kind: only eight bodies in an empty space covered with grimy, flaking whitewash. The woman was dressed neatly in a worn but clean calico frock, and two of the men had obviously not been incarcerated. Their faces were scrubbed and their hair and beards combed. One was lean, the other prosperous, and both were studiously keeping their eyes to themselves. The Negroes were pressed into a corner, shoulder to shoulder and watching the newcomer with wary eyes. Cullen scarcely glanced at them. He walked past the third man, disheveled and dirty but unfamiliar to him, and moved to stand next to the thin Cracker boy who had shared his cell.

"Ain't called you up yet?" he asked.

The boy had his hands tucked into the frayed sleeves of his shirt. He now wore a ragged wool vest that was missing all but its top button, but he had no coat. He shook his head. "Soon," he said. "Got to be soon."

"No cause to be nervous," Cullen said, wishing he could believe it himself. "You only stole some milk. It ain't a hanging offence."

"Maybe it ain't," said the boy; "but what'm I gonna do when they're done with me? Can't pay no fine. Can't even pay my board at the jail."

Cullen considered pointing out that in that case he should not have asked for it, but did not. The boy looked starved. Three meals a day was likely something he couldn't have turned down. "Ain't you got no folks?" he asked instead.

"Did. I runned off. Thought I'd find me work on the railroad, but all they want's great big men. Said I's too small even to put up a chimney." He looked down at his bare feet, wiggling his toes against the dusty floorboards. The knobs of his ankles stood out huge against his skinny legs.

Cullen watched him for a moment or two, thoughtful. "Why'd you run off?" he said at last. "Father beat you?"

"Not much," he said. "Didn't drink or nothin', neither. Works the riverfront in Vicksburg. I got sick of countin' cotton bales an' givin' orders to other people's darkies. They didn't never listen to me. Thought I'd see something of the country." He shrugged his bony shoulders. "Didn' get very far."

"Far enough," said Cullen. "Clear across the state. You want to keep going?"

"Dunno," said the boy. "Thought I wanted to see the ocean. Charleston Harbor. Richmond. Maybe even Washington. Places where things _happen_, you know? Now?" He hung his head. "Now I'd just settle for a plate of my ma's fried chicken."

The other man, the one who must have also come from the jail, laughed. "Ain't you a milksop!" he wheezed. In a nasal falsetto he mocked; "'I miss my ma's cookin'! I wan' go home!'"

"Shut your mouth," Cullen snapped. "A man's got a right to want what he wants, even if it is just a plate of fried chicken. Don't mind him, son. So you'd go back if you got the chance?"

The boy glanced at the other man, saw he was no longer looking in their direction, and nodded miserably. "Ma'd jus' 'bout die of shame if she knew where I was," he said. "Always been so proud there weren't no convicts on her side of the family."

"You ain't goin' to be a convict for stealing a pail of milk," said Cullen. "The judge'll give you a stern talking-to and maybe a fine. If you can't pay it he'll set you a short term in jail."

The boy looked up hopefully. "He will? How long?"

"Don't know," said Cullen. "I ain't a lawyer."

"Would he send me down longer if I done something worse?" the boy asked. There was a calculating look in his eyes that made Cullen uneasy. He was thinking about shelter from the rain and three meals a day provided by Mrs. Dayton. He wasn't considering the other side of it at all.

"That ain't a path you want to go down, son," Cullen said. "You take what the judge doles out, and then you get on and make something of your life, you hear? You miss your ma's cooking, go home. She's probably worried sick, and your pa'd just be happy to know you're safe. Don't you think that's so?"

The youth shook his head. "Can't go back," he said. "Got no work, got no money, it rains most nights now and I ain't got no shoes. It's a hundred and fifty miles back to Vicksburg, and I can't walk it barefoot."

It was on the tip of Cullen's tongue that the boy would be surprised what a body could do when it had to. At fifteens it had never even occurred to Cullen that he could work twelve to fourteen hours a day stooping in the tobacco and then sit up half the night building crates and tending curing fires, but he had done it and would soon, he hoped grimly, be doing it again. But the tired, pinched young face stopped him. What good would it do to tell him to try and walk it if he wanted home so badly? He hadn't been served well by the advice of his elders, or he wouldn't have ended up here. A boy with a family to go back to had no business stealing milk just to fight off starvation.

"So you get a job and you earn the money for rail fare," said Cullen. "You said you can count. You figure any?"

The boy shrugged. "I can do sums if they ain't too complicated," he said. "And I can read. Had me six years of schooling."

"That's more'n the deputy who keeps the jail got," said Cullen. "And he got himself a good job and a comfortable home and a family. Don't waste your time trying to get laboring work. Try shops, lumberyards, the eating house: places like that can always use a likely boy. Might not be interesting straight off, but it'll feed you and give you something to put by if you don't spend more'n you have to just to eat. In a couple months you'll have the money to get back home. Or if you're contented, stay, but don't you let yourself get locked up again. That ain't a life for any man."

The boy's color was high, but he nodded. "Yassir," he mumbled. He looked up hopefully. "You ain't lookin' to hire anyone, is you?"

Cullen shook his head. "Wish I could, son. I got more work than I can handle, but I ain't got money for wages."

The boy opened his mouth to say something more, but at that moment the door to the courtroom opened and the bailiff called; "Henry Jacobs?"

"That's me," the youth said, suddenly breathless. He cast an anxious glance at Cullen, who put on a small smile and nodded reassuringly. The boy hurried after the bailiff and the door closed again, and Cullen was left alone to fret about his own case.

The afternoon dragged on as one by one the others were taken up before the judge. Cullen stood until his heels burned with standing, then paced until his hips ached. Then he squatted in the corner by the door, and finally sat down with one knee tucked up and the other leg stretched before him. He tried to work out what he would say to George White; how he would explain what had happened and try to reason with the judge. He knew he could expect a fair hearing, but what concerned him was how the whole thing looked. If the charge was for letting Meg leave his land, he was guilty. If the charge was for letting her wander loose, he wasn't; but that didn't mean he couldn't be made to look it. At the very least, with the hearing pushed up so unexpectedly Abel Sutcliffe wouldn't be present to testify against him. That was something. Sheriff Brannan might be in the man's pocket, but he didn't have the spite that Sutcliffe possessed – or so Cullen devoutly hoped.

Finally he was the only person left in the room. His throat was dry and scratchy, and his exhaustion was catching up to him again. He hadn't had more than an hour of unbroken sleep since Sunday evening, and the headache that had been so neatly banished by Joe's pipe was creeping back again. He wasn't at his best at all.

He knew he didn't look it, either, and this thought got him to his feet. He tucked his shirttails into his trousers, straightened his vest and buttoned his coat. He raked his fingers through his hair, trying to make it lie neatly and picking away the worst of the straw and debris. There was nothing much he could do about his dirty hands, but he had Doc Whitehead's napkin in his pants pocket. He took it out, spit on a corner to wet it, and tried to scrub his face. Dark streaks of grime showed on the white cloth, but without a looking-glass he could not be certain he had got all of it. When a second corner came away almost clean, he wiped his hands as best he could and then folded the napkin and tucked it away. His battered work-boots and filthy trousers did little to help his appearance, but he could no more remedy that than he could rid himself of the stink of sweat, excrement and stale prison air.

The rain had started. He could hear it pattering on the slate roof, and see the streaks of water on the panes of the window high above. Where had all that rain been in September, when it was wanted? He wondered whether it was raining at home, too. The thought of Nate and Elijah toiling on in the wet, trying and failing to keep up the pace needed to bring in the last of the prime leaves turned Cullen's empty stomach. The rain might help the tops to mature a little more, but if there weren't enough hands to pick them that didn't matter at all.

"Cullen Bohannon," said the bailiff, startling him from that grim reflection. Cullen turned, scrubbing slick palms against the front of his coat. He scolded himself. He was no coward. Why was he so nervous about stepping out in front of young George White? Even if he was a Justice of the Peace, what was the worst he could do? At least in his court Cullen knew he'd have a chance to be heard.

The courtroom was in a state of disruption as those who had come to watch or testify at earlier hearings edged out of the gallery. The semiweekly sessions addressed not only misdemeanors and minor offences under the law, but property disputes and probate hearings and other civil matters. Cullen was shown to the defendant's box, a raised platform with a gate and a railing. There were iron rings affixed to the front to which shackles could be locked, for the room was also used for criminal trials. The benches reserved for a jury stood empty today: these petty matters were decided by judge alone.

Sheriff Brannan and the deputy who had accompanied him on the morning of Cullen's arrest were seated at the table reserved for the state's prosecution. Brannan felt the prisoner's eyes upon him and twisted in his seat, grinning lazily before leaning back in his chair. Cullen stepped up into the dock as the bailiff nudged him in the ribs, gripping the rail so that he did not fidget. He locked his left knee to brace himself, but kept the right loose. There was a tin pitcher on the table before the sheriff, weeping beads of condensation in the heat of the heretofore crowded courtroom. Cullen's tongue, rough and swollen with thirst, crept over his lower teeth towards his dry lips, and he forced himself to look away. He fixed his eyes on the bar instead, where the judge's seat was raised up above the rest of the court in the timeless tableau of majesty and justice.

George White sat alone, the seats on either side of him empty. The broad desk was strewn with papers: details of cases, notes from books of precedent, and other detritus. He had a pen and inkwell close at hand, and he was reading something the clerk of the court had just handed up to him. He glanced up at the defendant's dock in an idly curious manner, looked back at the paper for a moment, and then raised his eyes again as he recognized Cullen. A furrow of puzzlement appeared against his left eyebrow, and then smoothed into a look of placid disinterest. Judicial disinterest, thought Cullen with a breath of relief. He had been telling himself for days that George was a fair judge, and this only reinforced that perception. Given Abel Sutcliffe's influence in the county, and particularly with Justice Graham, Cullen knew he was lucky to have this sudden reprieve.

"Order!" called George, rapping with his knuckles on the polished wood. The throng of murmuring voices abated a little. "Order! Clear out or sit down: this court will come to order."

Those who were making their exodus scrambled to do so. The others hurriedly took their seats. From the corners of his eyes Cullen could see that the gallery was still a little better than half-full. His was surely one of the last hearings of the day, but the court was a source of great interest and entertainment for the public. Those who had an interest in one piece of business often tarried to see the rest of the cases, and some people came out just for the spectacle. The people of Lauderdale County took a lively, almost unhealthful interest in the affairs of their neighbors, and the court was an excellent place to collect gossip.

The bailiff stepped forward, announcing in a stentorian voice that echoed off the rafters; "The court will hear the case of The People v. Cullen Bohannon, for failure to exert appropriate control of a slave and for permitting said slave to go at large and not in the execution of any lawful business."

Cullen was swiftly sworn in, as was the sheriff. Then George consulted the stack of papers before him, shuffled them briefly and found the one he wanted. He frowned as he studied it, then looked up at Cullen and surveyed the court. "Where is the slave in question?" he asked.

"She has not been presented, Your Honor," the bailiff said.

"The prisoner was instructed to make arrangements to have her present," Sheriff Brannan said, standing up with one hand planted on his table. "I was real clear about that, Your Honor."

Cullen's temper flared. "I was told my case was to be heard Tuesday," he said. "I made arrangements for my wife to bring my woman into town then."

"I see," George said. "And where is she now, Mr. Bohannon?"

"At home," said Cullen. Surely this was obvious. He drew a thin breath through his nose. He had to remain calm, although his pulse was racing and Brannan's lazy smirk was not putting him at ease in the least. "She's back on my place. I was hauled out to court with two minutes' notice: no one gave me the chance to send for her."

"Did you ask for it?" inquired George mildly, glancing at another paper.

"No…" Cullen's heart hammered heavily. He hadn't known he had to ask for such a thing. No one had told him. It hadn't even occurred to him that he would still be expected to present Meg, with his case so abruptly pushed onto today's docket.

George hummed thoughtfully. "So the slave in question is on your property – your plantation property, I presume?"

"Ain't got no other property," said Cullen. His irritation rose and he added; "You know that."

"For the record of the court, it must be clarified," George said. There was nothing in his demeanor of the affable, uncertain young gentleman whom Cullen had helped in the matter of his gaming debts or advised in the matter of his labor troubles. He had the dignity of a practiced magistrate and the gravity of a Superior Court judge. "What distance from the court is your place of residence, at which the slave in question may be found?"

"Six miles," Cullen said. A thin trickle of perspiration was creeping under his collar and he forced his face to remain impassive. "Takes a little less than an hour to get out there at a comfortable pace."

"Mmm. And an hour back with the woman," mused George. "Well, we don't have time to wait now. It's a shame you did not think to send word the moment you were called up into court, Mr. Bohannon." Turning to the clerk he said; "Make a note that the defendant has failed to present the transgressing slave to the court as ordered, but that at the discretion of the court the hearing will continue regardless."

"Your Honor, I move that the court hold the defendant in contempt for his failure to carry out its instruction," said Brannan. "Mr. Bohannon was told, more than once, that he had a duty to make the Negress appear. When he requested to be detained in her place, I told him—"

A startled murmur rippled through the room, and set Cullen's teeth on edge. What did these fools think, that he had turned up from home looking as he did just to show disdain for the legal process? Obviously he had spent the last few days in prison: they could not be shocked at that. But of course Brannan had longed to make obvious the most irregular aspect of the case; not for the court of law, but for the court of public opinion.

"Order, please," said George. The spectators fell silent. There was a flash of white in the corner of Cullen's left eye, but he could not turn to follow it because to do so he would have to look towards Brannan. His resentment against the man was bubbling hotly, and if he was going to keep a rein on his temper he had best just keep his gaze fixed on the judge. "I do not deem it necessary to hold Mr. Bohannon in contempt for what appears to be the result of the confusion surrounding the unexpected expediency of the court," he said. "However, the clerk may note that some prejudice must be held for failing to make every attempt to secure the presence of the slave in question."

"Now wait just a minute!" Cullen burst out. "What the hell else could I have done?"

White fixed him with a very steady eye. "Mr. Bohannon, this is a court of gentlemen," he said. "I will thank you to attend to your language. In answer to your question, you could have asked the bailiff if word could be sent to your home that the woman should come to court at once."

"Could word have been sent?" asked Cullen, looking at the bailiff. He remembered too late that he was supposed to address his question to the judge, but George chose to overlook the direction of his gaze.

"I don't rightly know," he said. "Bailiff? Could word have been sent in the time the defendant was waiting?"

The bailiff shrugged. "Reckon it might've," he said; "but I don't see how we'd have got the woman back here in time."

"Nevertheless," said George as he turned back to the dock; "it was your responsibility to try, and so some prejudice must be noted in the record."

This was ridiculous, but Cullen did not protest. It would only make matters worse.

"How's the court supposed to ensure the slave's properly chastised?" demanded Brannan. "She's meant to be here so Your Honor can bring her to see the error of her ways and correct the moral deficit that encouraged her to put her master in this position in the first place."

Now Cullen's head whipped to the side, almost of its own accord. "Meg ain't got no moral deficit!" he snapped. "She's a good woman, and she didn't do nothing wrong! She asked me that morning if she could go over to Hartwood, and I told her she might!"

Brannan grinned, and George cleared his throat. "Mr. Bohannon, please address yourself to the court," he said. "Now, you say 'that morning' in reference to the morning of Sunday, the twenty-first of October, is that correct?"

"That's correct," said Cullen, forcing himself to take a steadying breath.

"Tell me what happened," said George.

"I was out in the tobacco barn with my boy, tending the fires," said Cullen. There was a rustle in the crowd at this, as people whispered amongst themselves in reaction to this affirmation of popular knowledge. "Meg came in to see me and said she was going to visit her Peter on Hartwood Plantation."

"That would be Meg, a Negro female aged twenty-nine, a resident of your plantation and your slave by right of inheritance?" George clarified, gesturing at the clerk.

"Right," said Cullen.

"And what did this slave say to you?"

"She asked if it was all right with me that she went. I told her it was, and reminded her that her husband was welcome to visit her on my land, too," said Cullen. "She told me he couldn't get away at this time of year, being a foreman, and that she was going to get along over there if I had no objection."

"And you had no objection," said George.

"None," Cullen confirmed. "Meg and Peter were married on my land twelve years ago, when my father was still master. A traveling preacher performed the ceremony. They been going back and forth between the two plantations ever since, chiefly on Sundays. They have a daughter; she's eleven now."

"That ain't relevant, Your Honor," protested the sheriff. "Slave marriages ain't binding under the law!"

George's lips pursed thinly. "This court don't need reminding what is binding under the law, Sheriff, thank you," he said. "Slave marriages got no legal standing, but they are well established in the traditions of the nation and therefore have some value in determining cases such as these. It is significant that the slave in question was visiting a Negro with whom she had contracted offspring." He nodded at Cullen. "Go on."

"That's it," said Cullen. "She went off to see him, and I didn't think no more about it until late that night, when I got up to take my turn at the fire and found Meg hadn't showed up for her watch. It weren't like her, but I thought…" He shook his head as a hot rush of self-loathing washed over him. He had actually believed that Meg had just got a little carried away in her lovemaking, while all the time she had been chained up in one of Sutcliffe's outbuildings, torn and bleeding and terrified.

"What about the apples?" said Brannan shrewdly.

Cullen frowned. "Apples?" he echoed. His mind couldn't light upon any memory of apples, but his recollection was not helped by the churning of his stomach or the sudden flood of saliva that filled his mouth at the thought of food. It was going on twenty-eight hours since he had last eaten.

Brannan's lip curled, and the deputy beside him snorted softly. The sheriff smiled up at the judge. "Your Honor, when I questioned the accused on the morning of the twenty-second, he claimed that he sent the woman with a gift of apples for his neighbor's foreman. Now it seems he has no memory of giving any such instruction."

Now Cullen remembered. He had said that, all right, but only because Sutcliffe had said he had the right to whip Meg because she was on his land without lawful business. It had been a half-cocked attempt by Cullen to deflect the blame onto the other planter. "I only said that 'cause you and Abel Sutcliffe had no right to whip my woman!" he snapped.

"So you lied?" said the sheriff. "To an officer of the law discharging his duty to protect the community from runaway niggers?" He gestured helplessly at Justice White. "Your Honor, you got to see the accused is not to be trusted. If he cannot be trusted in a moment of heated argument, he clearly cannot be trusted in court after having days to consider his testimony!"

"Are you calling me a liar?" Cullen hissed. "I've taken a lot from you this last week, Brannan, but I ain't goin' take that." He looked at George, hating the way he had to crane his neck to meet the younger man's eyes. It was demeaning – no doubt the intention. "It weren't a lie, exactly. Meg said she had apples for Peter, and I said it was all right if she took 'em, but to ask Bethel – that's my head woman – for some next time instead of saving 'em up out of her own food."

"So you did not send her with the apples for the foreman," said George; "but more accurately, you sent the apples with her."

"I s'pose," said Cullen, a trifle lost in the semantics.

"That is nothing more than a little imprecise phrasing, Sheriff," George declared. "In _a moment of heated argument_, as you call it, surely that is completely understandable. I do not believe it harms Mr. Bohannon's credibility in any way."

Encouraged by this, Cullen said; "They had no right to beat her. She was there on lawful business. Carrying freight, that's what he called it." He pointed at Brannan. "Said if she was carrying freight or bringing letters, fetching a doctor or—"

Brannan laughed. "Three apples for a Negro foreman? Hardly a matter of business."

Cullen's neck pivoted slowly, and he could feel his rage smoldering in his pupils. "How'd you know there was three apples?" he hissed.

And that's when he saw him, seated in the front row at the far corner of the gallery, pristine in his white suit with his hat on his knee, watching the entire spectacle with avid eyes and an indolent smile. Abel Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe, who should have been seven miles away to Meg's six, was sitting there in court although supposedly the case had only just been moved up the docket. Cullen's jaw slackened and his eyes grew wide. He could neither breathe nor move his head, and the only thing that he could think was that this was not right, not right at all. There was something going on here; somehow Sutcliffe had played upon the system once again and twisted it to his advantage and Cullen's detriment.

"The question of apples is irrelevant." George was speaking again, but Cullen could hardly hear him. The blood was ringing in his ears, and his ribs were heaving with impotent fury. "And we are not gathered to discuss a case of unlawful whipping. We are here to determine whether Mr. Bohannon did, on the twenty-first of October, permit his female slave to go at large in violation of the law of Mississippi. Now, Mr. Bohannon has admitted to giving the woman permission to leave his property that day. It falls to you, Sheriff, to prove that upon doing so she proceeded to go at large."

"She weren't supervised, were she?" said the Sheriff. "What else does 'at large' mean?"

"Generally under the law it is held to mean that a piece of human or animal property is permitted to wander under its own will and power, without adequate supervision from its owner or the owner's lawful proxy," said White.

"In that case, I'd like to have my witness testify," said Brannan. "Mr. Sutcliffe? If you'd please step down here."

With a courteous nod, the planter rose from his seat and approached the court. Cullen tracked him with wary eyes as he crossed to the stand from which witnesses testified. He gave his name and place of residence for the clerk, and was sworn into the court, and all the while Cullen studied him with the same watchful caution with which a hawk watches an eagle. Sutcliffe was a predator, but Cullen had talons too and if he saw the chance he intended to use them. If he saw the chance.

"Mr. Sutcliffe," George said when the rituals were concluded. "What is your part in all of this?"

"I am the owner of Hartwood Plantation, Your Honor," he drawled, his voice pleasant and courteous. It was a stark contrast to Cullen's own reluctant recounting of facts that were known to everyone in the court, and Cullen could not help wishing he had been a little less combative. "I also possess the slave known as Peter, whom the accused's errant woman claimed to be visiting in the capacity of broad wife. My overseers discovered her on my land on the date in question, and I detained her, believing her to have run away from her lawful master. I asked her to produce written proof of his permission to be off his land, and she could not do it."

"She'd been going back and forth for years!" cried Cullen, his thin control snapping. Intellectually he knew that this was what Sutcliffe wanted, but he could not help himself. The irrational, unreasonable unfairness of the situation gored his patience to the core. "Never, not once has she needed written permission!"

"I'll thank you to contain your outbursts, Mr. Bohannon, and allow the witness to speak," said George calmly, every inch a judge. "You will have your opportunity to defend yourself and your slave in due course. Mr. Sutcliffe. What did you do then?"

"It was late Sunday evening; I was called from my supper to attend to the trespasser," Sutcliffe said. "I do not expect my people to work on the Sabbath, not even… what was it, Bohannon? Tending fires? In the tobacco barn?"

"I keep the Sabbath the best I know how," Cullen growled. "For my slaves as well as myself. There's some work just can't stop, and you know it."

"Hmm. I don't recall seeing you in church this Sunday," said Sutcliffe silkily. Then turning back to the judge, he went on. "As it was the Lord's Day, I determined it was best to deal with the matter as I could at once, and then to detain the Negress until morning when the sheriff could be fetched. I therefore administered ten lashes, as the law allows any plantation owner to do when he apprehends a slave on his land without her owner's permission."

"She had my damned permission!" Cullen shouted. His fist came down on the rail of the box. That blinding frustration that came from the feeling that no one was listening to him welled up again.

George rapped on the table before him. "Mr. Bohannon, I won't remind you again," he said sternly. "Be quiet and let this man say his piece."

Seething but helpless, Cullen nodded tersely. After a moment, Sutcliffe continued.

"At dawn I sent one of my overseers to fetch the sheriff. He took the slave into his custody, and gave her some additional strokes as it is his duty to do for a runaway slave."

"She weren't a runaway," Cullen protested before he could bite his tongue. At George's look he wished that he had. "I'm sorry, Your Honor," he mumbled, surprising himself with the sudden show of humility.

"Once more, and I will have you removed from the court," George warned. His expression was stony and stern, but his voice very low. "Then I will have to decide the matter in your absence. You don't want that, Cullen. Be quiet." He turned to Sutcliffe. "If the woman was off her master's land with permission – written or not – she is not a runaway, Mr. Sutcliffe."

"Yes, so I now understand," said Sutcliffe. "However, at the time I did not know she had her master's permission. She had no proof of it. The sheriff and I acted in good faith."

Cullen couldn't say for certain about the sheriff, but Sutcliffe certainly had not. Whipped Meg's back to ribbons, in good faith? Another angry protest welled up, but he closed his throat and choked on it.

George was looking pensively at the sheet of paper in front of him. He dipped his pen and made a quick notation. "Have you anything to add to this case, aside from your testimony that it was you who found the woman, and that Mr. Bohannon later confirmed in your presence that she was off his land with his knowledge and consent, visiting her husband?" he asked.

Sutcliffe's slow smile sent a sickening fear through Cullen's viscera. He had seen that smile too many times before, and it always presaged something he had not anticipated and would be ill-equipped to fight in the heat of his first reaction.

"Yes, Your Honor," he said. "The Negress was not only visiting her husband. On her arrival in my slave quarters she stopped at the cabin of a field hand who had been punished the day before for failing to dedicate himself to his work. She conversed with his wife and then took over the tending of his injuries. She gave instructions to the daughter of the house, and proceeded to give my female slave advice on how to deport herself. In short, she was agitating discontent on my plantation."

This was the first that Cullen had heard of Meg stopping to help another slave – a slave, so it seemed, who had himself been whipped. It was like Meg to do such a thing; she was a kind-hearted woman. But it also cast the case in a very different and not at all favorable light. His instinctive protestation was quelled when George caught his eyes and shook his head tersely and almost imperceptibly. Recalling his warning only just in time, Cullen kept silent. His shoulders slumped and his head began to throb ferociously. If Sutcliffe had persuaded Brannan to bring a greater charge of agitation and breach of the peace, he and Meg were both in almost too much trouble to contemplate.

"We are not considering a charge of agitation," George said firmly. "We are considering whether the accused permitted his slave to go at large."

"Precisely," said Mr. Sutcliffe. "If Mr. Bohannon did indeed send his woman onto my land for the express purpose of visiting her husband, then he cannot truly be considered to have allowed her to go at large. My prior arrangement with Mr. Bohannon's father allowed the Negress access to my land for that purpose, to which I consented out of courtesy to my friend and neighbor in the hope that his woman might conceive and therefore provide him with additional slaves. In such a situation I was a proxy to the accused's father, and my own supervision and that of my overseers would be deemed adequate under the law to mitigate the charge that the woman was going at large."

George's lips parted a little as he listened to this. It was a cogent argument, and in it Cullen could recognize the very thing he had tried to express to Doc Whitehead. He had not possessed the presence of mind or the legal alacrity to phrase it so coolly, but it was just what he had meant. Unable to quite believe that Sutcliffe was making his case for him, he was therefore unsurprised when the man went on.

"_However_," he cooed; "if Mr. Bohannon gave her permission to leave his land, whereupon she meandered through my cotton and my sweet potato crop, examined some Negro infants, greeted an old man, wandered into a cottage and offered nursing services to a field hand, and gave advice – some might even say _instruction_ – to a young woman, left food with the family in question, then subsequently visited my foreman and, instead of copulating with him as was the intention of the original agreement, fell to discussing matters of labor, distribution of rations, and the general welfare of my slaves… if she did all this, Your Honor, then she was clearly wandering under her own will and power. If she did so without the direct supervision of Mr. Bohannon, then she was going at large, for I assure you she did not do so under _my _supervision, which extended only so far as allowing the mating act between her and my former foreman."

The courtroom was silent. Those among the spectators who had followed this were mulling it over. Those who lacked the education or intelligence were awed by the elegant legal phrasing. Brannan was nodding, and the bailiff had his hands clasped behind his back. The clerk's pen flew, recording the last few words, but it seemed scarcely to whisper over the page. George was studying Cullen pensively, but Cullen had eyes only for Abel Sutcliffe. His reflexive rage was held at bay by a bewilderment he resented but could not shake. Had Meg done all of these things? And if she had, how did Sutcliffe know about it? Someone must have informed on her. It was done; one darky would tattle upon another to curry some favor with the master. But it was contrary both to human nature and to the unwritten codes by which the slaves governed their own affairs in the small world of a plantation. If it was true, it was a terrible betrayal of trust. And it was disastrous to this case.

"Mr. Bohannon?"

He was tugged abruptly out of his thoughts by the pointed query of the judge. He shook himself, tearing his eyes from his wealthy neighbor. "Wha… I'm sorry, George, could you repeat that?" he said hoarsely.

"You will address me as Your Honor, or Justice White," George corrected placidly. "I asked whether you were aware that your woman had done these things after you gave her permission to leave your land."

"No," Cullen said. He glanced sidelong at Sutcliffe. "No, I didn't."

"Then you did not instruct her to do them?" asked George.

"Of course not!" Cullen was coming out of his shock now, and ascending into anger. "But if it happened, I can tell you right now it ain't like he's telling it! Examined some infants? You know what women are like: they'll always stop to look at a baby. And greeting an old man, that's just basic courtesy. And what's my Meg supposed to do if she sees some boy whipped raw, and this young woman trying to help him? She'll stop and help, of course, and give whatever advice she can. Older slaves always teach the younger ones: we rely on 'em to do it so the young folks know what's wanted of them. As for the rest of it… well, I don't know about the rest of it, but I'm damned sure Meg was only doing what she thought was right. I trust her judgment: she wouldn't do nothing untoward or subversive. She's a good woman."

George's brows knit together high above the bridge of his nose. Brannan's foot stamped with a sound that was uncannily like vindication. And an enormous smile spread across Sutcliffe's face. "There you have it, Your Honor," he said softly. "He trusts her judgment. He let her off his land to do _what she thought was right_. That's your verdict right there, clear as day."

"I'll thank you not to instruct this court, Mr. Sutcliffe," George said. There was a dazed look in his eyes as he tore them away from Cullen. "Please step down. Your further testimony is not required."

Sutcliffe rose and strolled from the stand. As he passed the dock he reached out to pat the back of Cullen's hand, which had a white-knuckled grip upon the rail. The muscles of his arm tensed with the urge to smack the man full across the face, but somehow his fingers would not release their desperate hold. With a condescending smirk, the older man passed by, leaving Cullen mute and immobile.

George dipped his pen again and scribbled several hasty lines. He inhaled very deeply and let out the breath slowly through his nostrils. "Cullen Bohannon," he said, enunciating carefully. "You have been charged with allowing your slave to go at large on Sunday, the twenty-first of October of this Year of Our Lord, 1860. By your own admission you gave the Negress Meg permission to leave your property on that date, assuming that she was going to Hartwood Plantation to visit her husband. You have also stated clearly that you trust this woman's judgement, implying that you permit her to make her own decisions both on your land and abroad – as it is clear from the witness's sworn testimony she did."

He folded his hands and squared his shoulders. His white silk stock rippled as he swallowed. "I am therefore left with no alternative but to find you guilty under the law of the State of Mississippi," he said. "Now that I have so ruled, the law requires me to impose a fine upon you in an amount not more than fifty dollars and not less than twenty. I do not feel that this case warrants the maximum penalty, as clearly you acted in good faith and not out of any desire to subvert the order of the county. However, you are held in prejudice for failing to make every effort to ensure the slave in question appeared as ordered, and I am also troubled by the clear implication that this is not the first such offence that you have committed. Therefore I am assigning a fine of thirty-five dollars, to be paid to the clerk of the court before your release from the custody of the county. This case is now resolved, and court is adjourned."

He got to his feet, and there was a scrambling all around to do likewise. Cullen, already standing, was scarcely aware of the commotion around him except to reflect that his must indeed have been the final case of the day. The bailiff took his arm and tugged him down out of the dock, and Sheriff Brannan winked at him. Blinded by helpless wrath and still struggling to wrap his mind around what had happened, he meekly allowed the bailiff to herd him out of the courtroom.


	45. The Long Way Home

**Chapter Forty-Five: The Long Way Home**

There was a small throng about the desk of the clerk assigned to take payment of fees and fines, but at least the office was at the front of the courthouse and so equipped with two large windows. Cullen slipped through the crowd of bodies and sat down upon the broad brick sill of one of these, leaning his shoulder against the casement and taking the weight off his smarting feet. The clamor of voices thundered in his aching head, and he wanted nothing more than to be out of here and on his way home, but of course he could not go. Lacking the will to jostle with the others he waited as each had his turn. When at last the room was quiet he finally bestirred himself and approached the desk.

"Bohannon?" the clerk asked.

"That's right," said Cullen. His voice grated shallowly. His throat was dry and he was bitterly thirsty. The thirst was almost the worst of it: worse than the aches and the exhaustion; worse than the sore head; almost but not quite worse than the humiliating and bewildering defeat he had suffered. It had all happened so quickly, and he still did not quite understand how it had all gone so vastly awry.

"Thirty-five dollars," read the man, consulting the paper bearing Cullen's name and details.

"I ain't got it, not on me," said Cullen. "I need to make arrangements."

"Nothing on here about arrangements," the clerk said. "Thirty-five dollars, payable before you're to be released from the custody of the county." He read a little further and frowned. "For permitting a slave to go at large? Whyn't they just arrest the slave?"

Cullen did not feel equal to offering this explanation. "There got to be some provision for a man to get money from home, or the bank," he said.

"If you're paying out of the bank I'm authorized to take a draft," said the clerk. "Are you literate, or do you need me to draw it up so you can make your mark?"

"Hell, do I really look that bad?" Cullen snorted. "I can write my own draft. Only I ain't got thirty-five dollars to draw against."

"You'll have to pay it cash, then," said the clerk. "Best send word home."

Cullen was about to ask how the hell he was supposed to do that if they wouldn't let him out of custody to hunt down an errand-boy when the door from the courtroom opened and George White came in. His stock was loosened and draped around the back of his neck, his hat was in his hand, and his greatcoat was slung over the opposite arm. He frowned ever so briefly and strode up to the desk. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"Nawsir, Your Honor," said the clerk. "Just seeing the last of them through. Looks like this one might be spending another night in jail while he waits for someone to bring money."

The young man's eyes shifted to Cullen, who fixed his gaze instead upon the sheet of paper the clerk was holding. "From home?" he asked.

"I got to make arrangements," said Cullen flatly. Doctor Whitehead's promise was foremost in his mind, but Doc had surely intended to be present at the hearing and to resolve the fine straight away. Loath though he was to be beholden to any man, Cullen did not know where else to turn. Every cent he had would not be enough to cover the fine, and he could not sit in prison while Mary tried to sell a hog or raise a loan to meet the balance. He had no choice but to avail himself of Doc's kindly offer, give him what little gold they had left, and hope there would be enough money from the sale of the tobacco to repay the balance promptly at the end of next month.

"Court order says he's to remain in custody 'til he pays," the clerk said. "Standard practice when a man's been jailed before the hearing."

"I'm aware of that," said George. "I made the provision myself. How long would it take you to make these arrangements, Cullen?"

"Don't know," he said. "An hour if I'm lucky. Maybe two."

"Go on then," said George. "You have until nightfall to report back to the jail." He gestured for silence before the clerk could argue and reached for the paper. "I'll leave this with Deputy Dayton. You can make payment directly to him as an agent of the county. If you can't pay by sundown, you'll be spending another night in a cell: I got no discretion there. If you can pay, you're free to get on back to your place and forget this ever happened."

Cullen supposed he ought to offer a humble thank-you for this consideration, but he could not bring himself to do it. How did they expect a man to get money together for his fine if he was locked away? He nodded tersely and started for the door.

George caught up to him in the entryway, catching hold of his coat sleeve. Cullen whirled, stiffening at the unexpected restraint, and the younger man's eyes widened. He did not quail, but he looked like he wanted to.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry," he breathed. "Cullen… Mr. Bohannon… the law didn't give me much leeway; you done it."

Suddenly Cullen's fury and frustration drained away, and he felt his tired shoulders slump. "Yeah, I done it," he said. "Whole damned mess is my fault. I never should have trusted that man." He shrugged off George's hand and forced his expression to soften a little. "I know you was only doing your duty. I'd rather have had you than Graham hearing my case."

"If I'd known you were on the docket, I would have moved you onto mine days ago," said George. "I'm sorry."

"Can you tell me one thing?" asked Cullen. "How'd Abel Sutcliffe convince you to move me up like that? All of a sudden, I mean, so I was flustered and unprepared and my counsellor wasn't here yet."

George paled. "You made arrangements for counsel?" he said. "I never thought… it's only a misdemeanor, Mr. Bohannon. Most folks don't trouble with getting an attorney."

"Yeah, well, I figured I needed one," Cullen said grimly. "Looks like I was right, too."

Now the young man looked miserable. "You should have said. I'd have had to stop proceedings."

"Sure," said Cullen; "and I would have sat in prison four more days waiting to get up in front of Graham. Likely wouldn'ta made no difference anyhow, 'cept with Meg here I couldn't have been held in prejudice."

"I had no choice in that, either," said George. "If you'd only asked someone to send word…"

Cullen waved him off. "Don't make much difference now," he said. "I got to go. Only got 'til sundown to scrape together thirty-five dollars. Can't spend another night in jail: I'm needed at home. Crop needs bringing in, and my boy's sick."

"Oh, no!" George exclaimed softly. "Is it serious? There's diphtheria out our way…"

"Just a cold, Doc says." Cullen shook his head wearily. "Still, it's one more thing for my Mary to fret over, and she's trying to keep the place running without me. I got to get home tonight. Guess that's one thing I can thank Sutcliffe for."

"He didn't have any hand in it," said George. "It's just what I try to do on a Friday if there's time. I don't like leaving men sitting in jail over Sunday if I don't have to. Same as you, most of 'em are needed at home."

Cullen's frown deepened. "Then how'd he know to be in town for the hearing?"

"I don't know," said George. "Unless he got word somehow that the docket was light and you were the only one in custody still waiting your turn."

Dark brows knit together and Cullen's cold rage seethed again. "Brannan," he muttered. "The two of them sure planned this all well."

George shifted uncomfortably. "You ain't saying the sheriff's dishonest?" he said.

That was exactly what Cullen was saying, but in a moment of clarity he realized it would not be prudent to lay down such a charge. He could not prove it, and coming as it did from one recently found guilty by the testimony of those two men it would sound downright malicious. If he had been less forthright about his own ill-advised decisions it might have looked different, but as it stood he would be a fool to say it.

"I'm saying him and Sutcliffe were eager to see me punished," he said. "You got to see this is one hell of an overreaction for letting a slave go visiting."

"I might disagree with the letter of the law, but I got to uphold it," said George. "I took an oath."

"Yes sir," Cullen agreed. "And you're just the sort of Justice the county needs. Don't you go thinking you done wrong, or that I'm angry with you. I'm just… I need to get home."

George nodded. "I'd pay the fine for you if I could," he whispered. "But…"

"But you're the judge," said Cullen. "You can't: I know it. I got the means. I just need to go and fetch the money." He moved to the high arched doors and paused with his hand on the knob. "Say, what about them troubles you had with your slaves? You ever work things out?"

The young face lit up in a sudden smile. "Hell, I ain't had a lick of trouble since I did what you said," he declared. "Worked better'n I ever hoped. You ever in need of work, I'd hire you for an overseer in a minute!"

He was joking, of course: overseers were social inferiors, and no man of the planter class would take such work. But Cullen, already occupied with labors far below anything considered fitting for the station to which he had been born, did not find it amusing at all. He wondered bleakly how soon he would be desperate enough to seriously consider working another man's darkies for thirty dollars a month.

"Glad to know I could be of help," he said. "Take care of yourself, George. And I thank you for the sound judgment. Another man might have tried to bring a charge of agitating against my woman."

George's smile faded and he shook his head faintly. "I know that ain't how it was. But you got to be more careful, Cullen. Not just in what you do, but in what you say. It hurt you in there."

"I know," Cullen muttered. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the rain.

_*discidium*_

Meg stood stiffly, her feet planted wide in the mud and the butt of the tobacco pole resting on the toe of her shoe. The broad palmetto hat kept the rain off of her face, but her skirts were soaked from constant brushing against the plants. The last of the prime leaves were picked from the bottom field; the whole, undamaged leaves that might still fetch top price at market. Now Nate and Elijah were working the middle field. Some of these leaves were almost as good, and others were torn and ragged from the hail that had beaten down on the west side of the rows. The two men were cramped, working in the same furrow on opposite rows, but at least they were both picking again.

Meg's shoulders ached and her back stung under the weight of Bethel's warm woolen shawl. Summer was over, all right, and the rain was cold and penetrating. Nate and Elijah were sniffling as they worked, their soaked clothes chilling them so their noses ran. They would ruin their coats if they wore them in the tobacco, and everyone knew – though no one said – that there would be no hope of new clothes this year. Boots, maybe, if Mister Cullen scrimped on the luxuries that were necessities for a planter's family, but not clothes. Meg, now left with only one dress, wondered how any of them would manage to make their garments last another year. Even the mistress's everyday dresses looked tired and shabby now, and she had always dressed so smartly.

It was easier to worry about things like clothes, and the crop, and even the winter stores, because it kept Meg from thinking about what had happened. What had been done to her. She knew she was fortunate. At the hands of that man, it might have been so much worse – so much more unthinkable. He had not violated her, as she had feared he would in those first horrible minutes when the overseers were ripping her dress from her body. But the way he had looked at her and the things he had said, the awful things he had said, still haunted her. She could still feel his hand, cold as a fish and smooth as a lady's, cupping her breast to feel its weight, and the thought made her shiver. She reached for the leaf Elijah was holding out to her, and focused intently upon every detail of its veins as she threaded it onto the pole.

She was ashamed, so ashamed, and the shame was worse than the pain had been. Never once in her life had she done anything deserving of a whipping; nothing even that would have been considered grounds on a plantation with stricter masters or cruel overseers. She had always been diligent and obedient, careful in her work and respectful in her words and her thoughts. She had been raised up to be a good nigger under old Mr. Bohannon, and she had taught her daughter the same. And she, who had never even been scolded by Mister Cullen, had been stripped naked like an animal, and strung up by the wrists so she could not cover herself, and whipped so the blood and the tears flowed together. The welts, healing beneath Bethel's careful bandaging, now smarted and itched more than they burned in agony, but the humiliation was fresh and raw. She could not long endure the gaze of those she cared about, for although Bethel and Nate and Elijah and even Missus Mary had been nothing but kind and caring Meg could not shake the irrational fear that they knew the depth of her shame.

She took a step forward as the men moved on to the next two plants. They worked swiftly and deftly with the small knives, neither letting his misery and exhaustion show. She knew it must be so hard, so painful for Elijah to stoop like that, and though Nate was young and strong he was not immune to the agony in the back. Meg knew she could not possibly maintain such a motion herself: it would tear the scabs off the healing wheals and she would be laid up in bed again, useless. She had to avoid that at all costs. She was needed here. The work could not stop.

"Mist' Cullen say anything to you, Nate?" asked Elijah, his voice muffled by the leaves and the rain but still strangely loud after the long silence in which they had been laboring.

"How that?" Nate grunted.

"When you talk to him at the jail. He say anything 'bout them yams?"

Meg's stomach grumbled. Missus Mary had brought them food at four o'clock – eggs and buttered bread, okra and cold succotash and apples – and she wasn't truly hungry, but she was craving yams. Everyone was. They were all waiting for the crop to be in so they could once more enjoy that cornerstone of their diet. Yams were a comfort to an empty stomach, and they were the taste of security: the taste of food laid by in the cellar against winter's hunger.

"No," said Nate. "Just worryin' 'bout this-here tobacco. Said we gots to keep up with it."

"We's doin' our bes'." Elijah looked down the field at the rows still waiting for this pass through the crop. They had lost time in the four days when Meg could not stand upright long enough to hold the pole, and there had been only one picker. The leaves were ripening all the while, and they still had to bring in the tops after this. "But them yams got to start comin' up soon. Got to get 'em in 'fore the firs' frost."

"Massa be back Tuesday, he say," Nate said. "He kin decide then what he wan' do."

"Tuesday the month be pretty near over," argued Elijah. "Frost mos' gen'rally come 'fore November tenth: that two weeks tomorrow. Goin' take us six days easy to get up them yams, 'specially does some of us still need to be out here."

"Ain' my place to decide what work we do," said Nate tiredly. "Massa say the tobacco got keep comin' in. You know we got to get the bes' we can for sellin'."

"What more important?" Elijah asked. "Tobacco for sellin', or yams for eatin'?"

"They's both important," Meg said quietly. "Tobacco money goin' buy flour an' cornmeal, oats for the horses, syrup an' sugar an' all them things we can't make ourselves. Mist' Cullen got pay his debts an' the taxes, too. He don' pay the taxes, the gov'ment goin' take this here lan', an' then where we goin' plant nex' year's yams?"

Nate stared up at her, eyes wide. It seemed he had not thought of this. Elijah shook his head. "That so," he said. "But that why we gots to get them yams in. Ain't goin' be no extra money if the food run low. Eight hungry mouths to feed. Ain't our place to decide, but someone got to. Missus can't: what she know 'bout farmin'? Massa ain't goin' be home 'til Tuesday, mos' likely late. That three workin' days los' if we don' choose right."

"What we goin' do?" asked Meg, watching the old man's eyes in an attempt to gauge how worried he truly was. She was about sick with anxiety herself, but if Elijah remained calm she could bear it.

"Ain't got but another half-hour 'til sunset, an' the light ain't goin' last with these clouds." He drew his soaked sleeve across his brow to wick away the worst of the rainwater. "No use decidin' anything today. I'll speak to Bethel. Maybe she know what Mist' Cullen would want."

Meg adjusted her hold on the pole as she slipped on another leaf. She could feel something warm trickling down her left flank, and she wondered whether it was rainwater or blood. It didn't matter. The work had to be done. It was her fault Mister Cullen wasn't here: he had taken her place so she could heal. He would have been more use in the fields than she, even if she hadn't been flogged. She had to keep working just as long as she could.

_*discidium*_

Doctor Whitehead lived in a two-storey stucco house with a broad, well-tended lawn in front and a large kitchen garden behind. It was down the hill from the courthouse, and so Cullen made good time even on his aching legs. It was remarkable what four days on stone could do to the joints of his hips and knees, after months of standing out in soft earth and mud. He supposed it was another sign that his boots were worn out, that they couldn't cushion his stance any longer. He had his hands in the pockets of his frock coat, and his head bowed against the rain. It was a steady, soaking autumn rain that quickly stopped rolling off of his shoulders and began to seep into the wool. His hair was in straggles in less than a minute, and he wished that either he or Mary had thought to grab his hat in the chaos of Monday morning. Not only would it have offered some protection from the weather, but he felt oddly naked without it, walking bareheaded through Meridian. A gentleman was not a gentleman without his hat: how often had Bethel drilled that into him as a child?

He came to the pretty picket gate in the doctor's low hedge, and stooped to lift the latch. Stooping at least was easier than it had been in months. He almost smiled at the irony. He had longed for something, anything, to spare him just for a while from the drudgery of the tobacco field, and when it had finally come he had spent the entire four days wishing anxiously to be back.

On the veranda and so out of the rain, he raked a hand through his hair to scrape it off his face, tried to smooth the front of his coat, and lifted his expression out of its drawn lines. He squared his shoulders and knocked lightly upon the door.

No answer was immediately forthcoming. The small stable behind the house was shut up against the rain. Doc did not keep his horses in livery, but had an arrangement with the neighbor that secured the services of the young darky groom to attend them as required. Cullen had often wondered whether the boy in question liked this addition to his duties. Ellie was the sort to lay aside a biscuit or a bite of pie for an eager youth, as Cullen knew from his own boyhood, but on the other hand the doctor was often abroad at all hours, and his horse would need rubbing down whenever he chanced to return from such errands.

Cullen knocked again, and this time heard spry footsteps from the other side of the door. It opened like a shot, and Ben was grinning up at him. "Mr. Bohannon!" he exclaimed happily. "Come in, come in. What're you doin' here? Pappy said you was in prison; some sort of a misunderstanding over a slave?"

There was no way to explain, and nothing much more to say about the matter anyhow. Cullen nodded shortly. "Had my hearing just now," he said. "Is the doc in, son? I need to talk to him."

"Gee, no," said Ben. "He just got fetched out of here by a pair of ragged kids. Seems some woman down in the shanties got a baby on the way, and it ain't coming like it should. Toes where the head oughta be."

Only a doctor's boy would speak so frankly about these matters, and at any other time Cullen might have been both amused and a little embarrassed to hear it. Now, however, all he could think with quiet despair was that a breach birth was no quick errand. He could not expect the doctor back before nightfall, nor could he go down to the tents and shanties on the edge of town and start knocking on windows asking where to find the woman with the baby coming. He wouldn't want to trouble Doc Whitehead while he was working, anyhow; particularly not on a case that could turn so quickly fatal.

"I see," he said. "That's all right, then. I'll be going."

"Don't go!" said Ben, seizing Cullen's arm and dragging him over the threshold so that he could close the door. "Come have a drink. Ellie's already started on supper: there'll be no one else to eat it but me. _Ellie! _Mr. Bohannon's here!"

Cullen shook his head, trying to get his limb back out of the boy's clutches. As badly as he wanted a drink, and as desperate as he was for a real meal, he could not stay. If Doc wasn't around he would have to try some other means to raise the money. It was past closing time at the bank, so mustering a loan there was out, but he might be able to convince Mr. Townsend to advance him the money for a few days, just until he could withdraw his slender balance and get the ten gold dollars into town, and – but that was too much to hope for. The storekeeper owed him nothing, and Cullen was already deep enough in debt with him. None of his other friends in town would have thirty-five dollars cash on-hand, and he'd never get to Boyd Ainsley's and back before nightfall, not walking one way. Still, he had to try _something, _damn it. He was needed at home!

His protest was interrupted as Ellie came out from the back of the house, wiping her hands on her apron. "Mist' Bohannon?" she said, clearly astonished. "But you's in jail!"

He managed a thin smile. Ellie was ten years Bethel's junior, but she had the same indefatigable manner that came from being the supreme female authority in the home. "I'm out now," he said. Out _for _now would have been more accurate. "Got me up in front of a judge a little early."

"Praise the Lord for small mercies!" Ellie said, bustling forward. She was plump and had once been very pretty, with skin the caramel brown of hoarhound candy. She accomplished with a flap of her hand what Cullen had not with his belligerent tugging, and got Ben to release his grip. "I didn' raise you to leave no gent'man standin' drip-wet in the doorway!" she scolded. "You go 'n fetch Mist' Bohannon a towel fo' that hair, an' you pour him a stout glass of brandy! Don' you know he been locked up four days without the comforts of home? Go on, _scoot!_"

Ben loped off at a run, taking the steps three at a time. The moment he was gone, Ellie leaned in towards Cullen, her face gentle and grave. "They let you off, then, sir?" she asked. "Ain' no fine?"

He shook his head. He would have been reluctant to confide in anyone else, but Ellie had about her such an air of Bethel's own trustworthiness that he found the words coming of their own accord. "Thirty-five dollars," he said. "Payable by nightfall or they lock me up again. Listen, when Doc comes back could you ask him to stop by the jailhouse and see if I'm still there? I'm goin' try to raise the money somehow, but I don't know—"

Ellie clicked her tongue and gestured for silence. "That why you come here. 'Cause the doctor say he goin' pay your fine if it more than you can manage. He tol' me," she said at his look of astonishment. "Tell me mos' ev'ythin'. Ain't tol' Mist' Ben, though. Mos' likely thought you wouldn' want it gen'rally known."

"He was right," Cullen muttered, his cheeks burning with mortification. Suddenly he resented the land and the half-picked crop that was calling for him. Without it, he could have just closed his mouth and sat out whatever short sentence George White assigned in lieu of payment. He wouldn't have had to go begging at the doors of friends.

Ben came thundering down the stairs, a towel swinging from one hand. "Here you are, Mr. Bohannon," he said. "Brandy? Or whiskey? I know you like your whiskey."

He had gleaned that knowledge from his older brothers' gossip, no doubt. Cullen's fingers closed on the cloth, but before he could speak Ellie took up again. "Chile, you's a shame on my bones," she said. "Go wash that face, an' scrub behind you' ears. Can' you see we gots comp'ny?"

Ben looked ready to protest, but the hold his mammy had over him was far too strong. "Yes, ma'am," he said crisply, and retreated upstairs once more. This time he did not spring over two steps at a time, but soon enough he was gone.

"You dry that wet hair; you goin' catch you' death of the damp," said Ellie. "An' jus' you come in here." She started into the dark cavern of the doctor's study, and Cullen followed obediently. He blotted at his beard, but was reluctant to drag the clean cloth over a head still begrimed with four days of prison dirt. "Now, I know the doctor meant to be there in court on Tuesday," she said. "To give you a frien'ly face in the crowd an' to be there in case things didn' go your way. But his work like it be, he thought he bes' get over to the bank while he gots the chance… ah, here!"

She had found something in the top drawer of the desk, and she held it out to Cullen. It was a leather moneybag, heavy with coin. It clinked as it settled against his work-roughened palm. "I don' know if it be enough," she said; "but I know that what he fetch it fo', an' I know he'd wan' me to give it you now he 'way. Don' wan' you spendin' no 'nother night in prison: you gots to get home to your folks an' that li'l boy of yours." Her expression grew suddenly tender. "Mist' Bohannon, he tol' you your boy come down with a col' in his chest?"

"He told me a cold," Cullen said, his breath suddenly shallow. "It's in his chest?"

"Jus' a dry ol' cough, the doctor say," Ellie reassured him. "Bethel, she know what to do for a boy that sick; you ain't got cause for worry. But a chile that ailin', even jus' a li'l bit, he wan' know his pappy near."

Cullen swallowed hard and jerked his head in a tiny nod. His compunctions about taking the money from the slave in Doc's absence dissolved. He had to get home: there was nothing else to say on the matter. If Ellie was mistake and Doc Whitehead was angry… well, Cullen would just have to cope with that on down the line. He couldn't pass another night in that fetid little cell, fretting and pacing and wondering what was happening at home. He'd lose his mind.

He shook out the coins into his palm. Half-eagles: enough to pay the fine twice over. He put all but seven back into the pouch and returned it to the woman. Staring down at the bright coins he gave a ragged sigh. "Thank you," he whispered. "You thank Doc for me, too, all right? I'll stop by to do it myself when I get the chance, but…" He bit his lower lip. "There ain't words for this, Ellie. Ain't words."

She reached and curled his fingers around the gold, patting them in a motherly way. "The doctor love you like you his own boy," she said. "He know you'd do jus' the same did one of them three run up on har' times." She turned, replaced the sack in the drawer, and grinned. "Now, when Mist' Ben done scrubbin' that nose of his, you kin sit an' have a nice drink while I lay on supper."

The distant scents of ham and fried potatoes were stirring his nostrils, and the thought of hot food was a terrible temptation after a long day's fast and short commons before, but Cullen shook his head. "I can't," he said. He flicked his fist so the money clinked. "I got to pay this in, and then I got to get home. Mary… and my boy… I got to get home."

Ellie nodded knowingly. "You get on," she said, taking the towel from him. "You goin' be awright in that rain without no hat?"

"Sure, I'll be fine," Cullen promise. "Heck, I'm already wet: what more can it do?"

_*discidium*_

Bethel had brought Missus Mary's rocker into the kitchen so that she could sit close by the stove and rock Gabe in her lap. The little boy was wrapped in the quilt from his bed, curled against his mother with his head on her breast. He was fresh out of a hot bath that had helped to clear his stuffy nose, and Bethel was just mashing the turnips for his supper.

Missus Mary, her work dress splattered with water from bathing her child, worked one foot against the floor so the rocker swung soothingly. A corner of the blanket was pulled up like a cowl around the boy's head, so she stroked his cheek instead of his hair. He was flushed with the mild fever that had been sapping his energy all afternoon, and he did not seem to want to do anything but cuddle against his mama and rest.

"You didn' ought to go out tonight, Missus," Bethel said, watching the little boy as her hands stirred cream into the turnips of their own accord. "You stay in bed an' comfort that chile. I's goin' watch the fires instead."

The young woman's eyes held no protest: only gratitude. "What do you think, Gabe?" she coaxed. "Would you like to sleep in Mama's bed tonight?"

"Yass'm," he murmured. His small, curled fist snagged against one of her buttons and his littlest finger gripped it. "When Pappy comin' home?"

"On Tuesday, dearest," Missus Mary said. Her lower lip trembled as she spoke. "He'll be home on Tuesday."

It was hard to watch her enduring the question yet again. The little boy asked it at least a dozen times a day, and each time one of them had to answer. Bethel understood her mistress's pain and the anxiety that lay beneath her patient reply. She was just as worried about Mister Cullen as Bethel was. They both knew that he would be frantic to get home and back to the all-important work of harvest-time. The other labors that had been laid aside in the desperate push to salvage the tobacco had to be resumed, and soon. The yams were ready to be brought in, and the cornfield had to be plowed under for the winter wheat. Bethel and Missus Mary had been bringing in peas and beans to be stored dry in sacks, and they were managing that all right, but it was also time to inspect every roof and wall and chink on the place to be sure they were tight for winter. All this and more would be plaguing Mister Cullen, and he never coped well with inaction. Knowing there was work to be done and being unable to do it would be terrible for him. Added to that were all the worries that came with the word "jail". Was he warm enough at night? Were they feeding him properly? Would he catch some awful sickness from one of the other prisoners? And the county jail housed not only those waiting for trial, but those serving short sentences for theft and assault, and those waiting to be hanged for armed robbery or murder or rape. The thought of her beloved boy locked up with such desperate characters haunted Bethel in the night.

At least Meg was stronger. She had slept last night in her own bed, and today she had insisted upon going out to work in the tobacco. Only the fact that at picking time she held the pole and did not stoop at all had kept Bethel from forbidding it. Meg had pointed out that with her to help, both Nate and Elijah could pick, and there was nothing to be said to that. Time was too short, and the crop too badly needed, and Bethel knew that Mister Cullen would rather die than have his wife out there, even just with a pole. So in the end she had consented.

She took two plates and filled them. Supper was simple but hearty tonight; mashed turnips, their greens cooked with a tiny sliver of salt pork for flavor and tossed with butter and pepper, biscuits warmed over from breakfast, and a rich jackrabbit stew. Nate had traps all along the well-worn runs in the east bush, and this morning he had found two lean old hoppers. They were too lean for roasting, and too tough for frying, and so Bethel had decided to stew them. The concoction had been simmering away all day, and was now thick and fragrant. They had no potatoes, but there were turnips in it, and carrots and parsnips and peas, both green and split, and Bethel had flavored it with fresh herbs and a little fennel. It smelled sumptuous, and she dished out some for Mister Gabe and a generous helping for Missus Mary. She carried them into the dining room, and then came back to lift the child from his mother's lap.

"No…" Mister Gabe protested, twisting in Bethel's arms and reaching for his mama. The old woman jiggled him gently and let him settle against her shoulder. She untangled the blanket wrapped around his legs and set it on the kitchen table, then tugged down the hem of his nightshirt and bore him out of the kitchen.

"Now honey," she said. "You's goin' eat your supper an' then you an' your mama can go lie down. Mama could do with a lie-down, I think: out in the rain pickin' beans all aft'noon."

Why Missus Mary insisted upon taking it in turns to work the garden Bethel didn't understand. She was an old nigger, maybe, but she was strong and she was tough. Ladies didn't have any business going out in the rain, not when somebody had to stay inside and mind the sick child. But Missus Mary had argued that neither one of them could afford to take ill as well, and they had to trade off so that Bethel did not catch a chill.

She took her seat now with a tiny, tired sigh, and Bethel set Mister Gabe down on his pear box, putting his spoon in his hand. He perked up at the sight of the food, and took a large scoop of stew. He chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. "Mama, it don' taste," he said.

Missus Mary, filling her own fork with turnips, frowned a little in gentle reproach. "Gabe, that isn't nice," she said. "If you don't like the way that your food tastes, you say 'no, thank you'. You don't announce that it tastes bad."

He shook his head. "Don' taste bad," he said. "It don' _taste_. Don' taste nuttin'."

Bethel smiled, though her mistress looked puzzled. "He can' taste it, Missus," she explained softly. "His li'l nose all plugged up."

"Oh!" Missus Mary was surprised into a laugh: just a tiny laugh, but a sweet sound after a hard and unhappy week. "Try and eat it anyhow, darling. It's good for you."

She did not need to encourage him: the child was eating enthusiastically. The sight eased Bethel's worries immensely. So long as he had a good appetite there was no cause to send for the doctor. Mister Gabe was only tired out. The fever wasn't high and he sniffled more than he coughed. The two women could take care of him; it wasn't worth two precious dollars to have the doctor call again. Not yet.

She retreated quietly into the kitchen. The sun had set and the twilight was fading fast. She hurried to make the final preparations for the field hands' supper, but she could not help but look out into the gathering gloom and think of Mister Cullen in the county jail in Meridian. Six miles seemed such a long way, and four days such a long time. She wanted him home. The place just wasn't right without its master.

_*discidium*_

Cullen could not keep up much of a pace. He was exhausted after days of inadequate sleep, and his legs were sore and weary. His head throbbed miserably, and he longed for the blessed relief he had felt that afternoon – had it only been that afternoon? – when he had dragged upon Joe Dayton's pipe. Not two miles out of town he had found himself soaked to the skin, the rain penetrating through the light wool of his old frock coat and creeping through to his underwear. The road had turned to mud and his feet were wet, too. They squelched with every step in his sodden socks. There was no doubt about it: his boots were leaking. As the sun set the air grew colder, and he walked with his arms crossed over his chest, hugging himself for warmth. A little past the halfway point in his journey the last of the daylight had abandoned him, and he was walking now by memory and the faint glow of a moon high above the clouds. It was drawing on to full, and furnished just enough light for Cullen to keep from veering off into the ditch and wrenching his ankle.

He was too tired now for his worries. He had had to wait almost forty minutes at the jailhouse while Joe tried to sort out the business of the fine. The clerk had apparently forgotten to forward the paper as instructed, and Joe had had to go and roust someone to open up the courthouse so he could look for it. Then there was confusion over George White's penmanship and whether he had written "thirty-five" or "forty-five". Of course, good-natured though he was Joe could not simply take Cullen's word for it, and the debate had wrangled on while Cullen grew ever more irate. Finally he had handed over Doc Whitehead's money and taken his leave with whatever dignity he had left. Bereft of any further resources, he had started out on the long walk home.

Six miles wasn't far, really; on a clear day, well-fed and well-rested and cheerful, it would have been a pleasant jaunt. But Cullen's exhaustion and weariness of spirit were dragging on him. He was stumbling tiredly through the puddles when he finally reached the familiar lane and turned in towards his own land. The fences were pale ribbons in the filtered moonlight, their pocked and hail-scarred whitewash absolved of its faults by the night. The house stood silent, its front windows darkened, but at the sight of the looming, well-beloved shape Cullen still had to fight the urge to sink to his knees in relief.

If he had arrived home two hours before, he would have gone straight out to the tobacco to speak to Nate and Elijah. Now one would be in his cabin, taking a little ease before bed, and the other would be up in the kiln with the fires. Cullen didn't think he had the strength to wander so far just for tidings. He shuffled around the side of the house and into the dooryard. There was a startled whine and a sound of old paws padding in the wet, and Jeb came hurrying to greet him. Cullen knelt, not caring for the knee of his ruined trousers, and scratched the old hound under his chin.

"Been waiting for me?" he asked hoarsely.

Jeb licked his palm in greeting, and then trundled up the stairs onto the stoop. He lay in the patch of lamplight thrown by the window, resting his head on his paws. By the time Cullen straightened himself up and tackled the two steps the dog was drowsing, comforted by his master's return.

Drawing in a bracing breath, Cullen opened the door. He had intended just to reach for the bootjack and get back outside to remove the mud-caked footwear, but the warmth and cozy welcome of the room were more than he could bear. He stepped over the threshold and let the door swing against his back, momentarily overcome with the solace of being home at last.

He did not have long to linger. As he stood there, dripping from clothes and hair and fingertips, Bethel came backing into the room with empty dishes in both hands, nudging the door with her shoulder. She turned, gave a little cry, and had to tighten her grip hastily before she dropped the plates and cut-glass tumblers. Her eyes, momentarily wide with alarm, suddenly melted in gentle pity and she bolted forward, lingering mid-step long enough to abandon the dishes on the corner of the table.

"Chile, you come home!" she cried, gripping his elbows and staring rapturously up at his face. The cloth gurgled wetly under her grasp, and she looked him over. "Why, you's soaked to the bone. Get off them wet things, Mist' Cullen, 'fore you takes a chill."

She shepherded him to the bench and dragged over the bootjack. He raked tiredly at the wet leather, dragging out his feet while his fingers found the buttons of his coat. He half-expected Bethel to undertake the business of undressing him as she so often did when he came in dog-tired from the fields, but she was watching him with her hands pressed to her body, one on her stomach and the other on her bosom. She looked like someone smitten by a holy vision and unable to quite believe what she saw.

"Why you home? They let you go? Oh, Mist' Cullen, you didn't bus' out, did you?" she gasped with dawning horror.

"No, I didn't bust out," said Cullen. "They moved up my hearing at a minute's notice. Hardly had time to put my vest on." He let that same garment fall wetly to the floor. Now that he was out of the cold he was shivering violently, and he fought the urge just to tear off his sodden shirt. He grappled with the buttons instead. "George White was the Justice of the Peace. Found me guilty: thirty-five dollar fine for letting Meg go at large."

Bethel's dismay deepened in earnest. "Mist' Cullen, you ain' got no thirty-five dollars," she said. "They's goin' come catch you when they knows you can' pay."

"They ain't goin' catch me," he said as he dragged his undershirt over his head and dropped it. "I paid: borrowed the money from Doc Whitehead. He offered it himself. Didn't even make me ask. He…" He could only shake his head again, helpless before the old man's kindness.

Bethel let out a long breath. "Then it over?" she gasped. "You's home to stay?"

"It's over."

The words seemed to drain him of the last of his strength. Not caring that he was sitting half-naked in the middle of the kitchen, grimy water from his hair still trickling down his face and neck, he twisted on the bench, crossed his arms on the tabletop, and laid his throbbing head down upon them. His shoulders heaved with the effort of drawing a steady inhalation. It was over. It hadn't gone well, but it hadn't gone as badly as it might have, either. The law was off his back. He was a free man again. He was home. It was over.

He felt a hand upon his left shoulder blade, bony and rough and wizened, but strong and impossibly tender. Its mate found purchase at the root of his right arm, fingers spread over his ribs and thumb against the broad triangular muscle that ached so badly after a day in the tobacco but now felt only feeble and spent. The thumb stroked his wet skin once, firm and gentle, and the hands squeezed consolingly.

"You jus' rest a minute, Mist' Cullen," Bethel said softly. "I got water standin' from Mist' Gabe's bath. Jus' you let me warm it up, an' then I's goin' help you wash. You's too wore out to shif' for youself tonight."

She was right, and he knew it. It would be a comfort, anyhow, to let her care for him as she had done in those long-ago carefree days of boyhood. He tried to nod, rocking his head a little against the cradle of his arms. Now that his nose had stopped its running he could smell the heady fragrances of the supper that must have concluded close to an hour ago. Why Bethel was only now bringing in the dishes he could not imagine and did not much care.

"Bethel," he said. His voice quavered, but he could not help it. He didn't have the strength to stop it. He didn't have the strength for anything at all, except to raise his head once more – and he knew he could only do that for one reason in all the world. "Bethel, is there anything left to eat?"

He could hear the smile in her words; that smile she only wore when she was proudly feeding the ones she loved. "Yassir, Mist' Cullen," she said. "I gots plenty to eat, an' it still hot, too. Jus' you wait one minute, honey, an' I kin dish it up."

He wondered vaguely how and why she had hot food waiting at this hour, when everyone had long ago been fed. Surely she had not known to expect him. Or had she? Not intellectually, of course, but with that uncanny instinct for the needs of others that made her such a wonder.

"Where's Mary?" he asked thickly, forcing his tired lips to shape the words but not quite ready to lift his skull off his forearms.

"Gone to bed," said Bethel. "Mist' Gabe got hisself a col', an' he sleepin' in the big bed tonight. Oh, he goin' be happy you's home, chile. All he talk 'bout these four days: 'When my pappy comin' home?'."

The table shook a little as she set down a heavy bowl. Cullen hoisted his head at last, using his elbows to push himself up off the tabletop. The savory scent of game and spices filled his nostrils, and he blinked the fog from his eyes to reveal a heaping bowl of thick, dark stew. Bethel set down a silver spoon and he grabbed it ham-fisted, too tired and far, far too ravenous to care about his manners. He curled his other hand around the dish and dragged him to it. The porcelain was hot to the touch, and he dug into the rich broth with the spoon. There were cubes of vegetables and bright green peas, and shreds of meat boiled tender.

"Where'd you get this?" he asked. "What kind of meat is this? We ain't got no meat."

"That there jackrabbit stew," Bethel said proudly. "Nate put out traps: we's had meat ev'ry day since Wednesday. That boy got more sense 'n I give him credit fo'."

Cullen stared at the dish. Jackrabbit stew. Caught in a trap laid by one of his slaves, no doubt in the woods that bordered Sutcliffe's land. Suddenly it was a hot July afternoon again and he stood, sticky with sap and smeared with mud, his head throbbing and swimming with dizziness, locked in the quarrel that had given rise to all this recent misery. The taunt of his wealthy neighbor rang in his ears. He liked jackrabbits? Of course he did. They made such a nice change from split peas and molasses.

But his mouth was flooded with spittle and his stomach shriveled into painful knots beneath his ribs. He was hungry, so hungry, far too hungry to care anymore. Rabbits gave good meat, even if it was cheap meat, poor-man's meat, deemed unfit for planters to lay on their tables. Hastily, almost manically, Cullen began to eat.


	46. Division of Labor

_Note: Once again, with regards to the legislation: it was all real._

**Chapter Forty-Six: Division of Labor**

Gabe stirred, his little body heaving with a single deep cough, and slept on. Lying curled beside her son, Mary was wakeful despite her weariness. She was burdened with the worries of running the plantation, and she was anxious for Cullen. If only Gabe were not ill, she would ride into Meridian in the morning to see him regardless of his instructions. She might do it anyhow. Bethel was certainly capable of caring for the little boy on her own for three or four hours. It would comfort her, too, if Mary was able to bring back news that Cullen was faring well – or as well as might be expected in the circumstances. And she could bring him something nice to eat; some fresh biscuits perhaps. Mary did not know for certain, but she imagined that jail fare left much to be desired.

Bethel was obviously as sleepless as she. Up until just a few minutes ago she had been clattering around in the kitchen, even though the day's work was over. Bethel kept herself busy to cover her anxieties, while Mary could only lie quietly and brood. She curled her arm to stroke Gabe's hair, and tugged the blankets closer beneath his chin. She should have gone to his bed instead. Her own was so broad and empty without Cullen's strong, lean body on the other side, and the bedroom was cold. The scrap of tarpaper stuck over the hole left by the broken pane did not keep out the chill of the rainy night. Perhaps when Cullen came home she could ask whether one of the panes from the front bedroom could be moved in here. She didn't know why she had not thought of it before.

The stairs creaked as someone ascended on quiet feet. Bethel, no doubt coming to check whether anything was needed. Or perhaps to leave the bottle of soothing syrup in case Gabe woke in the night and needed it. He coughed again, his ribs spasming thrice in rapid succession. Mary snuggled nearer to him, feeling the warmth of his fever through his nightshirt. She hoped it would break before dawn. Poor little thing, he had been so quiet today. Not miserable, or even cross, but quiet and so unlike his usual lively self. She knew it was not just the chest cold that was draining his energy: like everyone else he was missing his father.

The bedroom door opened, raising a brief draft from the window. The curtains fluttered and let in the clouded moonlight. Her back still to the door, Mary asked; "Did you bring up the soothing syrup?"

The footsteps crossed the floor, slapping softly as only bare feet did, and Bethel's presence seemed to loom strangely large behind her. There was a soft clink of thick glass being set on the bedside table, followed by the tinkle of a spoon. "Right here," a low voice said.

Mary whirled, turning onto her back and sitting up in one swift motion. Her eyes were wide in the gloom, and she flung the blankets off of her legs, only just remembering to keep them tucked between her hip and Gabe's body. The familiar slope of her husband's lean, muscular shoulders was silhouetted against the pale wallpaper. His hair clung wet to his scalp. His face was briefly illuminated by a blaze of red, and the rich scent of tobacco smoke wafted to her.

"You're home!" she cried, only just managing to keep her voice at a whisper. She sprang to her feet, the hem of her nightdress tickling her ankles, and flung her arms about his neck. She embraced him and stretched to kiss him, careless of the cigar that brushed her cheek and smoldered just short of her earlobe.

"Easy, there," Cullen said softly. His hand moved up to remove the cigar from his lips and he turned his head to exhale its smoke without inundating her with it. His other hand found her waist, but clumsily. She realized suddenly that he was wrapped in a narrow quilt turned lengthwise to cover him. It reached only as far as his knees: the quilt from Gabe's little bed, which Bethel had left in the kitchen when she carried the child in to dinner. Mary's hand slipped down to Cullen's bare breastbone. But for the blanket he was naked, and he smelled strongly of lye soap.

"How?" she murmured. "Why?"

"Where else I got to go?" he asked, and his teeth flashed. He kissed her brow and then returned the cigar to his mouth, dragging deeply upon it and letting out the fragrant smoke with a weary sigh. "They bumped my hearing ahead unexpectedly. Had me up in front of George White this afternoon."

George White. Mary felt her anxieties fall from her like fetters. She shifted deeper into his embrace, drawing up the loose side of the blanket to preserve his dignity. Her arm curled over the crest of his hip and she rested her cheek against his shoulder. He was warm and real and present. He was home.

"Thank God," she breathed, her heart lifting up the brief prayer on wings of rapturous gratitude. "Then he saw the truth? He found you innocent."

Cullen's shoulders sagged, and his head bowed as he shook it. "He saw the truth and found me guilty," he said. "Thirty-five dollar fine. I borrowed the money from Doc," he added before she could ask. "Soon as I find the chance I got to ride back into Meridian and give him what we got. Don't want to be no more beholden than I have to be."

The shame in his voice made Mary's heart ache. He hated even buying goods on credit, and that was the normal way of business both for the storekeepers and for the planters. To take such a great deal of money from a friend – and for such a reason – was a sore blow to his pride. "I'm sure Doctor Whitehead was proud to do it," she soothed. "He knows you'd do the same for him."

A small, rueful half-chuckle shook Cullen's chest. "That's just what Ellie said," he murmured. "Only she seemed to think it more likely one of the boys might get into a similar situation." He planted the cigar between his teeth again and stroked her hair, his healing callouses skimming more smoothly over the silken strands than they had in months. His hand stopped where it could cup the base of her skull. "How you been?" he asked. "Bethel says you've been brave and clever and bull-headed in my absence."

Mary looked up at him, catching the glint of his eyes in the blaze of the cigar. "She said bull-headed?" she asked, amused.

"Not really," he said. "But that's what she meant, all right." He tightened his hold upon her waist with his left hand while the right reached to tilt her chin. His tone grew grave. "I didn't want you having nothing to do with the tobacco."

"I've only been watching the fires," said Mary. "It's easy work; hardly even work at all. I didn't think it wise to have Meg out there, and Bethel was needed to tend her."

"You done right," Cullen said, and there were no sweeter words he might have spoken. He took the cigar from his lips and kissed her. "I wish it hadn't come to that, but you done right."

"Meg's healing," Mary said. "She's stronger now. She was out in the fields today."

"Bethel told me. Seems we've lost time despite everyone working just as hard as they can." He sounded so bitterly exhausted as his head rocked again. "Damn the man. Damn him, he's going to ruin me."

"Don't think about it," Mary soothed. She reached to fondle a lock of hair clinging wetly to his cheek. "You had a bath. Why didn't you come and tell me straight away that you were home?"

"Didn't want you seeing me, the state I was in." It was a confession that spoke to the depths of his fatigue: not an admission he would have made if in full possession of his faculties and self-control. "Jail ain't no gentlemen's club. I stank, Mary."

All she could think to do was tease him, and try to make light of the indignities he must have suffered. "Like you do after hunting all day?" she asked sweetly. It was a fond memory from their first year of marriage: Cullen returning from a county hunt smelling of hounds and sweat, and Mary, sitting in his lap and wrinkling her nose in mock disgust.

"Like a cesspit," he mumbled grimly. He pressed his lips to the place where her part met her forehead, and inhaled deeply. "_You_ smell of heaven."

"Flatterer," she whispered. She noticed now that he was trembling; subtle but bone-deep quaking. She slipped from his grasp and put her arm around his back to grip his far elbow, steering him gently to the clothes-press. "You need to sleep," she said. "You must be worn to a shadow."

"Been missing our bed," he admitted, letting her guide him. She opened a drawer and took out his nightshirt, still fresh from its laundering because there had been no one to wear it. She rucked up the hem and held it so that he could get his arms into the sleeves. The quilt fell about his ankles and he hauled the garment on, mindful not to let the tip of the cigar touch the cloth as he settled it over his head. He plucked the brand from his teeth again and tapped the ash over the little spittoon on the washstand. His lips found it again, hungrily, and he puffed.

"Why the cigar?" asked Mary. It was peculiar for Cullen to smoke so late at night, and he never did so in the bedroom. Indeed, at harvest time it seemed he only ever indulged when they had or were visitors, and on the occasional Sunday evening.

"Felt like I needed it," he said, shrugging. He scrubbed at his beard. "Nate's been catching rabbits. Your idea?"

Mary shook her head. "His. Doctor Whitehead said that Meg needed red meat. I thought it was clever. It never even crossed my mind to think of laying traps."

Cullen hummed noncommittally. The cigar was down to its last inch, and he snuffed it against the inside of the fireplace before dropping it far back in the hearth. They would soon need to begin laying fires at night. They parted then, Mary moving swiftly back to the bed. Her feet were cold and she was anxious for the comfort of lying near her husband. Cullen moved more slowly, limping a little, and his knee barked the bedstead. He stumbled, hissing sharply, and the heavy piece of furniture rattled with the force of the impact. Gabe, who had been lying on his stomach, rolled over towards Mary's hip. His lashes fluttered in the gloom, and he sat up, coughing shallowly.

Mary patted his back until the brief fit passed, and the little boy looked up at her. "Mama?" he said sleepily. "When Pappy comin' home?"

The question had been a dagger in her heart all week, but now Mary almost laughed for joy. Cullen, who had found his way around the bed at last, sagged down on the edge of the mattress so that the ropes grew taut. "Right here, son," he said.

Nimble as a monkey Gabe scrambled across the bed, climbing into his pappy's lap and hugging him tightly. His arms scarcely reached to touch Cullen's back, but he squeezed with all his might and his father's beloved hands spread over spine and shoulder blades.

"You's home! You's home! I knowed you'd come home!" the child crowed triumphantly. He braced his hands on his father's chest and pushed back to look up at him, though he could see little more than a shadow. He reached up, leaning back against Cullen's grasp, and planted a palm on each whiskered cheek. "I minded my mama," he announced.

"Good man," said Cullen, and at last he sounded almost happy. "I hear you ain't been well."

"It jus' a li'l cold," Gabe said gravely. "Bet'l say I's healt'y as a horse, but even a horse catch a cold sometimes."

"Well, Bethel would know," Cullen agreed. He drew Gabe in against his body and hoisted himself further onto the bed. He tucked his legs under the blankets and shifted so that he was positioned to ease onto the pillow. Mary reached to plump it for him, and he tried to lift the child off of his lap and onto the mattress beside him. Gabe was clearly expecting such an attempt, however, because he seized the front of Cullen's nightshirt with one hand and grabbed a fistful of his hair with the other.

"No!" he declared defiantly. "I's goin' stay right here 'n cuddle a while."

Mary held in her laughter, but Cullen did not. He chortled softly and settled Gabe in the crook of his arm. "That's settled, then," he said. "You can stay right there, but I got to lay down. It's been one heck of a day, and I'm tuckered right out. That all right with you?"

"Yup," said Gabe. "I's tuckered, too."

Mary lifted the bedclothes so that Cullen could execute the challenging maneuver of lying down gently with a small boy on his chest. Once Cullen was on his back, Gabe's legs curled up towards his bottom so they rested on Cullen's stomach. He rubbed his head against the front of his father's nightshirt until he found a comfortable position, and patted the man's collarbone. Mary lifted her own legs into bed, smoothed the bunched skirts of her nightdress, and drew the covers over the three of them.

Cullen patted the tick beside him. "C'mere," he murmured, eyelids already drooping with imminent slumber. "I reckon Mama could do with a cuddle herself."

Mary scooted in close, and Cullen put his arm beneath her neck so that he could place his hand upon her back. His head tilted in to rest against hers, and he let out a long, soft sigh. Gabe sniffled and then sneezed, his whole body contracting. His cheek nuzzled Cullen's chest. "Pappy, I's glad you come home," he said. "Pappy?"

No reply came. Cullen was fast asleep. Rapt in the blissful consolation of having her husband once more safe beside her, Mary was swift to follow.

_*discidium*_

Lottie's hair smelled of sweet wood smoke. It was a comforting scent to wake to, and Meg almost did not mind leaving the welcome oblivion of slumber behind. Almost, until she realized that she had to pick herself up off of the mattress. She did not habitually sleep on her stomach, but with her back in the state it was she had no choice. Her ribs and breasts ached after supporting the weight of her body all night, and her arms were stiff as she pushed herself onto her knees. The straining of the muscles across her shoulder blades brought sharp ripples of pain, and she gnawed down upon her lip. The scab where she had split it broke open, but no blood welled up. The soft, healing flesh smarted as it was exposed to the cool morning air. Carefully Meg climbed over Lottie and moved across the cabin. She found the matchbox by touch and lit the lamp, turning the wick low so that the glare would not wake her girl. Then she went to the clothes pegs.

Missus Mary had mended her petticoat, and Bethel had washed it and let it hang to bleach, but the brown bloodstains remained. The sight of them made Meg tremble, and she stepped into the garment as hastily as she could so that they would be hidden behind her. One of the overseers had thrown it to her when she had begged, sobbing, for something with which to cover herself. The torn shift had left her little more than naked, and she had actually felt gratitude towards the man when he gave her back her petticoat. Now she wished she had not put it on to be bled over. A darned waist she might have forgotten, but the stains would haunt her with the memory of that terrible night locked away with only her pain and her terror for company.

She eased her dress over her head, still unable to stretch too far. The effort left her clammy and breathless, and she sank down upon a corner of the bench. She wondered how long it would take for her hurts to heal enough that she could move without suffering. Tomorrow was the Lord's Day: a full week since she had first been whipped. She wondered anxiously whether there was any way she could sneak over to Hartwood. She had to see Peter, to speak to him, to reassure herself that he was healing, too. Nate's account of his condition had not been encouraging, and though she knew he would not lie even to comfort her she feared that perhaps he had been gentle with the truth. She knew she was a fool even to think about crossing that property line again, but her heart and her head were not in agreement. She had to talk to her husband. They had to comfort one another. If they had been born on the same plantation, they could comfort one another.

Not for the first time she wished miserably that the hard times had not come before old Mr. Bohannon could buy up her man. She believed he would have done it; Bethel had confided in her around the time of Lottie's first birthday that she thought he was considering it. Their marriage had proved fruitful: it was a sound investment to buy Peter. But then the crop had failed and the loan had been called in, and for a while there was no money for anything, not even enough to keep Mister Cullen at university. The plantation had never quite recovered from that first bad year.

Someone knocked upon the door, and Meg straightened, startled and a little guilt-ridden. Had she been lost in thought so long that the men were abroad already, wanting a breakfast she had not even started? Hurriedly she fumbled with the buttons of her basque.

"Come in," she said softly as she reached the ones above her breasts. Something scraped against the door and the latch lifted in three unsteady jerks. "I'm sorry: I ain't even begun," she said, smoothing the front of her frock. "I don't know what's got into me."

"Ain't no hurry," the caller said. "They're still abed."

Meg's breath caught in her throat at the voice, and as he rounded her she moved hurriedly to get her feet under her. "Mist' Cullen!" she cried. "You's…"

"Home," he finished for her. "Don't get up, Meg. Not this time."

She noticed belatedly that his arms were piled high with stove-lengths, and he moved to deposit them in the woodbox, doing so with care so as to avoid waking Lottie with the noise. "I thought you might be running short of fuel," he said quietly. Then he knelt down in front of the stove and pulled the fire-door open with a quick jerk of his fingers. He took two slender quarter-logs, and began to stir up the embers. The ruddy glow dyed his stained old shirt a brilliant orange.

"You don' need to be doin' that, Massa," Meg said, getting to her feet and hurrying to pick up a piece of wood herself. He reached and took hold of it, looking up at her with somber, penetrating eyes. For a moment they stood thus, the wood held between them. Then Meg's fingers let go and she cast down her gaze. "I's much better, Mist' Cullen," she murmured. "I's managin' fine."

"I'm glad," he said softly. There was a thin homemade cigar in his mouth, half-smoked already. He dragged deeply upon it as he sat back on his heels and watched the flames take. Satisfied that the fire was building, he nudged the door closed and opened the damping vents all the way. At last he stood, and relieved Meg of the unbearable awkwardness of having her master on his knees at her feet.

He was looking at her searchingly, questing for something. His fingers moved blindly to pluck up the cigar, and he rolled it between finger and thumb. "Meg…" he said, and his voice was so gentle and kind that she had to fight off the urge to weep.

"I's much better," she said. "Healin' bravely, Bethel said."

"I'm glad," he breathed again. "Meg, I'm sorry."

She looked up at him, startled. For a white man to apologize to any Negro was a strange event. To apologize to one of his field hands? That was almost unthinkable. "You ain't got cause to be sorry," she protested feebly. "It weren't no fault of yours."

"Yes it was." For a moment his eyes were hard as steel, cast inward, but then they focused on her again and grew gentle. "It was, Meg. I goaded that man. I threatened him with the law that day after the hailstorm, and I guess… I guess he must have been looking for a way to turn my own threat against me. He seized on you for that, and that wasn't right."

"It wasn' right, Mist' Cullen, but that ain' on you," Meg said. This was worse than anything else: worse than Missus Mary's tender pity, worse than Bethel's motherly fussing, worse than Elijah's quiet sorrow and Nate's valiant daring on her behalf – worse even than the shocked hurt in Lottie's eyes. Mister Cullen was tormenting himself, must have been tormenting himself all the time he was in prison, and she did not know if she could bear that.

"It is on me," he said. "I should have seen. Should have known." He shook his head and stared down at the glowing tip of his cigar. He thrust the butt between his lips and drew upon it, eyes fluttering briefly closed in relief. Twin serpents of smoke trickled from his nostrils and twined in the lamplight. "Even if I was too stupid to see, I should have known about the pass. I'm your master. It's my business to know the law as it applies to my people. I had no earthly idea I had to give you a paper, and I should have known it. It weren't nothing but laziness that I didn't."

"You ain't lazy, neither!" Meg protested vehemently. "You gots more get-up-an'-go than any white man I ever knowed nor heard of! Don' you go sayin' words like lazy, Mist' Cullen! I won' stand for that!"

"Hush," he whispered, looking over his shoulder towards the bunk where Lottie slept. When he looked back at her his face was almost sad. "You're a good woman, Meg. You always been a good woman. I'm grateful I got you." The cigar travelled from one corner of his mouth to the other. It was queer to see him smoking: it was a leisurely pursuit, not business for a working morning. "I just… I want you to know if I could do it over I'd do it different. I never should have let it happen to you."

"You took my place," she murmured, her heart suddenly flooded with the old reverent admiration for her master. "Ain't no other man on earth woulda done sumthin' like that."

Mister Cullen sighed. "It was all I could think to do to start making it right."

Meg nodded tremulously. They couldn't keep talking about this. She had to say something to change the course of the conversation, but she could think of nothing. "They let you go!" she said, trying to sound cheerful and failing wretchedly. "Nate tol' us you was goin' be there 'til Tuesday."

"Yeah, I got loose early," Mister Cullen said. She thought that he, too, was forcing a certain levity into his tone. "You need anything else done 'round here? I could fetch water."

She shook her head. "Lottie filled ev'ry pail las' night," she said. "My girl a good li'l worker."

"Yes, she is," agreed Mister Cullen. He flicked the ash from his cigar and wiped his hand on the side of his pant-leg. "Well, I'll leave you to your morning. If I don't get back and eat something, Bethel's goin' hunt me down with a noose."

Meg laughed a little at this, and was rewarded by a tiny crinkling at the corners of her master's eyes. He looked younger when he smiled. He moved to the door, and suddenly she remembered the question that had preyed on her mind all last night until exhaustion finally forced her into slumber. "Mist' Cullen, what we goin' do?" she asked.

"Do about what?" he said, turning to face her again. From the look on his face she knew he wasn't puzzled, but merely wondering which of the dozen problems floating in his head was on her mind now.

"'Bout them yams. Elijah said we gots to get 'em in 'fore the firs' frost, an' that mos' gen'rally come 'fore these nex' two weeks is up," she said.

His eyes grew wide and she realized with a little burst of horror that he had forgotten all about the sweet potato crop. "Hell's afire," he breathed.

He paced over to the stove, lifted one of the lids, and tossed the butt of his cigar into the fire. Then he crossed to the table and took a match from the box. From the cuff of his sleeve he drew out another slender stick of wrapped tobacco, bit down on one end, struck the match and lit it. He puffed several times, frantically, until the rich smoke filled his mouth. Meg watched him wordlessly. He wasn't smoking like a gentleman at all. He was tearing into that cigar like a starving man would tear into a hunk of cornbread.

"You really well enough to hold that pole?" he asked. "_Really_, Meg. You be truthful, now."

"I done all right," she said with a proud little jerk of her chin. Her hair, not yet tamed under its cloth, jounced and bounced like Lottie's. "I cain't stoop none, but I can string good as I ever could."

He nodded almost hypnotically. His eyes were clouded, and she could almost see his thoughts behind them, whirling like twisters in tight formation. "Well, you can string for Nate and me both," he said. "Elijah and Lottie can start on the yams as soon as it's light. Bethel can mind the fires. It'll be a lot of work for Mary, cooking dinner and supper for everyone, but she's up to it all right. Someone's got to stay in the house with Gabe anyhow: he ain't so well." His stormy expression cleared and he nodded. "That's what we'll do. You tell everyone down here, all right, Meg?"

"Yassir, Mist' Cullen," she said crisply. "I surely can do that."

He nodded his thanks and left the cabin, closing the door softly behind him. Meg stood for a moment, looking at the place he had been. Her breath came easier than it had in days, and her tired body felt stronger. Even her back, wrapped tight in Bethel's bandages, did not trouble her so much anymore. This week had been a terrible time; perhaps the worst time of all her life. But it was over now, and the master was home. Maybe things would be better now.

_*discidium*_

They worked Saturday until nightfall: Cullen, Nate and Meg in the tobacco, Lottie and Elijah in the sweet potatoes. When they came in weary, sore and coated with mud, Mary had a hot and plentiful supper waiting. The Negroes took theirs down to the cabins, while Cullen ate at the kitchen table and Mary and Bethel brought in water for Mary's Saturday bath. Cullen retreated onto the stoop until she was finished, and then used the same water to scour away the worst of the muck and sap. He had expected to spend the entire day lusting after a cigar, but found when he was finally clean and warm again that he did not want one after all. Perhaps it was the idleness that had given smoking such an urgent appeal: after a long day of labor picking the sticky tobacco leaves he no longer had the desire.

The loss of time was not as grave as he had feared. The few prime leaves that remained were ripe, but not overripe. After some consultation with the two black men it was decided that they would go out again tomorrow, Sabbath or no, and try to finish the pass through the middle field. What was left in the top field was almost not worth picking: the leaves highest on the plants had borne the brunt of the hail and were so ragged that they would not even be useable in pipes. Cullen might be able to sell it for a penny a pound to some ship's captain looking for cheap cigarette fill for his foreign crew, but with time so pressing it seemed a waste. If it lasted until they were done with the better seconds in the other fields, they would pick it. If not it would rot. There was no sense in mourning it now.

When he came from his bath he expected to find Mary retired for the night, and he was looking forward to slipping into bed beside her for his brief hours of slumber before it was time to sit his watch in the tobacco barn. Instead he came through the dining room to find the lamp in the parlor lit and Mary seated on the couch with her dressing gown arranged prettily across her lap. Cullen, in his nightshirt and his father's smoking jacket, leaned against the doorjamb and studied her quietly. She did not see him: she was sitting very straight and staring into the empty hearth.

"Bethel would lay a fire if you want one," he said quietly.

She turned to look at him, and he was surprised by the look in her eyes. They were grim, almost hard, and her lips were pale. "Cullen, we need to talk," she said. "We need to talk about what happened to Meg."

He nodded. He had expected this, he realized. In the hell of Monday morning, when he first became aware that she was watching the awful spectacle on the front drive, he had known this conversation was coming. That he had subsequently forgotten it in the bevy of other, more urgent matters seemed unimportant now. She had waited, God bless her, until he had had a good night's sleep and a few decent meals, but the time had come. He glanced over his shoulder. They stood between Bethel and her bed, but she was bailing out the bathwater and would likely be some time in putting her kitchen to rights. He stepped over the threshold and closed the parlor door, then crossed to his armchair and sat. Weary though he was and riddled with aches his body had almost forgotten, he remained erect and near the edge of the cushion.

"Go on," he said. She had to say her piece. It was only natural. She had seen things she had never expected to see. Things he had never wanted her to see. And then she had been left to cope with the aftermath all on her own while he sat useless in a vile little cell in Meridian.

"We failed her." Mary's voice cracked a little on the second word. She cleared her throat and tucked her elbows closer to her body. She always looked so vulnerable without her corset: like a supple young sapling that might snap in a sudden wind.

"I failed her," Cullen corrected.

The blue eyes riveted upon him, shining like lightning. "_You_ failed her," she agreed.

The words fell heavy in the room, and Cullen found that he could not quite remember how to breathe. Mary was no nag. She never needled at him or criticized his choices. She never said a single word of blame. And now she was throwing his own words back at him, validating the self-loathing that had been gnawing away at his spirit all week.

"You're her master," said Mary. "It's your duty to protect her. Isn't that what you're always saying? That you have a responsibility for the welfare of your people? An obligation to provide for them and shelter them? Isn't it?"

Cullen's head bobbed, but not emphatically enough to be interpreted as a nod.

"_Isn't it_?"

She had not raised her voice, but the fervor in her words and the terrible look in her eyes rang louder than any scream. And she was giving voice to his own doubts and recriminations. He heard her perfectly.

"Yes," Cullen breathed.

"And you failed." These words were flat, devoid of anything but the hollow misery that had kept him awake during the long nights in prison. "You let Mr. Sutcliffe get the better of you, and he whipped her when she had done nothing wrong. When the only thing that anyone had done wrong was to fail to give her a slip of paper with your signature on it."

"Yes," he said. It was all that he could say.

"Why didn't you know she needed that?" Mary asked. There was turmoil in her eyes, but only a guarded curiosity in her voice.

He had confessed the truth to Meg, and she had protested that he could not call himself lazy. But that's what it was: laziness. Complacency. The placid and foolish belief that because a thing was commonly done made it legal. Made it safe. "I ain't never read the laws," Cullen admitted. "The slave laws. I ain't read 'em."

Mary's head jerked in a succinct little nod. "You only knew what you had heard from other people: from your father, perhaps, or Boyd Ainsley, or Mr. Graham or a dozen other planters. You only knew what was common practice, and what laws were often enforced. The runaway laws: you knew _them_ all right, didn't you?"

He had to acknowledge this. Everyone knew the runaway laws: the penalties for harboring a slave, the punishment due to any darky who sheltered one, the terrible penance exacted from the one who had fled. Not a year went by without at least a couple of attempts by slaves to escape their lot in life and deprive their masters of their lawful property. "Meg didn't run," he said, pointlessly.

"No, she didn't," said Mary. She turned her body towards him, one foot slipping under the sofa. "She didn't run. All she did was go to see her husband, who by a curious mischance belongs to a man with whom you have been feuding all year. And because he was looking for a means to get the better of you, he preyed upon her. Do you see now, Cullen?"

"See what?" He wished he knew how to quiet that fire in her eyes. She was frightening him; he had never before seen her like this. "I know I failed Meg, and I ain't goin' let it happen again. I—"

"It isn't _you_!" she cried. Her fist thumped against her thigh and he saw that she had her handkerchief in it, balled tightly beneath her slender fingers. "It isn't you, Cullen, it's slavery! That's what it does: it exposes people – human _people_, Cullen! – to unspeakable indignity and degradation. It allows good men to be trapped by simple oversight into becoming complicit in the suffering of folk they care about. When people are property, without rights and worth of their own, the whole system of law and justice can be perverted to the will of spiteful men!"

Cullen felt his jaw slacken as she spoke. It had been a long while since they had seriously argued the merits and detriments of slavery. Once such a constant, quiet advocate for manumission, Mary's protests had grown fewer as the years passed. He had believed it was because she was coming to realize that it really wasn't as awful as she and her New York friends had all imagine when they had read that damned book. Harriet Stowe had a hell of a lot to answer for, but as Mary had seen the peaceful life his slaves – their slaves – led, she had gradually stopped pressing him. Once in a while she still made some intimation that she longed to free their people, but never, not even in that first year, had she taken such a tone with him on the matter.

"Mary," he said heavily. "Mary, I'm too worn out for a debate on abolition tonight. Can't we please—"

"No!" she cried. "No, we can't! Why don't you see it? Why can't you see that as long as Meg's a slave you _can't _protect her! There's nothing anyone can do to protect her, because she's property! Why did they arrest you, Cullen?"

"'Cause I wouldn't let 'em take her," he said feebly.

"What was the charge?" Mary demanded.

"Letting a slave go at large," he mumbled.

"Like a dog!" cried Mary. "Or a horse, or a bull! Like an _animal_, Cullen, as if she isn't safe to be out in the world on her own, moving and thinking and making her own decisions!"

"That ain't how I see it," he protested.

"It's how the law sees it!" gasped Mary. "It's how Abel Sutcliffe sees it, and the sheriff, and George White. Oh, yes he does!" she said sharply as he opened his mouth to dispute this. "He does, or he would never have found you guilty. Can't you see you're just as much a prisoner of this system as Meg is? Only she's the one with the bleeding pits in her back! _She's_ the one who will never be the same again! She's the one who's paid the price for our complacency!"

The strength went out of Cullen's aching spine and he sank back miserably in the chair. His hand scrubbed at his brow and he tried to keep his frustration and his hatred of his impotence from drowning him completely. Mary was right: Meg had paid the price for his stupidity in goading Sutcliffe, his stubbornness in refusing to sell a couple hundred acres he couldn't use, his defiance in spurning the sacred social precepts of Southern life that had made him a target in the first place. "What would you have me do?" he asked.

"Free them," said Mary. "Free them all, tonight. I know we can't offer them wages at present, but we can promise room and board and to pay back wages when we're able. And if they want to leave to make a new life, let them go and we'll do what we must to get by. You care about them, Cullen. I know you do. You want what's best for them, and nothing is better than their freedom."

His eyes snapped open and he stared at her, first through her fingers and then head-on as his hand slipped inexorably down to clutch the armrest. He dragged himself forward, straightening his crackling backbone and ignoring the rippling cramping along his lower ribs. His feet, a moment ago lolling limply on the rug, slapped down firmly. "You say that like it's an easy thing," he said, enunciating slowly. "I told you before, Mary. I told you when you first come to live here. It ain't as simple as that."

"It is," said Mary. "It is as simple as that. It isn't easy, but it is simple. Give them their freedom. You can do it."

"You really think that's all there is to it, don't you?" he said. He was horrified at the scornful note that crept into his voice, but he found himself powerless to modulate it. "You think – what? That I can just call Bethel in here, stand her up on the hearthrug and say 'Well done, good and faithful servant: you're free now. Go!'? and she'll walk out of this room her own woman?"

Mary's hard expression wavered a little. There was doubt in her eyes. "I… I'm certain you would have to write up a deed to that effect," she said. "Some form of proof that you had freed her."

"Oh! I see. So I just walk over to the secretary there, and jot down a little note on the back of an old bill of lading, is that it? _Know ye who read this that the bearer, one Bethel Bohannon, is a free woman by deed of gift_… like that?" he demanded.

"Well… well, yes," said Mary uncertainly.

"You're a fool." She stiffened, and Cullen wanted to bite off his tongue. He sounded so hateful. The hurt in her eyes was terrible. But he could not stop himself. The rage and frustration of the past week, his disgust at his helplessness and the countless empty hours he had spent wishing there was something, anything, that he could do to put right this horrific mess he had made all boiled up now in an inferno of wrathful vindication.

He went on fiercely, his voice harsh and hateful. "Damn it, Mary, under Mississippi law I need legislative permission to free a slave. I ain't talking about approval from a Justice of the Peace, either. I mean from the damned Legislature! I'd have to travel to Jackson to do it. Application has to be made in the State House – made and _paid for_. And they might just as easily turn me down as grant it. Then the slave has to put in for freedom papers, and those cost too. And once they're free, then what? Suppose Nate wants to go off. He got to have work, or they'll jail him for a vagrant. He ain't allowed to sell anything he makes or grows – what's he going to grow anyway, and where? He ain't got land. Ain't got no money to buy land. He ain't allowed to own a shotgun unless he got a license for it. A license to carry a gun, Mary! Just you think about that."

He leaned in towards her, eyes fixed on hers so that he did not need to see the way her hands were trembling. He ticked off points on his left hand. "He ain't allowed to get work in a drinking establishment, or any place that's got a printing press. He got to carry his freedom papers anywhere he goes, 'cause under the law any Negro's presumed to be a slave unless he can prove up-front he ain't. If he loses his proof of registration as a free black, or can't pay to have it renewed, he can be sold back into slavery at a sheriff's auction. And all that's just under the laws we got now. There was talk back a few years ago 'bout putting through a bill requiring counties to deport their free Negroes at public expense to Liberia! What you think little Lottie would do, shipped off to Africa to live in some mud hut in the jungle? What about Elijah? You think he'd even survive a sea voyage at his age? Hellfire, Mary, it just ain't as simple as you think it is!"

The silence following this tirade was terrible. Mary was staring at him, wide-eyed and breathless. The hand gripping the handkerchief was white. The other lay limp in her lap. Her back was straight as a ramrod, and she was quaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Her lips, white as the collar of her nightgown, trembled and parted. Her tongue moved soundlessly. Then all at once she was on her feet. She bolted for the door and tore it open with such force that it bounced against the wall.

"Hey," Cullen gasped hoarsely. He scrambled out of his chair and ran after her. He reeled out into the hallway, not even seeing Bethel where she stood by the sewing machine, grave eyes upon him. Mary was thundering up the stairs. One of her bedshoes flew off and tumbled to the bottom. She did not even pause, her bare foot slapping on the next tread.

"Wait!" Cullen called. He bolted after her, his weary legs betraying him so that he tripped on the fourth step and fell crashing to one knee. He scrambled up and finished his inelegant ascent. They had never in all their married life, in all their courtship or that brief casual acquaintance that had preceded his first overture of romance, had such a quarrel, used such angry tones or such harsh words with one another. In the blazing horrified panic, he could think of nothing except that they must not be separated. She must not run from him, and he must not let her go. They had to resolve this. How they might do so did not cross his mind. He only knew that they must.

He found her in the corridor, fumbling clumsily with the nursery door. He caught hold of her arm and she whirled, pressing her back against the wall and looking at him with the wide, wild eyes of a hunted animal. "Let me go!" she gasped. "Don't touch me! Don't you touch me!"

Cullen withdrew his hands at once and held them aloft before his shoulders, palms out. "I won't," he gasped. "I won't touch you. But Mary, we got to talk about this. We can't… damn it, we got to _talk_ about this."

She drew herself up to her full height and shook her head. The moonlight spilling from the guest bedroom made her look like a specter, a slender apparition of hurt and misery – and a terrible, righteous dignity that shamed him. "Don't you think you've said quite enough for one evening?" she asked.

She took a combative step towards him, and he withdrew a pace. His heart was hammering against his aching ribs, and his throat was dry. Mary turned and seized the doorknob, pushing open the door gently. The hinges creaked.

"What are you doing?" Cullen choked out. He stood helpless behind her, hands fallen to his sides and shoulders slumped exhaustedly. The fight had drained him and he could not muster anything more than that one broken question.

She twisted and she looked at him, and there was no mercy in her eyes. "I am going to sleep with Gabe tonight," she said. "You've worked hard and you're tired: you need your own bed. But I will not share it with you. Not now."

Then she slipped into the nursery and closed the door softly but so firmly, shutting him out.


	47. A Half Forgotten Guest

**Chapter Forty-Seven: A Half-Forgotten Guest**

The yams could wait a day, but the tobacco could not. Long before Mary arose from her uneasy night in Gabe's little bed the men were out in the field. They did not come in for dinner: instead Bethel sent Lottie with food and hot coffee. The day was cloudy but temperate, but the dew had been heavy in the night and they would all be sodden and chilled. Mary tried not to think about her husband bent low among the half-stripped plants, his back afire with the agonies of the labor and his mind no doubt as riddled with tumult as her own.

She did not know what had come over her. She had intended to broach the subject gently, rationally and reasonably; she had spent all day working up the courage to do so, and had positioned herself in the parlor so that Cullen could come to her of his own accord. But almost as soon as she started to speak, all of the hurt and bewilderment and fear had come bubbling up to overwhelm her. In her desperation to remain calm she knew that she had sounded cold, spiteful even, and that had doubtless spurred him on to his own angry outburst. His hard, hateful words stung her even now. He had called her a fool, and had enumerated with such vicious determination all the ways in which she was in error – and she did not even know if he had heard the truth in her words, which was worse.

She had not found the courage to go to him, though she had lain sleepless until she heard him pass the nursery door to take his watch in the barn, and had awakened from a shallow slumber at the sound of his weary return. Exhausted at last she had slept through his pre-dawn rising, and now he was out in the tobacco and she was immured in the house and there was nothing that could be said or done to mend the rift between them.

It filled Mary with bewildered misery, this quarrel. Even in the early days of their marriage, when she had pressed the question of manumission again and again until his eyes flashed with irritation and his voice became clipped and he finally proclaimed that they were not going to talk about this anymore, they had never entered into such a pitched battle. The rancor in their voices, the fury in their eyes, the sense that neither could truly hear the other – all these were strange and terrible and made her dread the twilight hour when Cullen would return to the house and they would have to face one another again.

Gabe had finally fallen asleep, curled on his side with one small fist beside his running nose. His cough was worse today: he would rattle out several in rapid succession where before he had merely barked shallowly once or twice. The fever was still only mild, but it worried Mary that it had lingered so long; three days already. But there was no denying that he was happier now than he had been all week. Again and again he would ask; "Where Pappy gone?", and again and again Mary and Bethel were able to tell him that his father was in the field with Nate and Elijah. This would bring an enormous smile that illuminated his whole face, whereupon he would nod gravely and say; "Pappy workin' hard. He goin' come in when I's sleepin'." It did not seem to matter that he could not play with his father: the simple knowledge that he was once more at home was comfort enough.

Mary drew the quilt over her child and rose up off of the edge of the bed. The curtains were drawn and the window closed. The house was cool and quiet with the gentle mercy of the fall of the year, when summer's smothering heat was broken and the world could breathe again at last. As she slipped out into the corridor Mary smoothed her hair and shook out her petticoats. Bethel was in the kitchen, shelling black beans for dry storage, and Mary had left Lottie on the parlor rug, where she had been making up stories to the engravings in _Tanglewood Tales _for Gabe. It was past time for someone to relieve Meg at the tobacco fires, and Mary had decided she would be the one to do it. With her son fast asleep she was not needed in the house, and she had put on a work dress in anticipation of this particular labor.

She was just alighting on the fourth step down the staircase when the sound of knuckles against the front door made her heart spring to her throat. For an awful moment she stood paralyzed. Last Sunday calamity had come to call. What fresh disaster now had cause to knock upon her door?

But she was the mistress, and it was her duty to cope with whatever it was while her husband was out at his labors. She steeled herself and slipped gracefully down the stairs as a second knock rang out. As she reached the bottom she caught sight of Lottie out of the corner of her eye, wide eyed and anxious and doubtless filled with the same muddled, frightened thoughts that wanted to swarm through Mary's mind. Mary managed an unsteady smile for the child, and fixed it firmly upon her face as she placed one remarkably steady hand upon the right doorknob and drew it open.

The first thing she noticed with almost weak-kneed relief was that there was no Black Maria looming over their drive. She did not know if she would ever recover from that particular sight, or cease to dread it. There was only a handsome dark horse, a Tennessee Walker, with his reigns tossed over the fence-rail. He was tacked for a long ride, with saddle-bags across his back and a canteen hanging from the pommel. All this she took in over the shoulder of the slender young man standing on her veranda with a pleasant smile on his face.

"Mrs. Bohannon?" he said, and she realized she had allowed far too long a silence to elapse. "I know it might be bad form to turn up a day earlier than expected, but if I'm to prepare properly for your husband's case I need to meet with him as early as possible tomorrow morning."

"I beg your pardon?" said Mary. She could not quite place the man's features. He looked familiar and she knew she ought to know him, but he had the unsettling aura of a person encountered in entirely the wrong context. His sturdy riding clothes, his dusty overcoat, and the small carpetbag clutched in his left hand were all out of place. He ought to be wearing evening dress and a dark silk stock, and smiling courteously as he bowed her out onto the dance floor. "Mr. Secrest!" she gasped, recognizing him at last. Rapid on the heels of that revelation was dismay. "Oh, no!"

He grinned cheerfully. "I was afraid I might catch you unawares," he said. "If there's a boarding house in town I can put up there for the night."

"No!" Mary exclaimed. She was clutching the side of the door now, and her left hand gesticulated helplessly. "No, no, it isn't that! Oh, Cullen must have forgotten to send word… his case was heard unexpectedly on Friday. He's home now. Oh, I'm so sorry: you've come all this way for nothing!"

His dark brows tangled and his smile disappeared. "His case was heard on Friday?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mary. "I don't know why he didn't think of sending a second telegram… he must have been occupied with other matters. Anxious to get home and back to work. I'm sorry." She looked at him imploringly, praying he would understand. She did not know how to explain what a nightmare this week had been, nor how to apologize for the horrendous lapse of reason that had led both her and Cullen to forget that they had summoned this poor man away from his life to help them. Added to her discomfiture was the burst of gratitude that he had come at all, despite the warning in the telegram that they could not pay him immediately. He had come to help them, and they had failed to notify him that his generous aid was no longer needed.

"Of course we must… we must somehow… we'll pay you for your trouble," Mary stammered. Helplessly she thought of the ten hoarded dollars locked in the secretary, of the thirty-five they owed to Doctor Whitehead for covering Cullen's fine, of the debts at the grocer's and the dry goods store and the lumber yard. She had no idea how they would meet those obligations, much less offer recompense for this, but they would have to manage it somehow.

"That's something it'd be more fitting I discuss with your husband, ma'am," Mr. Secrest said courteously. "Is he home?"

"He's working," she blurted out, wishing too late that she had held her tongue. There was no way to tell how this young man might take to the idea of breaking the Sabbath, and in any case she knew that Cullen would not want to admit the necessity. She closed her eyes and inhaled. It was too late now. "He's out in the tobacco. Everything that happened… it cost him a week's work."

"Of course." Mr. Secrest nodded. "Well, in the meantime is there somewhere I can water my horse? He's had a long ride and could use a rest."

"Yes!" Mary seized upon this small chance to offer hospitality. "Yes, of course. And you must come in and have something to drink. You'll stay tonight, won't you? I can have Bethel put on something special for supper, and the guest bedroom is ready."

He smiled again. "I'd admire to do that, Mrs. Bohannon," he said. He looked down at the carpetbag. "May I…"

"Please, allow me," said Mary, and took it. She turned in the doorway. "Lottie? Can you show Mr. Secrest to the stable? He… oh, dear, do you mind seeing to your own horse? I could send to the fields for Nate—"

"Don't trouble yourself, ma'am," he said, putting his hat back on his head and stepping back so that Lottie could pass through the doorway. She shot a tiny, uncertain glance at Mary, but looked ready to do as she was told. "I generally insist upon tending to Bastion myself. If your girl would just show me where to find the feed and your brushes, I'll get on all right."

He jogged down the steps and took his horse's reins, nodding to Lottie to indicate that she should lead the way. Mary watched him go, her ribs straining against her stays, and as soon as he reached the door of the barn she turned and ran through to the kitchen.

_*discidium*_

His enforced absence from the tobacco field had driven Cullen to distraction, but it had in no way left him grateful to be back. His body was rebelling at the return to the hated toil after its dubious respite, and the sinews of his torso were wracked with cramps and deep, searing spasms that rippled over his ribs and through his intestines and up towards his lungs. His shoulders burned and his arms ached, and his fingers were stiff after only a day and a half of picking. The cool of the October day should have been a relief after months of drudging in the muggy heat, but instead it left him shivering in his wet clothes and longing for another mouthful of hot coffee. It was getting on to the time when Mary usually sent out a little something to blunt the afternoon's hunger, but he did not know whether she would think of it today. Certainly he did not believe that she would withhold that mercy out of spite: she had not the capacity for such pettiness, and in any case would never punish Nate and Elijah for their master's heartless outbursts. But today being Sunday it might easily slip her mind.

He wished he could take back what he had said to her, or at least to apologize for it, but he knew he could not. There wasn't one word he had said that wasn't true. Mary, for all her intelligence and her pretty ideals, suffered from the same delusion as all Northerners: that all the world's ills could be solve by sudden, swift freeing of the slaves. Washington wanted to turn loose the entire black population of the nation and Mary was only talking about their own five darkies, but it amounted to the same thing. There was no quick solution; no easy fix; no simple way out. Mississippi could not simply free her Negroes, and Cullen certainly could not just liberate his. Even if he did not believe, earnestly and with a secret horror, that their lives would be a misery if they were freed and forced to make their own way in a white man's world, he had neither the time nor the resources to mount the lengthy process needed to do it. He could just imagine walking into Madsen's Bank with that proposal: could they lend him a sum of money between one hundred and fifty and two hundred dollars, maybe more, so that he could give away twenty-five hundred dollars in assets with no foreseeable return? It was ridiculous.

His foot collided with the side of Nate's boot as he tried to move to the next plant. They were stooping almost back-to-back, each working the opposite row but standing in the same furrow so as to be handy to Elijah. Cullen wanted to bark at Nate to watch himself, but of course that was not fair. He, and not Nate, had been the one in motion, and he could not take out his foul temper on his man. Nate had consented to give up his Sunday, and had done so without so much as a sullen look. Remembering the day when they had worked to save the crop from the threat of aphids, Cullen wondered what had changed. Then Nate had only been won over somehow by Meg's sweet reasoning, belatedly. Today he had come promptly and of his own accord.

Elijah accepted the leaf Cullen handed him. Broad though it was it was undersized, its growth stilted by the bruising hail. There were ragged pocks at its edges, fine but noticeable. Five cents a pound, Cullen thought bleakly. Maybe four. His mind tumbled through a series of worried calculations that he was powerless to stop or to ignore. How, he wondered, and not for the first time, would he possibly raise enough money on this crop to meet his obligations and feed his people?

Nate's low whistle startled him, and Cullen twisted painfully to look under his arm at the other man. "What is it?" he asked.

"Trouble, from the look of things," muttered Nate. "Look."

He jerked his chin towards the top field and Cullen turned, rising up out of his tortuous curl as he recognized Bethel, hurrying through the ruins of the top field towards them. She was without shawl or bonnet, her headscarf stark above her dark brow, and she had her skirts gathered up in both hands to keep them out of the mud. She reached the edge of the row they were working, let her hem fall into the dying indiangrass, and beckoned to him.

"Mist' Cullen, don' make me come 'n fetch you!" she called. "My shoes be wet 'nough as it is."

Elijah shifted awkwardly to one side, moving the half-laden pole with him. Cullen skirted awkwardly around the older man. "Keep picking," he said, more sternly than he meant to. Nate nodded and fixed his attention back on the plant in front of him, but from the cant of his head it was obvious that he was still listening.

"What is it?" Cullen asked as he reached the end of the row. He tried to wipe his gummy hands upon his wet oilskins, but to no purpose whatsoever.

Bethel looked him over, her face taking on a pinched, sorrowful look. Then she shook her head sharply and said in a calm but somehow dangerous voice; "Mist' Cullen, Missus Mary wan' to know did you forget to do sumthin' 'portant 'fore you lef' Meridian on Friday."

"Something important?" he parroted. "I got the money from Ellie to pay my damned fine, and started for home the minute they'd let me. What else was I supposed to do?"

Bethel's lower lip protruded grimly. "Missus Mary wan' to know did you forget to stop by the telegraph office an' sen' a message out to Scooba."

For a moment he had no idea what she was talking about, and then his blood ran suddenly cold and his innards contracted. "Shit!" he exclaimed. He tugged the ragged remains of his straw hat from his head, smacking it against his thigh, and only just managed to restrain himself from plunging his sap-coated hand into his sweat-soaked hair. He shook off his self-disgust, and said briskly; "Never mind: I'll saddle up Bonnie and ride in straight off. It'll cost me the rest of the day, but I can be in Meridian before sundown. Damn it, there'll be an extra charge for sending a telegram on a Sunday, but at least Secrest's not meant to come in until tomorrow, and—"

"He here now," Bethel said matter-of-factly.

"What? No he ain't! I told him Monday!" protested Cullen.

"He come down a day early. Says he was goin' meet with you firs' thing tomorrow to make a good start on your case," she told him. "He up at the house now, sittin' in the parlor with the missus an' sippin' down that whiskey Mist' Tate brung from New York."

For an interminable span of time it seemed that Cullen's heart had stopped, but his mind kept right on whirring. "What're we going to do about supper?" he asked, his voice low and anxious. "We can't feed him on jackrabbit and greens—"

"We gots yams at last," said Bethel. "I'll bake 'em up nice. An' I already done kill't a chicken, Mist' Cullen. I know we can' really spare no more young layers, but—"

"No, you done right," he said. "There's that wine Mary's father sent, and the bread ain't but two days old. Chicken'll have to be fried, not roasted. And something nice for dessert. Maybe with peaches? You could…" He stopped abruptly when he realized she was laughing at him, chuckling quietly while dark eyes flashed. "I don't see how this is funny, Bethel," he said crossly.

"Mist' Cullen, you soun' like a young wife a-plannin' her firs' dinner party!" the old woman said fondly, reaching to pat his cheek. Her palm snagged on a smear of tobacco sap, but it did not appear to hinder her. "Does you think this the on'y time I's ever had to put on a slap-up supper without no notice? Chile, you gots plenty worries with this here lawyer turnin' up when he ain' needed no more, but fillin' his stomach ain' one of 'em. Jus' you let me worry how we's goin' feed 'im, an' you worry 'bout how you's goin' explain how you make him come three dozen miles fo' nuthin'."

Cullen grimaced. "Is he angry?" he asked.

Bethel shrugged her lean, strong shoulders. "If he be angry, he ain't takin' it out on Missus Mary," she said. "He been a perfec' gent'man."

"Well, that's something," said Cullen. He looked down at his filthy clothes and the mud caked thick on his worn-out work-boots, then cast a long eye on the field. "I guess I got to come in and try 'n explain," he said.

"Yassir, I guess you does," said Bethel. "Ain' fair, leavin' Missus Mary to see to 'im. You gots to come in, an' you ain' goin' be able to come out 'gain 'til it time to see to the horses."

This had not occurred to him. He had planned to hurry back to the house, make his apologies in person, and come straight back to the field. He couldn't waste the scant remaining hours of daylight in the parlor with an irritated visitor and a wounded wife. "But…"

Bethel shook her head. "You can' walk 'way from this, Mist' Cullen. I know you don' wan' be in there with Missus Mary, the way you gone an' lef' things last night, but if you goin' bolt like a scared mule an' leave her 'lone with this, then you ain' the man I brung you up to be."

Suddenly his cold face burned and he could not meet her eyes. "I ain't no coward," he muttered.

"No," Bethel agreed. "That so: you ain'. But you does ten' to look fo' an hon'rable way out of uncomf'table situations. Workin' the tobacco as gots to be worked, that an hon'rable way, an' this surely is goin' be an uncomf'table situation, but you can' run from it this time, Mist' Cullen. Not if you ever wants to make things right."

He wondered whether she was talking about the situation with Jim Secrest, or his quarrel with Mary, and then realized he did not want to know. He had no idea how much of last night's conflagration Bethel had overheard, but he knew it was definitely enough. She was certainly aware that Mary had refused even to join him in their bed. He gestured vaguely up the length of his body. "I can't go in there like this," he protested feebly.

"Nawsir. I gots clean things ready in the kitchen," said Bethel. "You ain' goin' have time to bath proper, but you kin give a lick an' a promise an' scrub them hands at leas'. Come 'long now."

Cullen nodded, but turned first to the other two men. "I need you both to work on," he said. "I surely do appreciate you giving up your Sunday to do it, and I aimed to be right alongside you 'til dark, but there's been an unexpected—"

"We heard," said Nate, bluntly but without rancor. He did not even look up from the plant he was harvesting. "You go 'long. Massa gots some business he cain' leave to no one else."

And if that didn't sum up the situation, Cullen wasn't sure what did. Nodding his thanks and started through the dilapidated plants of the top field with Bethel behind him. Once they were out on the sod again he fell into step beside her.

"What did he say?" he asked, hoarse in his apprehension. "What did Mary say?"

Bethel shook her head. "I didn' hear what was said straight off, but when I come in't the parlor she got 'im talkin' 'bout horses. Missus Mary, she know how to turn a man's 'ttention to them things he loves. Ain't every lady gots that gift, Mist' Cullen."

He looked at her sharply, but there seemed to be nothing more to her words than genuine admiration for his wife. They were coming up on the house now, and he stumped up the steps to find the bootjack waiting on the stoop. Wary of sitting down lest he should find himself reluctant to rise again, Cullen attempted to use it while standing. He overbalanced and had to catch hold of the pillar to steady himself. Bethel thrust out her foot to keep the block from skidding away from him, and her hand found his elbow as he tried again to drag off his boots.

In the kitchen she retreated into the pantry and closed the door. Cullen stripped hastily to his drawers and did what he could to wash his hands, face and armpits. Bethel had brought fresh undergarments and his good day clothes down, and his riding boots, clean and beautifully blacked, were standing by the leg of the table. She had even thought to bring down Mary's ivory comb so that Cullen could tame his hair. He dressed hurriedly, gathering his soiled things into a heap by the door. Tugging smooth the front of his waistcoat, he knocked on the pantry door.

"I'm decent," he said as Bethel emerged and looked him over. "Ain't I?"

She reached to cup his chin, her thumb smoothing the whiskers at the corner of his lip. Then she nodded. "You look jus' fine," she said. "Go on in, now, an' put things right."

Once again he did not know which problem she was talking about, but it didn't really matter. He and Mary could hardly resolve their own problems with a guest to bear witness, and as much as his heart told him otherwise his head knew the issue with Jim Secrest was more pressing. He got as far as the kitchen door before he hesitated, uncertain.

A gentle, capable hand came to rest on his shoulder, squeezing bracingly. "Go on," Bethel said quietly. "You's faced worse troubles this week 'lone."

A small hollow laugh was startled from Cullen's lips. She was right, but somehow it was easier to fight than to apologize. Just at this moment he'd rather have faced Brannan and Sutcliffe all over again than walk into that parlor and make amends with a good man he had thoughtlessly inconvenienced in the presence of the woman he had hurt. But he could hardly admit this, not even to Bethel, and so he squared his sore shoulders and strode through the dining room.

Mary was laughing softly as he drew near the parlor door. "I don't think Bonnie has ever tried anything quite _that_ spirited," she said.

"I could scarcely sit down for a week," said Secrest confidentially. Then he made a small chagrined noise. "Begging your pardon, ma'am; not to be indelicate."

"Not at all, Mr. Secrest," Mary said cheerfully. "It's refreshing to speak with a gentleman who doesn't seem to think I'll shatter like a crystal vase at the slightest note of reality. In New York the young men were never quite so reluctant to be frank with a woman as Mississippi gentlemen seem to be."

"Well, now, that's the way we're raised," Jim said. "Though I expect your husband's forthright enough with you, isn't he? He strikes me as a man who puts a premium on the truth."

"Yes," Mary said, and though he tried to listen for some arch meaning in her words Cullen could hear none. "Yes, he does. He's a man of honor, Mr. Secrest."

This seemed as apt a time as any for an entrance, and so Cullen came into the room. Mary was on the couch and Secrest in his armchair, a tumbler of golden whiskey in his hand. As Cullen came in he got to his feet.

"Mr. Bohannon!" he said, crossing the hearthrug to shake Cullen's hand. Cullen hesitated, holding up his stained palm.

"Sorry," he said. "My hand's clean, but that don't scrub off. And you're welcome to call me Cullen."

Jim seized hold of his hand regardless, pumping heartily. "Cullen. I understand you've been a free man for nearly two days now. I'm overjoyed to hear it."

"I'm awful sorry," Cullen said earnestly. "I ought to have sent a telegram the minute I was free, but the truth is it just escaped my mind entirely. I wasn't at my best."

Mary was watching him with unreadable eyes and a pleasant smile. He forced himself to focus on the young attorney's face. "Just how badly have I inconvenienced you?" he asked. "Please don't think you have to be polite."

Jim shrugged. "I had me a pleasant ride down," he said. "Ain't every day I get the chance to be out and away from town. You got pretty country for riding 'round here."

Cullen moved to the small sideboard and picked up the decanter of whiskey. It was almost full: it did not look like his guest had taken more than the one helping. That was a good thing: a sober man was more likely to be reasonable and perhaps forgiving. "Can I top you up?" he asked.

"Please," said Secrest, holding out his glass. "It's fine stuff."

"A gift from my wife's father," said Cullen. "He has excellent taste in spirits." He poured himself a hearty measure and took a deep swallow. His palate was lifted at once by the smoky decadence of the whiskey and he had to restrain himself from closing his eyes in rapturous delight. He had not yet had occasion to sample his father-in-law's Christmas present. It was sumptuous.

The taste of the liquor steadied his nerves and set his courage. He smiled. "It's a pleasure to see you, Jim," he said. "I only wish it was under more convivial circumstances."

"I was expecting to visit you in a cell," said the other man cheerfully, wafting his hand at the tidy parlor. "This is plenty more convivial than that." He moved back to the chair and sat. "Now, I've come a long way to hear your story, and I think you ought to sit and tell me just what happened. Your lovely wife tells me it didn't go favorably for you."

"It didn't," said Cullen, his eyes darkening. He shifted the tumbler to his other hand and offered his palm to Mary. "Would you excuse us, my dear?" he asked. "I'm afraid all this will be dull for you to hear again."

Her lips tightened almost imperceptibly but did not lose their smile. "Of course, husband," she said with sweet formality. It would not sound amiss to a Southern ear, but it was so unlike Mary that it left him cold with dread. The gulf torn wide by last night's quarrel still yawned between them, and he could not close it now. "I shall just go and check on Gabe, I think. Our son, Mr. Secrest," she added as she took his hand rose smoothly to her feet. "He is not yet four years old, and it is his naptime."

"Ah, very nice, ma'am," said Secrest. "That's a fine age. I hope you will allow me the honor of meeting him?"

"Yes, of course," Mary promised clemently. "He'll breakfast with us; he usually does. You can meet him then. Excuse me, husband." She bowed her head courteously to Cullen and withdrew from the room, closing the door noiselessly behind her.

"Right, then," said Cullen, moving to perch on the edge of the sofa cushion. "I got to make recompense for the trouble you've gone to. You come out here to do me a kindness, and I've gone and shamed myself. What can I do to set this right?"

"You can start by telling me just what all this is about," said Secrest. "That telegram you sent raised more questions than it could possibly answer. Why'd they take you in for a misdemeanor, and why did you think you needed a lawyer? And an out-of-town lawyer at that. It don't make sense."

Cullen wanted to tell the man that it was none of his business now, and that he didn't much want to talk about it, but he could not. Secrest had come all this way on spec, knowing he wasn't going to be paid right off, and he had done so only to discover the case was resolved and his services no longer required. Cullen owed him a great deal for that effrontery, and the truth was the least of it. Taking another steadying sip of whiskey he began.

_*discidium*_

Bethel set the little dessert plates on the table, serving the guest first and then Mary. With so little notice any sort of pastry had been out of the question, but she had managed to produce a beautiful-looking peach cobbler served with fresh whipped cream. Cullen caught her eye and smiled his thanks as she retreated to the kitchen, and then picked up the decanter to refill Jim Secrest's glass. They were serving the Chateau Yquem, and Cullen had never been more grateful to his father-in-law for anything but his gracious understanding when he had admitted his intention to court Mary in earnest. He had nothing at all to offer his friend to take the sting off the whole debacle but this wine, and Bethel's extraordinary cooking.

And friend was the word for Jim Secrest, all right. He had listened carefully to the whole sordid story, pensive but without any hint of judgment in his eyes or demeanor. Cullen had omitted a few of the most awkward details that had no bearing on the case itself, and so spared his pride at least from admissions of being unable to pay his own fine or even to afford his board at the jail. But he had at last been able to unburden himself of the suspicion that the sheriff had done all of this at Sutcliffe's instigation and not from any genuine sense of justice, and Secrest had not tried to argue with him.

"And the Justice gave me until nightfall to pay my fine," Cullen had said, coming at last to the end of the story. "I went and fetched the money, and paid up at the jailhouse. By that time I was just so anxious to be home – with the lost work, and knowing my boy weren't well – that it went clear out of my mind I had sent for you in the first place."

He had expected words of irritation or perhaps absolution, but instead the younger man only nodded. "It sounds like a real mess," he said. "This neighbor of yours – Sutcliffe? You say he's got legal experience? Did he really phrase it like that: _if _your slave did this, or _if_ she did that?"

"If, when, I don't know," Cullen had replied. "The whole thing's a bit of a blur. I… I didn't sleep so well in jail. I weren't at my best."

Instead of criticizing him for this failing or offering pity, Secrest had only chuckled. "That's certainly understandable," he had said.

Now he was talking pleasantly with Mary, telling an animated tale about a pair of finches that had attempted to nest in the window of his office that spring. Mary, the perfect attentive hostess, did not even take her eyes off of him in order to use her fork. She had dressed for dinner in her blue tartan gown and hoop, and she was so beautiful that it was almost a torment to look at her. Cullen wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her, that he was sorry for the way he had spoken to her, that he would beg for her forgiveness if she wanted him to. He could not apologize for what he had said, for it had all been true, but he knew he never should have spoken those truths as cruelly as he had. If not for the presence of Jim Secrest, he would have told her that right this minute.

There was a soft sound from the doorway: Lottie clearing her throat. It was followed at once by three shallow coughs and a little sniffle. Cullen turned in his chair and Mary looked away from their guest. Jim's eyes moved but his head did not. He busied himself with taking another forkful of cobbler.

"What is it, Lottie?" asked Mary. The girl had her fingers curled around Gabe's hand. The little boy, whom she had been meant to be settling down for the night, bounced eagerly on bare feet so that the hem of his nightshirt bobbed. He was clearly bursting with the desire to speak, but had also obviously been instructed not to.

"Beg pardon, Missus," said Lottie, embarrassed but helpless. "Mist' Gabe, he wan' say g'night to his pappy."

"It's all right, Lottie," Cullen said. He pushed his chair back from the table and slapped his knee. "C'mere son, and say goodnight."

Gabe bolted out of Lottie's grasp, scrambling up into Cullen's lap. He was taken with another fit of coughing, this one longer than the first, and shook his head vigorously as it stopped. "Night, Pappy," he said, wheezing a little. "I's mighty glad you come—"

He spied Secrest and fell at once silent, eyes wide. He shuffled further up Cullen's leg and his hand crept out to take hold of the lapel of his father's waistcoat. Jim smiled at him.

"Hey there, li'l fella," he said. "You must be the young Mr. Bohannon."

"I's Gabe," the child yipped, then flushed a little, shyly, and hid his eyes against Cullen's shirtfront. Cullen planted a reassuring palm on his back.

"Gabe, this is Mr. Secrest," said Mary sweetly. "Mr. Secrest has come all the way from Scooba to help your pappy. He'll be spending the night."

"You'll have a chance to see his horse tomorrow, son," said Cullen. He had had the opportunity himself when the two of them had gone out to settle the stock for the night. Bastion was a fine-looking stallion. He lacked some of the Morgans' classical breeding, Bonnie's queenly grace and Pike's quiet charm, but he was a good horse and Cullen thought he would be excellent at a gallop. "You ain't never seen a real Tennessee Walker before."

Gabe burrowed closer, and Cullen grinned apologetically. "He ain't used to strangers," he explained. "Mary's brother and his wife were down here ten days before he'd even answer 'em back."

"Don't worry about it," Jim said affably. "I expect he ain't at his best right before bedtime, neither."

Gabe coughed again and scrubbed at his nose with the back of his hand. He hugged Cullen close, and Cullen reciprocated. It wasn't the sort of thing a man usually did in the presence of friends, but he didn't care. His boy wasn't well, and he'd been missing him. Offering him the comfort of a goodnight embrace was the right thing to do. Spurred on by this thought, he kissed the crown of his son's head. "You want me to come up and tuck you in?" he asked.

Gabe looked up at him, gray eyes filled with trust and love. "Nawsir," he said solemnly. "You gots to finish your supper 'fore it get cold, or Bet'l goin' scold you."

With this wise warning he wriggled down out of Cullen's lap and started back towards Lottie. Cullen schooled his amused grin and asked; "Ain't you goin' say goodnight to Mama?"

Gabe came running back, stopping by Mary's chair so she could bend to kiss him. He planted one of his own upon her cheek, made somewhat sticky by his running nose. "Goodnight, darling," Mary said. The radiant beauty of love was in her eyes as she sent him trotting back to the door. Lottie took his hand and curtsied as neatly as any city-trained nursemaid, and led the little boy off towards the stairs.

Mary wiped her cheek delicately with her napkin and smiled at Jim. "You must excuse him," she said. "We do not keep a very formal house, and he was distressed to have his father away from home for so much of the week."

"No need to apologize, Mrs. Bohannon," said Secrest. "He's a handsome little man. You must be very proud."

"I do wish you would call me Mary," she said. "You've been so kind. To come all this way on the strength of one evening's acquaintance is simply extraordinary."

"I was wondering, ma'am, whether I might impose on your hospitality one more night," Jim ventured, setting down his fork and folding his napkin over the empty plate. "The thing of it is I'd like to go into Meridian tomorrow and see about getting a copy of your husband's court proceedings."

"I don't understand," said Mary. She glanced questioningly at Cullen, but he was as puzzled as she was. "Why would you want that?"

"Well, the way he tells it there's some things I was wondering about," said Jim. "I don't want to offer an opinion without seeing the transcript, but if I can stay another day I'd like to. I don't believe he was fairly dealt with, and I'm just not going to be satisfied until I have the truth of the matter."

Cullen very nearly had to bite his tongue to keep from whooping in vindication. He had half believed, or feared, that it was only some strange paranoia that had left him feeling that he had been ill-used. If Secrest suspected the same, he wasn't mad. "You'd do that?" he asked. "Take a look at the record and give me an opinion? A legal opinion?" Belatedly he asked; "What'll that cost me?"

"Fifty cents for a copy of the proceedings is usual," said Secrest. "Unless prices are different in Lauderdale County."

Cullen felt his color rise. "I meant for your opinion," he said. "On top of whatever it is I owe you for dragging you down here on false pretenses."

"Two dollars is my ordinary fee for a consultation," said Jim. "I ain't appearing in court, so you save another three there. Since I rode down and you're putting me up there's no travel expenses, though I expect I owe you something for the board: I wouldn't get a feast like this at no eating-house. A dollar and a half for the consult, fifty cents for the copy. You ought to get a copy regardless; if this neighbor's as malicious as you say he might try to make trouble later on."

"Two dollars, then," Cullen said hoarsely. The way the man put it, it didn't sound like a cut-rate or anything that might be construed as charity. Bethel had indeed put on an extraordinary meal, and no doubt would do the same tomorrow. Still, two dollars seemed low. Doc charged the same for a call, and he only had to come six miles. Then again, maybe lawyers came cheaper than doctors.

Jim nodded. "Payable the end of November, like your telegram proposed," he said. "Hard time of year to pay up-front. Besides, it'll give me an excuse to see you again. I've been thinking I got to get you up north for a little hunting."

Cullen was surprised into a grin. "I'd like that," he said. "But what is it you think you're going to find in the court record?"

"Maybe nothing," said Jim; "but I'd like to look. You said the Justice of the Peace was young. Inexperienced, maybe? Likely to be intimidated by having one of the county planters descending on his courtroom?"

Cullen frowned. He had not considered this. George was a quiet sort, timid and softhearted. Though he certainly would not be swayed by bribes or favors, he might have been nervous at the bench that day. Cullen certainly had been, and he was used to Sutcliffe's officious manner. "Maybe," he said. "I don't like to think it."

"Hmm. Anyhow, it don't do no harm to look. I'll be able to ride out to the Ives place for dinner: be good to catch up with the boys, and it'll spare you having to feed me one meal at least, Miss Mary." He smiled and drained the last of his wine. Then he exhaled contentedly. "If you'll excuse me, though, ma'am, I had an early morning and a long ride. What about this guest bedroom of yours?"

_*discidium*_

With their guest settled for the night and the scant hours until Cullen's watch in the barn rapidly slipping away, the two Bohannons retreated into their bedroom. Mary undressed quickly, all too conscious of her husband's eyes upon her as she did so. All afternoon while she had tried to make Jim Secrest comfortable, and to keep the house running smoothly, and to get Gabe fed and bathed, and to make herself presentable for dinner, she had had only one thing on her mind. It had come to her, strangely enough, in the midst of the conversation about Bastion's saddle training. There was nothing in the lawyer's story itself that should have prompted the thought, but it had come none the less. And, having come, it had proved impossible to ignore.

She slipped her pantalets off beneath the shelter of her nightgown, and folded them carefully. Drawing out the seat of her dressing table, she settled before the mirror and adjusted the candle. Behind her, Cullen was hanging up his good silk waistcoat with uncommon care. Deftly Mary plucked the hairpins from her tresses and let the auburn mass cascade over her shoulders and down her back. She picked up the silver brush and began to stroke through her hair, all the while watching Cullen in the mirror.

He had removed his boots in the front hall, and so it was a simple thing to step out of his neat striped trousers. He unbuttoned the fine cotton shirt that Bethel had brought him to change into, and slipped out of it. His underthings had been clean, too, but he had put them on a dirty body and they were stained with sweat and fresh, dark blossoms of tobacco tar. As she twined her hair into a plait Mary watched as he lifted his undershirt stiffly, flinching as a cramp tore visibly across his floating ribs. He made no sound, doubtless believing his pain unobserved. There was not more than a week's work left in the tobacco, and then this torment would be over until topping time next year, but it still rent at Mary's heart to know how her husband suffered with the work. Exhausted and strained, wracked with remorse over what had happened to Meg; was it any wonder he had lashed out when goaded?

He stepped out of his drawers, naked now with his back towards her, and struggled into his nightshirt. Mary reached the bottom of the braid and tied it off with a scrap of linen tape. This required her to take her eyes from the mirror, and she did not look at it again as she stood. She turned, startled to find that Cullen had closed all but the last yard between them. He stood hesitantly just beyond her reach, her cherry-colored dressing gown in his hand. His face was impassive, but his eyes were not. They were filled with something she could not quite identify.

"What's this?" she asked softly, nodding at the garment.

He shifted uneasily and his mouth twitched, but his gaze did not leave hers. "I thought… I mean, ain't you going to sleep in Gabe's room again?" he mumbled.

"We have a guest," said Mary. "It wouldn't be fitting."

"We got a sick child," said Cullen. "That's a likely enough excuse."

For a moment Mary's irritation blazed. All afternoon she had thought of nothing but how they might reconcile – why they _should_ reconcile, whatever the hurts of last night. And all _he_ was thinking about was how he could tell her she was not welcome in his bed.

But then at last she recognized the curious blend of emotions in his quicksilver eyes as they glittered in the candlelight. Above the shadows of weariness they were brimming with a raw hurt mingled somehow with fragile, frightened hope. He was not trying to drive her from his bed. This was the only way he knew how to ask her to stay.

She closed the distance between them with two quick, barefoot steps. She took hold of the dressing gown and flung it behind her, over the stool she had just abandoned. She longed to touch him, but she could not. The time was not yet right.

"How do you know so much?" she asked.

The bewilderment now infused into the other two sentiments made the blend very nearly heartbreaking. Mary's breath caught in her throat.

"What?" Cullen gasped shallowly, unable to articulate anything else.

"How do you know so much about the manumission laws?" Mary breathed. "You rattled them off so quickly, so faultlessly. How do you know so much about them?"

The fear and the puzzlement disappeared. Only the hope remained, tremulous. The right corner of his mouth curled up in a tiny ghost of a smile. In that moment he was once again the dashing young man made suddenly bashful by her sister's departure from the stately parlor in her parents' home. "I studied up," he said shyly.

"When?" asked Mary.

His hand crept up and caught a stray lock of hair that had slipped free from her plait. He twined it around the tip of his finger and hooked it gently behind her ear. "Spring of '56," he whispered. "First time you asked me to free them."

Mary's arms found their way around his neck, drawing him down so that she could kiss him. His weathered lips were coarse and warm against her smooth, cool ones. He smelled of clean sweat and homemade soap. His hand settled upon the small of her back and he drew her near to him. She could feel his love and his longing, and her own welcomed it.

"That's what I thought," she murmured. They would have to be very quiet indeed.


	48. Hindsight

**Chapter Forty-Eight: Hindsight**

Cullen woke in a haze of inexplicable contentment. He was lying in that perfect spot in the very center of the bed where the ropes were almost completely level even under his weight and that of his sleeping wife. Mary was lying spooned against him, her silken braid curled in the crevice between their pillows. Cullen's arm rested upon her side, his palm upon her belly rising and falling with the serene rhythm of her breath. He bowed his head against the nape of her neck, drinking in the scent of her skin. He knew he must have woken in anticipation of his watch in the tobacco kiln, but he could not quite bear to tear himself away from her. Not yet.

There was a draft in the room from the broken window. Something had to be done about that, but the truth was that with the harvest so pressing Cullen had no time to think about, much less resolve, such a small thing. The drowsy satiated comfort dissolved in a whirlwind of worries. The tobacco, at least one more pass from finished and still needing to be cured and packed, shipped and sold after that; the yams to be brought in before the first frost; the potatoes that would need digging just after it; the cornfields to be plowed; cordwood to be cut and laid by; roofs to check and walls to chink before winter's chill set in; the fences in need of whitewashing; and all of it to be done within the next few weeks. He found himself almost longing for the high days of summer when the work, though ceaseless, was not so urgent.

Groaning softly he rolled onto his back, careful not to tug the bedclothes off of his wife. He slipped one foot out of bed and sat up gingerly. His back was a labyrinth of aches and deeper, pernicious pains that he had almost learned to ignore before a week out of the fields had reminded him what it was to live free of them. He lingered for a moment on the edge of the bed, scrubbing with the heels of his hands at crusted eyes. It took more determination than he would have thought he could muster to get to his feet and shuffle to the chair where his clothes were waiting. His nightshirt was twisted and rucked up uncomfortably, and it would have been a relief to strip it off save that the coolness of the room made his body break out all at once in gooseflesh. He had to fix that damned window. He couldn't let his wife sleep in a cold bedroom: Mary mustn't take ill.

There was an old wool blanket in the bottom of the closet, and when he had dragged on his undergarments Cullen retrieved it. He shook it out and moved to the bed, spreading it gently over Mary's sleeping form. As he bent to tuck the covers closer to her she stirred. Her face turned upward and her eyelashes fluttered in the light of the full moon filtering through the curtains.

"So soon?" she murmured drowsily, a small and regretful smile touching lips made dark with the night's pleasures.

"'Fraid so," whispered Cullen. "You going to be all right without a host at breakfast?"

"Yes," said Mary. Her arm found its way out of the nest of blankets and she stroked his forearm. "I wish you would take the time to sit and eat with us, though. You had so little rest yesterday."

"I had me five days of rest," Cullen said. "Don't you worry about me."

"But I do," she sighed. "I always do."

This admission stung him. He didn't want her to fret for him. She had worries enough making do with what little he could provide for the running of the household, caring for his child, and struggling to make peace with her conscience in the wake of what had happened to Meg. He opened his mouth, unsure what to say to put her at ease, but was interrupted by a sound from the next room. It took a moment to recognize it, and when he did he raised his head as though he could see through the connecting wall into the nursery. Gabe was coughing.

"He'll be all right in a moment," Mary said, but as the fit rattled on through another heartbeat she pushed herself up onto one elbow. "Perhaps I ought to check on him."

"Let me," said Cullen. "You lie back down and stay warm."

He hurried to the door and slipped out into the corridor, leaving it ajar so Mary could hear. His bare feet skimmed over the floorboards, light and almost soundless despite his fatigue. He pushed open the door to his son's room, expecting to walk in upon a prone child coughing in his sleep.

Instead Gabe was sitting up in the middle of the bed, arms locked straight and hands pressed deep into the narrow feather tick to brace himself as his whole body shook with the paroxysms of the fit. His mouth was a strained oval, the tongue butting up against his pearly baby teeth as he coughed again and again. His eyes were wide and watering, and he did not seem able to catch a breath between.

Hastily Cullen went to him, crossing the small room with four swift strides and sitting down upon the edge of the bed. He gripped Gabe's right shoulder with one hand, while the other moved 'round to pat his back as he had seen Mary do. "All right, son. You're all right," he said as calmly and consolingly as he knew how. "Just take a breath now. That's it. Take a breath."

Gabe tried, the effort of drawing in a thin, wheezing tendril of air sending a shudder through his ribs so that his head bucked. The coughs, one swift upon the tail of the next, came out in a harsh string and terminated suddenly in silence that was broken when the boy took in a sharp, sundering gasp. Startled, Cullen almost drew back his hands in consternation before remembering himself. Gabe gasped again, less urgently this time, and then coughed once more, feebly, and whimpered.

"There," Cullen soothed. "That's my brave boy. All over now."

"I couldn' bree'd, Pappy," Gabe huffed, tugging his hands up off the mattress and looking from one to the other. "I woked up an' I couldn' bree'd."

He managed to free one leg from the bedclothes and got it under him, pushing himself up and crawling into Cullen's lap. Cullen adjusted his hold from the boy's shoulder to his waist, still patting his back as if he feared the cough would start up again. Gabe huddled close against his chest, tears squeezing out of tightly closed eyes. His breathing grew less labored as he settled in his father's arms.

"I know it was scary, son," murmured Cullen. "You got to cough before you can get better." His arm slipped under Gabe's bottom and he stood up, maintaining the awkward position of his hand so that he could keep the small body curled against his ribs. With his other hand he reached to gather up the rumpled bedclothes. "I need to get out and relieve Elijah in the barn. You ready to go back to sleep?"

Gabe shook his head so vigorously that his chin bounced off of Cullen's breastbone. "Don' go, Pappy," he begged.

"I got to," said Cullen, regretting the necessity bitterly. Such things were considered women's business, true enough, but if Gabe wanted him he ought to be able to stay and comfort him. He would have been able to, in a well-ordered world. Or on a well-ordered plantation, and that was his failing, too. "You want to go in and lie down with Mama?"

"I wants to stay right here wid you," Gabe mumbled plaintively, but he made no protest as Cullen carried him out into the corridor and through to the big bedroom. He wondered too late if it would do the child harm to be in the chill of the broken window. But surely under the blankets with Mary to warm him he'd be all right. The night air might creep in, but most of it had to be kept at bay.

Mary was sitting up, waiting for him with the bedclothes over one shoulder. She lifted the corner of the sheet so that Cullen could set their son on the mattress. He scooted close to his mother at once and planted his head on her pillow. "Are you all right, lovey?" Mary asked, stroking his head and lying down again beside him.

Cullen drew up the blankets smoothly, and tucked the ends under the mattress. "Got coughing and couldn't stop," he said. "Couldn't hardly get a breath in. Think I should ride for the doctor?"

Mary shook her head. "The cough is always worst at the very end of a cold," she said. "It means you're getting better, darling. Remember? Bethel said so. Your nose is hardly running at all anymore."

"Nope," said Gabe. "Ain't runnin'. I gots a cough."

It had sounded worse than an ordinary cough to Cullen, but he did not say this. He didn't know much about childhood ailments, and he wasn't about to question Bethel's judgment on the matter. Or Mary's either, come to that. She was the boy's mother, and in any case she had been coping with this sickness all week while he was far away. She knew better than he how Gabe had been sounding. Swallowing his niggling unease, he moved back to the chair and pulled on his trousers.

"Then he'll be all right?" he asked. "Should I fetch you up the bottle of soothing syrup?"

Mary shook her head, her plait slipping off her shoulder and falling over the edge of the coverlet. Only Gabe's nose and eyes could be seen over the top of the blankets. He was blinking sleepily, his mouth once more its accustomed little bow. Looking at him now, the harsh stretch of his lips over a mouth wide with coughing seemed almost like a bad dream. "I gave him the last dose before his nap," she said. "There isn't any left."

Cullen grimaced painfully at this. He could not spare the time to go into town to fetch more, even if he could have spared the money to buy it. But neither could he let his boy go without medicine, if it would comfort him in his recovery. "You could ask and see if Jim wouldn't mind picking up a bottle while he's in Meridian," he said. "Give him a dollar to pay for it, and fifty cents for the copy of them documents."

"I don't think we need it," Mary said. "Bethel swears that blackberry root tincture and sorghum works just as well, and he must be very nearly through it." She felt the child's forehead with the back of her hand. "Still a mite feverish, but he's eating heartily."

There was nothing to be said to this: Cullen had to defer to her opinion. It was so far outside the realm of his experience that he would do more harm than good in disagreeing with her. "Give Jim the money for the transcript anyhow," he said. "Hanged if I'll have him out-of-pocket over this mess."

_*discidium*_

It was nearly nine o'clock, hours after sunset, when Cullen finally came in from his long day of work. Mr. Secrest had returned from Meridian two hours earlier, and had supped with Mary upon yet another of Bethel's extraordinary and resourceful meals. It was fortunate that the young attorney was so pleasant to talk to, for otherwise Mary might easily have given offence. Her mind was on other matters. Gabe's cough had persisted all day, worse than before, and he had been quiet and subdued. Bethel had dosed him several times with her homemade remedy, but it didn't seem to make much difference. Soothing syrup hadn't either, really, but it had been a comfort to Mary to know she was doing _something_ for her child, and she found that comfort sorely missed. Even now, with her boy fast asleep in his bed upstairs, she wondered whether she had been wrong. She could have asked her guest to run that simple little errand, but she had been thinking of the money. They had so little money left – none at all, really, since what they had on hand Cullen intended to give to Doctor Whitehead at the earliest opportunity. The bottle of medicine had seemed like an extravagance.

Her concerns about Gabe were coupled with her worries for his father. There was a drawn look to Cullen's face now that had not been there before his stint in prison. The strains and hardships of the last week had clawed away at his already-worn constitution. It was such a grueling regimen: broken nights and long days filled with toil and pain. Mary wondered how anyone could keep it up for as long as Cullen and the others had. Meg was once more taking her turns in the barn, and still putting in full days in the field. Today Elijah had been in the yams alone, for Bethel could not be spared from cooking for the guest to relieve Lottie from the watch on the fires. The curing process would drag on for weeks after the last of the tobacco was picked, and with it the loss of sleep. It was a wonder they were not all ill, and Mary wondered how long that could possibly last.

When she heard the familiar sounds of Cullen's arrival in the kitchen, Mary had to restrain herself from abandoning Mr. Secrest to check on him. The day had been cool but bright, and so she hoped he would not be suffering too much from the twin evils of cold air and sodden clothes. She intended to keep a sharp watch for the signs of tobacco sickness returning, but so far there had been none – though it had only been three days since he had been back at the work.

Finally heavy footsteps sounded in the entryway and Cullen appeared at the parlor door. His eyes were shadowed and his shoulders stooped, but he smiled for her and grinned at Secrest.

"Good evening," he said. "I got to apologize for coming in so late. We had to sort a batch of leaves to free up some space in the drying shed."

"By lamplight?" Mary asked, puzzled. Ordinarily that work was done in full sun, so the imperfections in the harvest could be readily spotted.

Cullen shrugged. "Ain't no other time to do it," he said. "Every minute of daylight we got to be in the field. Pretty soon someone will have to stop picking to help with the sweet potatoes."

"It's a wonder you can manage a place this size with only five slaves," said Jim Secrest amiably. "You must have a knack for organizing men."

"I wouldn't go that far," said Cullen. He gripped the arm of the sofa and eased himself down next to Mary. Though his jaw tightened and his lips pressed together he could not quite stifle a moan of relief as he took his weight off his tired legs. She smiled sweetly for him, longing to let him lie down with his head in her lap but unable even to think of such things in the presence of a visitor. "It's just a matter of doing what's got to be done."

"And seeing how best to do it," Secrest said. "You must work as hard with your mind as you do with your hands."

Cullen's eyes flared briefly at this, and Mary watched him warily. But he only tugged at the cufflink of his good shirt and snorted softly. Bethel had managed to get him washed and changed, presentable for company, but the dark stains on his hands and the blackened nailbeds, and the dogged weary look upon his handsome face betrayed the truth of his circumstances. She wondered whether Secrest could see these things, or whether the merry obliviousness of young men sheltered Cullen's pride from his friend's insight.

"How'd you make out in Meridian?" Cullen asked, shifting his body a little as he tried to find a comfortable position on the slick horsehair cushion. "Anything useful in that paper?"

He nodded to the three pages lying folded on the small table next to Secrest's elbow. He had brought the document in with him, but had neither looked at it nor made mention of it to Mary. She had not asked, for such things were the purview of the male world and so outside her realm of influence. Desperate though she was to know if there was anything in the court record that might help Cullen, she had kept her questions to herself. Now, however, she rose.

"Please don't get up," she said as the two gentlemen shifted to do the same. "I'm just going over to my chair: there are letters from home I have not had the opportunity to read, Mr. Secrest, and the two of you can discuss your business without the bother of entertaining a lady."

"Ain't no bother, Miss Mary," said Jim.

Despite her words, Cullen stood up and offered her his hand, escorting her to the seat by the window where she ordinarily sat with her fancywork. Mary had brought Jeremiah's letters from the dining room, and she set them in her lap as Cullen lit the lamp on the wall above her. He adjusted the wick to emit a bright but cozy glow and let his hand rest briefly on her arm just below the shoulder. Their gaze met, and despite their exhaustion his grey eyes were gentle and filled with love. Then Cullen returned to the couch, taking up the place that Mary had vacated so that he was nearer to Secrest.

Mary broke the seal of the letter posted from Philadelphia and unfolded the single sheet, but though she looked at it she did not trouble to bring the words into focus. Her ears were perked for the conversation about to begin by the cheerfully-crackling hearth.

"I've given it a looking-over," said Secrest. He picked up the papers and smoothed them, shuffling to the second page. "I'm afraid you may not like what I have to say."

"The truth might not be popular, but it's derned important," Cullen argued. "I asked for your opinion as a professional, and that's what I want."

"Well, to begin you really ought to have told them you had made arrangements for counsel," said Jim. "Then the Justice of the Peace would have been obliged to arrest the proceedings so that you could exercise your right to representation."

"I know. George told me," said Cullen. "But if I'd done that I'd still be in jail waiting to be heard. I had to get home. I'm better off with the whole thing behind me."

"I don't know if I would agree with that," the younger man ventured. From the corner of her eye Mary could see him glance uneasily up at her husband. "The truth is that the way this reads it looks like you really could have done with my help. There were a couple of places where a lawyer might have taken up for you, and…" He moved restlessly in the chair. "I don't know quite how to put this, Cullen, but what was your state of mind going into this hearing?"

"How do you mean?" The question was innocuous enough, but Cullen's voice tightened just enough that Mary knew his eyes were now cold and guarded.

"Well, you must have been flustered, pulled into court all of a sudden like that," Secrest hedged. "Maybe a little nervous, uncomfortable? That's how most people feel in the dock."

"Maybe a little," Cullen admitted. "What's it matter?"

"Were you angry?" said Jim. "I only ask because right about here, where you say 'Now wait just a minute, what the hell else could I have done?'… well, that looks an awful lot like something a man says when he's angry."

"Yeah, I was angry. They dragged me up all of a sudden, and then they were saying I should have made arrangements for Meg to appear in court. There weren't time to do it, but they said I should have asked anyhow."

Secrest nodded. "There's a responsibility under the law to do everything you reasonably can to meet the conditions of the court. Under these here circumstances it ain't much, but you could have asked if it was possible. The judge was within his rights to note prejudice. But that ain't the real problem."

Mary realized her gaze was drifting off of the letter, and forced it back. She thought she knew what he was going to say, and she was worried about how Cullen would take it.

"The court ain't a place for a man to lose his temper," said Secrest. "That's one good reason to have a lawyer take up for you. Gives you someone to speak up calmly. And someone to look out for tricks a man can't spot when he's warm under the collar."

"What sort of tricks?" asked Cullen. His voice was grim but level. He had taken no offence at what Mary had feared he might interpret as criticism. "Apart from the obvious, I mean: Sheriff knew that George would bring me up early, and tipped off Sutcliffe so he'd be there while I was on the back foot."

"It certainly looks that way," Jim admitted. "But you can't prove it, and in any case there ain't no law against it. All you'd do is make trouble for the Justice of the Peace for changing your court date."

"I don't want that," said Cullen. "He was just trying to do me a kindness; get me home earlier. Heck, he didn't even know it was me until I got called up."

Secrest hummed noncommittally, and Mary could not help but look up at his face again. His brows were furrowed pensively, and his thin lips pressed tight. Cullen, his back towards her, straightened a little on the sofa. The sinews of his neck were taut, and his grip on the armrest unyielding.

"Why don't you tell me what you mean?" he pressed. "What sort of tricks?"

"Here." Secrest turned the page and pointed at a line midway down. "Right here."

Cullen leaned forward and exhaled through his nostrils. "My shorthand's rusty," he said. "What's it say?"

"Mr. Sutcliffe's testimony," said Secrest. "He admits he had an arrangement with your father regarding the woman visiting her husband, which made him an authority by proxy and responsible for her behavior while she was doing it."

"So she wouldn't have been going at large," said Cullen. "But she wasn't… Meg and her Peter, they weren't…" He shifted uncomfortably and glanced over his shoulder at Mary. She tried to avert her eyes, but not quickly enough. Cullen's color deepened and he turned back to Secrest. "He said Meg was busy with other things outside the agreement, so he weren't responsible."

"I would have argued he was," Secrest said. "That because she was on his land at a time he should have known to expect her – and indeed clearly did expect her, as he sent his overseers to find her – his supervision extended over her regardless of what she was doing. Of course," he added, sitting back and stretching his legs on the hearthrug; "he still could have tried to argue that she was agitating, or trying to educate his Negroes, but the judge seemed to dismiss that idea all right."

"Of course he dismissed it: it was outrageous," Cullen muttered. He scrubbed his palm over his beard. "Would that have made a difference in the judgment? If I'd been smart enough to make that argument?"

"It might have. But there's something else, too. What you said last night is in the record, too." Secrest pointed again. "Right here: 'However, if Mr. Bohannon gave her permission to leave his land', and again here; 'if she did all this, Your Honor'. You see?"

Cullen shook his head. Mary did not see, either. She didn't think that the attorney had read enough of the transcript to make his point. With a tremendous effort she focused once more upon the paper in her hand, but Jeremiah's tidy clerk's cursive seemed as loose and cryptic as the shorthand on the paper Secrest held. She could not read it and did not much want to.

"So?" said Cullen.

"He gives an account of what your slave was doing, but he doesn't testify to it," said Jim. "He says _if _she was doing this, and this, and this, _then_ she is guilty of going at large and you are guilty of letting her do it. He doesn't state firmly that she did any of those things. The prosecution – the sheriff in this case – doesn't meet the burden of proof that the woman was doing anything but what was expected."

"I don't understand," Cullen said. "If that's so, why didn't George say something?"

"It's possible he didn't notice," Jim said. "A Justice of the Peace ain't a lawyer, and a young one can't be expected to know all the tricks. It ain't his place to make the case for the accused, either. But right there you should have argued. He said _if_, not _when_ or _since_, and the only reason a lawyer would do that is if he couldn't prove she done any of it. It means there weren't a white man to bear witness. One of his Negroes must have been spying, and told him what your woman was doing. A darky can't testify against a white man, so all Sutcliffe had was hearsay. Hearsay ain't hard evidence: he couldn't prove she went at large, so he just talked as if he could."

Cullen was on the very edge of the cushion now, leaning forward. From the young man's suddenly wary demeanor Mary knew the light that was blazing in her husband's eyes. "But that ain't legal!" he said. "I could appeal. I could get the judgment overturned. Hell, I might even be able to make a complaint to the bar against Sutcliffe! He don't practice, but he's got his license. That ain't ethical practice, what he done there."

"It ain't," agreed Secrest; "but I would strongly advise against an appeal. You'd almost certainly lose it."

Cullen made a noise of disgust deep in his throat. "But you just said—"

"That the testimony Mr. Sutcliffe gave did not meet the burden of proof," said Jim, remarkably calm despite his discomfiture. He was a brave man, thought Mary. Not many boys his age would have dared to broach this ugly subject with Cullen, much less continued to correct him so long. "It didn't. But what you said next sure did. The minute you admitted to trusting your woman's judgment and expecting her to do what she thinks best, the case was clear and there weren't no other way for the Justice to rule. I… I'm sorry, Cullen. Mr. Bohannon. If you'd had someone to speak for you instead it might not have happened that way, but as it stands now…"

"They tied the noose, but I'm the one stuck my head in it," Cullen muttered. The strength went out of his back and he sagged against the sofa. The hand that had been clutching the armrest rose to cradle his temple. "I let 'em get the better of me. Me and my temper."

"I'm afraid so," said the younger man. He looked very tired, and his eyes were soft with regret. "I'm sorry. I wish I had better news. I wish there was something I could do. If I'd been in court I could have argued. At the very least I could have stopped you from interrupting over and over again with angry outbursts… you got to know that hurt your case, and quite likely contributed to the higher fine. There's a price to pay for temper, especially in a court of law."

"Sure there is," groaned Cullen. "Hell, I knew they were getting under my skin; trying to do it. But I just couldn't stop myself. Thirty-five dollars." He shook his head tiredly. "And there ain't nothing I can do about it. Can't even call Sutcliffe to task."

"You could still write to the Mississippi Bar," suggested Jim. "What he did wasn't illegal, and he wasn't there in a professional capacity, but it's still immoral. Unethical, like you said. Frowned upon. Ungentlemanly."

Mary's throat closed at these words. She stirred, wanting to speak, but it was not her place. These were matters for men: she could not offer an opinion now, not in front of the guest. Secrest straightened the papers and folded them, then set them back on the table. "You'll want to keep hold of those," he said, getting to his feet. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more; I truly am."

Cullen shook his head. "Don't matter," he said. "Don't matter now."

_*discidium*_

Secrest bade them both goodnight, and Cullen lit a candle for him. He stood by the fire and watched as his guest left the room, listening for the sound of his feet upon the stairs and then overhead. When the door to the front bedroom closed up above, Cullen let out a heavy sigh. He might have been wracked with rage, against Sutcliffe and Brannan and especially himself, but he was just too tired for it. It was past ten o'clock. He had been awake for almost twenty hours straight. Every bone in his body ached, and the muscles that clung to them seemed to be doing it more out of habit than design. Dimly he wondered whether he would be able to get out of his riding boots, or whether he ought to just try to make an earnest effort to reach the couch before he fell asleep where he stood.

There was a rustle of starched cotton skirts, and suddenly Mary was beside him. For a bewildered moment he wondered where she had come from and how she had known he could not drag himself up to bed without outside encouragement, and then he remembered she had been in the room the whole time.

"You can't do it," she whispered, curling her arm around his and looking up earnestly into his eyes. "You mustn't."

"Do what?" he asked blearily. Did she know he had been toying with the idea of stretching out on the sofa with his boots still on?

"Write to the bar and complain about Mr. Sutcliffe's conduct," Mary said. "He'd find out; they'd inform him. He'd come after you again. He'd come after you, Cullen, and next time it might not be just a fine and four days in prison. He knows how to goad you. He might do anything. You mustn't try it. You mustn't even think of it."

He turned slowly, drawing away from her with his right side while his left hand reached for her arm. Slowly, almost drunkenly, he shook his head. "I ain't goin' live in fear," he said. "I ain't goin' let that man dictate what I can and can't do. Jim says I got grounds for a complaint: I intend to make it. But not now." Fatigue was clawing at him, and the dim knowledge that tomorrow would be, if not so long a day, certainly as hard filled him with a hollow despair. "Not tonight."

He let out the weary sigh that was weighting his chest. "How's my boy?" he asked.

"He's been coughing all day," said Mary; "but his appetite is good. Bethel swears that so long as he's eating well there's nothing to worry about. He must be on the mend."

Cullen made a small sound of assent. That was something to be thankful for. Mary still had her brother's letters in her hand, one open and the other still sealed. "What's Jeremiah got to say? They get home all right?"

Mary looked down at the papers, surprised. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "I… I didn't read it."

"Eavesdropping," Cullen mumbled.

She looked up at him sharply, a challenge in her eyes, and then smiled in gentle chagrin. "Perhaps a little," she said.

"Then you know you married a fool who lets his temper get the better of him," said Cullen. "You would have been better off to marry a wise man instead. Someone like Secrest."

"Never," said Mary tenderly. "I'm quite accustomed to your temper, Mr. Bohannon. It doesn't distress me in the least."

There was something he had to say to her. Something that had eluded him in the bliss of her forgiveness the previous evening. Cullen reached to stroke her hair, tugging loose one tendril from the wing pinned over her ear. "Mary, the other night," he said. "I never should have took that tone with you. It weren't right. You weren't to know how it really is in Mississippi, and you needed telling, but I never should have told you like that."

"No," she said, her voice gentle and her eyes filled with love. "No, you shouldn't. But I shouldn't have tried to lay the blame for all the ills of the world on you, either. You're a good man, and I know you try your best to live a good life. This is just such a hard place to do it."

Cullen swallowed painfully. There was a tickle far back in his throat, and his hand shook a little as he moved it back down to her arm. "I guess maybe you wish I'd sold up and settled in New York?" he asked.

"You would have been miserable in New York," said Mary. She stretched to kiss him lightly on the lips. "I know you aren't happy just now, either, with all the cares you have to carry. But I believe you could be happy here. We could be happy together, with our family and… and our people, whom I still hope we can free someday when the hard times are past."

He looked at her, still the beacon of hope despite all their troubles, and he wished they could stand like this forever, entwined together and bearing one another up despite worries and weariness and work. "When the hard times are past," he murmured. His eyes closed. "Mary? You ever think 'bout having another baby?"

Her breath caught and she stiffened beneath his fingers. Warily he looked at her, and her eyes were glassy and very bright. "Always," she said.

Cullen found that he could summon a small, tired smile for her. "We ought to keep trying," he said. "Then someday…"

"Someday," Mary agreed, blinking away unshed tears. She twisted, drawing close to him. Arm in arm they moved to snuff the lamps, and then stepped into the entryway. Cullen reached to light a candle, but his hand was so unsteady with exhaustion that he could not make wick and match meet. Wordlessly, without scorn or pity, Mary plucked the little wooden stick from his fingers and finished the task on his behalf. She carried the candle as they ascended the stairs, and when he stumbled at the top she held him close. Her slender but sturdy form bore him up and lent him the strength to shuffle down the corridor to the bedroom. She knelt to pull off the well-polished boots he had donned after his held-over supper, and helped him with his collar studs. Then when they were both clad in their nightclothes she led him to his side of the bed and drew the covers over his aching body. He managed to elude slumber only long enough to feel her warmth settle beside him on the feather tick.


	49. The Next Blow

**Chapter Forty-Nine: The Next Blow**

Mary stood at the top of the veranda steps, smiling placidly as she watched Cullen bid farewell to their guest. The handsome Tennessee Walker was tacked and ready, Jim Secrest's carpetbag hooked onto the saddle and spoiling the sleek silhouette somewhat. Cullen and Jim were talking quietly enough that although they were not fifteen yards from her Mary could not make out a single word. Cullen had lingered at the house past dawn to take breakfast with his friend and to see him off. The conversation, at first trivial and convivial, had grown steadily more intense as the meal went on: Cullen had questioned Secrest extensively on the subject of submitting a formal complaint to the Mississippi Bar. Mary had busied herself in helping Gabe with his breakfast, wishing fervently that she possessed some means of dissuading Cullen from this course. She understood his desire to fight on, but she feared for him. He was within his rights to report the misfeasance perpetrated against him, but it would only serve to further antagonize his powerful neighbor. Mary feared what Mr. Sutcliffe might try if he were pressed any further.

Now Mr. Secrest was frowning and shaking his head. Cullen nodded insistently as he reached into the pocket of his gabardine waistcoat and seized the younger man's hand. He pressed something into it, and Jim looked down, lips pursing briefly. He fumbled in his own pocket and brought out a coin that sparkled in the early morning sun. Cullen took it, and clapped Secrest companionably on the shoulder. They shook hands and Cullen stepped back so the other man could mount his steed.

"You ride safe, now," he said. "Watch out for our north fence: there's a dip on the far side."

"Thank you for the warning," said Secrest. "Listen, you ever need my services again you just send word, all right? I'm proud you wanted me, and I'm only sorry I couldn't do more."

"Yeah, well, I guess it just weren't meant to be," said Cullen with a grim little shake of his head. "Still I thank you for coming all the way down here. Sorry again 'bout the wasted trip."

"It weren't no waste," Jim promised. "You've been mighty hospitable; you and your lovely wife." He smiled at Mary, tipping his hat, and she inclined her head. "I meant what I said, too: you got to come up and visit."

"I will," Cullen assured him. "Just as soon as I got a day or two to spare."

Jim nodded and grinned, reined Bastion up and turned to pass the gate. He stopped, removed his hat entirely, and bowed over the saddle. "Good day, Mrs. Bohannon," he said. "Thanks again."

"Miss Mary, and thank you," she said. "Safe journey."

With that the young man replaced his hat, spurred his horse and took off at a canter, circling the house and disappearing past the dooryard. Cullen came up the steps, unbuttoning his waistcoat as he went.

"He'll save himself a couple of miles cutting north across our land," he said. "Washburn don't mind the occasional rider, neither; 'specially with the cotton in."

Mary had more pressing questions than any concerning Secrest's homeward route. "You paid him after all?" she asked.

Cullen nodded, not meeting her eyes. "Figured it's best that way," he said. "Bad enough being beholden to Doc, but I got no claim on Jim. Nothing ruins a new friendship quicker 'n a bad debt."

"It isn't a bad debt until you fail to meet it," Mary murmured.

The look he shot at her chilled her to the core, and left her momentarily paralyzed as he trudged into the house. She caught up to him just inside the parlor door. He flung his waistcoat over the back of the couch and went to the sideboard, sloshing a measure of whiskey into a tumbler.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Mary asked. "You'll be out in the sun all day."

"Thought we'd determined I ain't so wise," muttered Cullen. He knocked back the amber fluid in a single stiff jerk and bared his teeth as it seared its way down. He exhaled hotly and scrubbed at his beard. "Da—dern it, Mary, I lost that case. I got mad and I didn't think 'bout what I was hearing, and that son of a… he got the better of me."

"You couldn't help it," she protested softly. "You aren't a lawyer: it was such a little thing to notice."

"Don't try and coddle me," he growled. He set down the empty glass and brushed past her and through the door. She followed him to the dining room, catching hold of his arm as he started past the table.

"Cullen," she said. "It's over. There's not a thing you can do to change it. Brooding over what you can't control—"

"Is the reason I'll never make a farmer," he snapped. "But all the same I got a farm out there waiting to be worked. Ain't nobody to do it but me, and I can't stand here talking this through no more."

"You're angry," Mary murmured. It was inadequate, but she could not think of anything else to say.

"Hell, yes, I'm angry!" cried Cullen. His voice echoed off the walls and the chimney of the table lamp rattled. He grimaced apologetically and raked his hand through his hair. "I ain't angry with you," he said softly. "I'm angry with Sutcliffe and I'm angry at my own fool self. But it ain't goin' keep me from working. Not much time left to do what's got to be done."

Mary felt her head bobbing in agreement. She wanted to say something that would force him to forgive himself, but of course there was nothing. The worst of it was that she knew he was not entirely mistaken: his temper always took its worst toll upon his reason, and his reason had failed him in court. He had been used ignobly, but he might have outwitted them had he been in a better frame of mind. He had been bested and he was ashamed, and she could not comfort him.

"Please don't…" He looked sharply at her and she faltered. "Please," she said, less plaintive now and more soothing. "Try not to think about it. Think of something else. Anything else."

He snorted sardonically. "Sure, I can do that;" he said. "Heaven knows I got enough other worries. I can pass the time in reckoning what we'll get for what's left of our crop."

This was almost as bad, but Mary lighted upon an idea. "Think about how you plan to vote," she said. "It's only one week 'til election day."

He was surprised into a lopsided grin. "So it is," he said, almost wonderingly. "Time does get away from you." He moved in as if to kiss her, but only squeezed her hand instead. "Don't you work too hard, you hear me?"

"I'd tell you the same, but you wouldn't listen," said Mary.

His smile broadened and he winked at her, his foul humor dissipated at least a little. "You're right," he said.

She gave him a two-breath head start and then followed him into the empty kitchen. He put on his straw hat – a pitiful, dilapidated ruin now – as he strode onto the stoop. From a peg by the door Mary took her work apron, tying it on as she moved to her bonnet. She put it in place and stepped outside, closing the door behind her, and looped the ribbons into a secure bow. Cullen was already marching off towards the toolshed where he would change into his oilskins before joining Nate and Meg in the tobacco. Mary turned instead to the other end of the dooryard. Bethel already had the boiling pot full of body linen, and was emptying a kettle of steaming water into the washbasin.

Gabe, snugly dressed in the new blue coat that had belonged to his cousin, had been sitting on the hillock with his wooden horses in his lap. Seeing his mother and father he scrambled to his feet. "Pap—" he began, but the call was lost in a series of sharp coughs.

It seemed Cullen heard neither the aborted cry nor the ensuing fit, for he vanished into the toolshed as Mary hurried to her son. His hands were splayed on his belly as he leaned forward, hacking twice more as she knelt beside him. Then he looked up at her, nostrils flaring as he breathed heavily. His eyes were wide with distress and a question he could not utter.

"Just spit it out into the grass, darling," Mary said gently. "It's all right. I know Mama's said that gentlemen don't spit, but it's all right when you aren't well."

Gabe leaned further over his copper-toed shoes and expectorated the mouthful of phlegm that he had been holding with such good intentions. Then he stuck out his tongue. "Pah! _Pah!_" he said, stomping one little foot defiantly. "Dat 'ucky, Mama."

"Yes, lovey, I'm sure it is," Mary said as she brought out her handkerchief. She wiped the corners of Gabe's mouth, patting his back with her other hand. "There. All finished now."

"What color it be, Missus?" Bethel asked. Both arms worked, straining to move the heavy paddle through the laundry. "That there spittle."

"White," said Mary. "Milky. Why?"

"That a good sign," Bethel said sagely. "Ain't green nor bloody, that a good sign."

"His cough seems to be getting worse," Mary said, getting to her feet and taking her son's hand. She led him back to his toys and he sat down contentedly. "He woke in the night on Sunday. Cullen said he couldn't catch a breath."

Bethel frowned, and Mary wondered whether she ought to have mentioned it sooner. "Jus' the oncet?" the old woman asked. At Mary's nod she added; "An' not 'gain las' night?"

"I don't believe so," Mary said. "I'm sure it would have woken me."

"That true," Bethel agreed. "Ain't nuthin' wake a woman faster than her boy got trouble in the night." She looked at the child thoughtfully for a moment, still stirring vigorously. Then she shook her head. "We jus' gots to wait an' see how he fare, Missus. Ain't no cause for worryin' so long as he happy an' he eatin'. His nose be all clear again: maybe that there cough jus' late leaving."

"And if it isn't?" Mary asked worriedly. The fire hissed as Bethel lifted the first knot of garments out and into the washtub with the side of the paddle. She punched them down and fished for the rest.

"Then it goin' get worse," said Bethel. "No sense sendin' fo' the doctor if he jus' goin' tell you wait an' see. We ain't got two dollars to spare fo' no wait-an'-see."

"No," Mary whispered, looking back over her shoulder at her son. Gabe was playing happily, trying to balance one horse upon the back of another. She thought worriedly of the money in the secretary drawer, and the fifteen dollars in the bank. Combined they would not meet even their obligation to Doctor Whitehead. If they sent for him it would only add to that debt. "No, we haven't."

"No, you ain't!" Bethel snapped as Mary bent to pick up the pot of soap. "You's goin' ruin your hands if you does the scrubbin'. I ain't aimin' to have the missus of this house turn all horny-handed like ol' Elijah! You put them pants in the pot an' you give 'em a good soak. I's goin' scrub, same as allus!"

The scolding was oddly comforting, Mary thought as she did as she was told. It was almost as if nothing had changed at all despite the tumult of the last ten days.

_*discidium*_

Bethel came to the tobacco barn at dinnertime to relieve Lottie of the watch. The child was wanted in the sweet potatoes to help Elijah. She was young and nimble, and she could bend to pick up the roots exposed by the old man's careful hoe with greater ease than anyone else on the place. It took Bethel longer than it should have to shoo her away to grab a bite to eat before she went to the work, for Lottie was in an enormously talkative mood. She was bored, sitting all day alone in the barn, and she was eager for company. Well, she could talk all she wanted at Elijah while they dug.

Tending the fires was easy work, but dreary. Bethel almost wished she was the one young enough to be scooping up yams, but she knew it would be a torment to her back and to her stiff hip. She always felt the ache in her bones this time of year when the weather was changing. Today was a mild day, but the misery in her joints told her that they could expect rain tomorrow, all right. She wondered whether there was any chance of finishing the tobacco today. She hadn't asked after it in over a week, not since before Meg's capture and Mister Cullen's arrest. There was no use asking: she knew the news wouldn't be cheerful. She could see in her master's eyes how little hope was left in those fields. He didn't seem to see the crates piled high in the barn, or the laden poles strung above her head right now. All he saw was the sorry remnant of the seconds still on the plants, and the perfect crop that had been lost to the hail. That was, of course, when he wasn't looking at his own mistakes and despising them.

And they were mistakes, certainly. A series of unfortunate miscalculations that had had a terrible outcome. It had been a mistake to let Meg off his land; a mistake not to send her with that piece of paper; a mistake to let the sheriff trick him into an admission; some sort of awful mistake that he had made in court. As a result Mister Cullen was another thirty-five dollars in debt, Meg was scarred in body and spooked in spirit, and the quiet – if desperate – life of the little plantation had been shattered. Bethel shivered when she thought of the things they had said to each other, the master and the mistress. She had never heard them fight like that: hammer and tongs, tearing into one another as if their voices were claws that could gouge the very soul. They had made their peace with one another, but she wondered how deep the wounds of that night had sunk. Were they like the wheals on Meg's back that were even now starting to fade about the edges and would in the end leave only a few knotty scars? Or were they like the wounds on Meg's heart, which Bethel did not really believe would ever heal?

And now there was little Mister Gabe to worry about. Bethel had been so certain that he was recovering, but now she was no longer convinced. The cough was worse, all right, and if it had woken him once in the night it might do again. She knew there was nothing to do but wait, and yet she found the waiting intolerable. In better times she would have counselled Missus Mary to send for the doctor, just so that the responsibility for the decision to wait would not rest on her shoulders. But two dollars was a high ransom to pay for a salved conscience. This was one worry she would just have to bear.

When night fell Bethel was waiting. She had straightened her back out of its tired stoop and smoothed her skirts neatly. The old crate that served as a chair was hard and too low for comfort. How the others bore it night after night she did not know. When the kiln door opened and a wall of cool, fresh air swept in, Bethel was only too glad to haul her weary old bones up off of the box.

"Missus Mary fix you up sumthin' nice fo' dinner?" she asked as Mister Cullen came in. He had a laden plate in one hand and a small hunk of bread in the other. Tucked under his arm was one of the earthenware jugs they used for coffee, stoppered with a wedge of cork. A tin cup was looped over his thumb.

"Rabbit pot pie and grits," he said. "She done something with beets 'n beans, too: looks a treat. The yams she roasted." He inhaled deeply of the golden scent of the roots, and Bethel almost smiled. Poor child had been missing them just as much as any of the black folks. "Made a walnut pie, too, only without any crust. Is the flour getting low?"

It was, lower than Bethel liked with eight to feed and a month to go before any money would come in, but there was no use in adding to his burdens. "Ain't yet," she said stoutly. "An' it ain't goin' to so long as we be careful with it. You need crust with your pie that bad?"

He chuckled a little, very quietly, and set his plate down on the crate. "No, I reckon I don't," he conceded. He relieved himself of the bottle and the tin cup, and looked down at the bread in his hand. "You figure we got enough to last, then?"

"I do," Bethel declared. "Don' you fret 'bout that. Keepin' folks fed is my business, not any of your'n."

"Ain't it?" he asked. He ducked as he moved around the crate, straightening again when he was no longer under the leaves. He pressed his back to the wall of the barn and slid down onto the ground, extending one booted foot towards the middle fire. He made no sound as he descended, but from the sudden release of tension from his jaw Bethel knew it was a tremendous relief to sit at last.

"You know jus' what I mean," she said. "Gettin' them provisions laid down cellar, that you' business. What we does with 'em after is mine. Mine an' Missus Mary's."

He tugged a knife and fork out of the pocket of his trousers and tugged his plate closer to him. He sopped a corner of the bread in the dark juices of the pot pie and bit into it. His eyes fluttered closed for a moment and he nodded. "S'pose it is," he said quietly. He studied his plate and dug in with his fork. When he had chewed his first mouthful he looked up at her again. "How soon you reckon we can kill a hog?" he asked.

Bethel shook her head. "December be butcherin' time," she said. "Ain't no use rushin' Ol' Man Nature. Kill 'em too soon, get a warm night an' you goin' ruin fifty dollars' worth of meat."

Mister Cullen took the fork from his mouth, his lips tightening as if the helping he had just taken had suddenly turned to charcoal. He swallowed with an effort. "Guess I just hoped we might take one early," he said quietly.

Bethel nudged the door closed and moved to stand at the other side of the crate. Caving to her longing to comfort him, she reached and put her hand on his shoulder. "Aw, honey, if you's that hungry for a bit of pork I still got a li'l bacon kep' back fo' flavorin'. I'll fry you up a slice fo' your breakfas' tomorrow."

"It ain't that," he groused, shrugging her off and spearing a cube of dark beet. He looked at it as if he could make it burst into flames and then shoved it wrathfully into his mouth. "I don't want my boy growing up on jackrabbit."

Miss Caroline would have been heartbroken to see her own boy fed on jackrabbit after working all day, settling down to eat it on a dirt floor before sitting up half the night curing tobacco, but Bethel did not say this. "Two-three weeks eatin' it don' mean he goin' grow up on it," she said. "We's jus' had a hard year, an' it be pretty near over. Soon there goin' be plenty meat fo' ev'ybody. Mebbe you even take a day to go out huntin' an' bring back some venison."

"Mighta done," Mister Cullen mumbled around a mouthful of vegetables; "if I hadn't lost this last week. Can't spare me now, not for a damned minute."

"Ain't no cause fo' cussin'," Bethel scolded, more out of habit than consternation. She wouldn't deny him a strong word or two if it made him feel better, but she though perhaps being admonished for it was just as big a comfort.

It seemed she was right. He smiled tiredly. "Best get on up to the house and eat," he said. "How is it you're always the last one to get your meals?"

Bethel shrugged her lean shoulders, her apron-strings tugging a little at the motion. "How is it summer don' come before spring?" she asked. "You take care an' eat ev'ry mouthful of that, you hear? You's lookin' thin."

He shook his head ruefully, knowing there was no use in protesting, and turned his attention back to his plate. Bethel opened the door again, drinking deeply of the cool night air. White folks said the night air was poison, but it sure did smell sweet after long hours in the stuffiness of the kiln.

"Bethel?"

His voice called her back, low and unsteady. She turned loving eyes upon him, seeing in the weary and sweat-drenched man the little child who used to creep down to her room while his father and grandfather slept. "Yassir, Mist' Cullen?" she said.

"I've made a mess of everything," he murmured. He was looking up at her now, the firelight staining his irises almost golden. "Meg, the hearing, the tobacco, everything."

She would have gone to him, but the box stood between them and to round it was to impose too far upon familiarity and so forget her station in life. All she could do was come back to the edge of that wooden border, but there she crouched so that their faces were level. "Ain't no mess beyond fixin'," she said. "Meg gettin' stronger each 'n ev'y day. The tobacco still goin' be better 'n what you got las' year. You know that."

"Sure," he said. "But I didn't have more'n forty-five dollars in debt last year. Got a hundred and thirty already, and I ain't shipped it yet. Everything we made do without last year is wearing out now. Tools, plowshares, clothes. Boots."

His eyes traveled down the length of his leg to the cracked, mud-caked leather drying in the warmth of the embers. His work-boots were about worn out: Bethel knew that. She was the one who kept them clean and greased. The stitching was sound, but the leather had stretched and in places torn, and the soles were worn thin. Nate's and Elijah's were no better, and she and Meg were down to the hide in their shoes. Missus Mary had two pair for everyday, so hers were in a little better shape, but Lottie would likely outgrow hers before the end of the winter. At least Mister Gabe had good, stout little boots thanks to his aunt's good sense in saving what her boy had outgrown.

"Nate can hone a plowshare," Bethel said. "Missus Mary gots cloth to get new pants made, an' a new dress or two. Don' take nuthin' to dress a li'l boy, an' Lottie gots a new frock. Mos' ev'ything else can do another year if it got to, 'ceptin' them boots." She said nothing about Meg's ruined dress. He did not need that bitter reminder of the horror that was the cause of his melancholy.

"I can wear my riding boots when these give out," said Mister Cullen wearily; "but Nate's just about through the soles of his. Ain't had a good look at Elijah's." He sighed, twisting the fork between his fingers. "I don't know what we're going to do, Bethel. I just don't know. Up until this last I thought we'd maybe make it. Now…" He gestured vaguely. "I just don't know."

"The Lord provides for his children, honey," Bethel soothed. "Ain't no good worryin' 'fore you gots to. You see how much tobacco you got, an' you see what price it bring. _Then_ you see if you gots to worry some."

"Oh, I gots to worry all right. I been figuring," he said darkly, staring at the scarcely-touched plate.

Still squatting though her hams ached, Bethel uncorked the jug and poured a steaming cupful of coffee. He wasn't shaking, but his shirt was drenched with sweat and heavy fall dew, and the knees of his pants were wet where his sodden drawers had soaked through. He had to be cold. She wished she could bundle him up in the old horse blanket that lay on the ground, but that coddling would be too much for his pride just now. Instead she pushed the tin cup against the back of his hand and watched with some satisfaction as his fingers curled around it.

"That 'nother thing, Mist' Cullen," she said. "You does altogether too much figurin'. Ain't good for a body to think so much. It goin' wear you out."

He looked up at her and his lips curled into a toothy grin over the dented rim of the mug. His eyes glinted, but not with amusement. "Don't think I got much farther to wear," he said. Then he took a long swallow of the coffee and seemed to shake himself. When his eyes met hers again they were quiet and rimmed with fatigue. "Don't mind me, Bethel. I'm just… it's been a long day. I work faster when I work mad, but it sure does tucker me out."

"Sure it do, chile," Bethel said gently. She wanted to gather him into her arms as she had when he was small, but of course she could not do it. She watched as he took a forkful of hominy and rabbit gravy. From the smell of the meal Missus Mary had done a proper job. Mister Cullen chewed methodically, and then sighed.

"You go on," he said. "Your supper's waiting."

Bethel longed to protest that she did not intend to go anywhere while he was so troubled in his mind, but she knew he would not stand it. His instinct in times of trouble was to go off on his own, retreat into himself and mull over the matter in private turmoil. He had nowhere he could run, but at least she could leave him this questionable sanctuary. "Yassir, Mist' Cullen," she said. "You take care."

He grunted noncommittally and swallowed again. His appetite had awakened: he was intent upon his meal. But as she drew near the door he spoke once more. "Could you hand me that blanket?" he asked. "Please?"

She picked it up, shaking loose dirt and scraps of tobacco leaf. At last she could round him, stepping carefully over his outstretched leg. His waist was twisted so that he could eat off his makeshift table while keeping his left thigh pressed against it, and she had no trouble in draping the scratchy wool around his shoulders. His free hand clutched it close, and she tucked one corner over his arm and another around his hip.

"There," she whispered, letting her lips brush the bushy hair that stood out from the crown of his head, just as she had done in the old days when he was no bigger than Gabe. Under the tang of sour sweat it was still there: the scent of her own little boy. "G'night, honey. Don' you sit up none aft' your turn over. You needs you' sleep."

"Yes ma'am," he said obediently, not even a hint of insolence in his voice. Somehow this was the saddest of all.

Outside the moon was high and the sky a bare field of stars. Bethel's breath came in a cloud before her as she walked through the long grass towards the house. The kitchen lamp was lit, and she stepped into her familiar realm to find everything in perfect order. The dishes were washed, the floor swept, the table scrubbed bone-white. Even the water in the ewer on the washstand had been changed. Bethel washed her hands and face, scrubbing away the thin film of soot from the tobacco fires. On the warming shelf at the back of the stove sat a plate laid with hominy and vegetables. The remains of the pot pie still simmered in its pan. Bethel scooped out a generous helping and set it down on the table, where a glass of milk and a piece of crustless walnut pie were waiting for her. Missus Mary had even thought to lay out utensils and a napkin.

Bethel glanced towards the door that led to the dining room. It stood ajar, which was not unusual, but the room beyond was lighted. On the nights when Mister Cullen had the first watch in the kiln and so did not take his supper in the house, the mistress usually went up to bed when she had finished with supper. It was unusual for her to sit in the dining room anyhow.

Bethel went to the door, pulling it slowly open. Missus Mary was not sitting at all. She had pulled the chairs away from the table, and they stood in a line against the wall by the windows. She was bent over an unevenly-cut piece of stout white calico with a stub of charcoal between her third and fourth finger. Bethel recognized it as one of the pressed pieces from Mister Cullen's tin of drafting tools left over from his days at the University in Tuscaloosa. With her left hand and the thumb and first two fingers of her right, the young lady was adjusting two pieces of faded print fabric on top of the calico. Only when she reached down to draw up a thin strip between them did Bethel recognize the back panel of Meg's ruined bodice. The other pieces – fronts, side backs and sleeves – lay spread upon the sideboard, trimmed at the stitching lines so that they lay flat.

Missus Mary did not notice her: she was intent upon her work. The best lamp stood on one corner of the table, and the second-best beside it, offering as much light as possible without wasting kerosene. She frowned, gnawing briefly on her lower lip, and shifted the left fragment. Then, very carefully, she began to mark the edges upon the cloth beneath.

"Missus?" Bethel said softly.

She scarcely glanced up. "Oh, Bethel, good!" she said. "What do you think? I've pieced it as best I can, though it's impossible to tell quite how much frayed away. I'll leave a little extra, and I can always take it in if it doesn't fit."

Bethel stepped nearer, studying the work. It looked like a very good approximation to her. Considering what there was left to work with, Missus Mary was doing very well. But her heart was uneasy as she asked; "What you goin' use for cloth? We don' got no dress lengths fo' workin' clothes. Nuthin' but them fine fabrics you' mama done sent you."

"I know," said Mary. "I thought I would use that." She twitched her thumb towards the chairs, and Bethel noticed now the dark green sprigged cloth folded in a neat heap upon the seat of the nearest one. She frowned.

"But them's the new curtains from the front bedroom," she protested.

"Yes, but the muslin liners will do just fine," said Mary. "We aren't likely to have guests again for quite some time, and even if we do there's no one to look in at the windows. I know the cloth isn't a match to the skirt, but at least it isn't an unpleasant combination. It won't do for best wear, but Meg cannot be expected to get by with one frock. She's the only one who won't have clean clothes to wear tomorrow."

This was true: because Meg had to wear something to work in the fields, they had been unable to launder her dress. A frock made of two different cloths was not ideal – was in fact as embarrassingly frank an admission of poverty as serving jackrabbit at the white family's table – but at least it would allow Meg the bare necessities of comfort. Bethel had been unsettled by Mister Cullen's implication that he did not intend to buy himself a new pair of work-boots. There was no chance, then, of a new dress for Meg.

"You ain't meanin' to sew it up tonight?" Bethel asked.

"I thought tomorrow," said Missus Mary. "The sewing will go quickly enough, and it's simple to do even with interruptions, but I thought I had best take care of this part while I don't have a small boy to keep entertained."

"He sleepin', then?" asked Bethel, glancing at the ceiling in the direction of the nursery. "Ain' had too much trouble with that cough?"

"I gave him some of your blackberry root mixture right before bed." Missus Mary carefully swept the charcoal along the curve at the top of the armscye. "He seems to take it easier than the soothing syrup from the druggist."

Bethel nodded. "Ain' so bitter," she said. Her mistress's sewing box was sitting on the sideboard among the trimmed pieces of the bodice, and she went to it. "I kin cut 'way that lace, an' you can put it aside fo' when you gets a chance to make youself sumthin' pretty," she offered.

"Have you eaten yet?" asked Mary.

Bethel's cheeks burned a little. "No'm," she admitted. She had almost forgotten about supper, but suddenly her stomach was growling insistently.

The younger woman looked up, blue eyes tender. "Go and eat," she said. "And don't hurry yourself. You've put in just as long a day as anyone else."

"No'm, not quite _anyone_ else," murmured Bethel as she made her retreat.

_*discidium*_

When Nate came to relieve him Cullen gathered his dishes, long since empty and scraped clean, and trudged wearily back to the house. It had been another long day, though a day at least that had not ended with maddening revelations of his own stupidity. He had thought it was unbearable to be unable to comprehend how he had been bested. As it turned out it was far worse to know just what had gone wrong, and that logic and a clear head might have allowed him to escape. He had been caught unawares, bewildered by the sudden change in his prospects and addled with want of food and sleep, but was that really any excuse? And even with those disadvantages, might he not have fared better if only he had troubled to control his temper? His hot Scotch blood had got him into trouble before this, but somehow none of those failures smarted as this one did.

He knew why. In the past no one had suffered for his fits of choler but himself. True, his father had flushed a little with shame, or Bethel lost a night's sleep in worry, or one of his college companions had come away with a few bruises or a blackened eye. But this time, everyone had suffered. Mary, struggling to manage the crisis in his absence. Gabe, ill and pining for his father. Bethel, anxious for him and still obliged to tend to Meg. Meg herself, no doubt unjustly guilty with the knowledge that the sheriff might have taken her instead. Nate and Elijah, doing their best to work for four. And Lottie… he didn't know quite how it had hurt Lottie, but surely it had. And every one of them would suffer some loss of luxury or necessity to pay his fine.

Yet as dreadful as all that was, he was dogged by the grim certainty that the troubles of the year were not yet at an end. There was so much that might still go awry, and all that he could do was shuffle his frantically bobbing feet and brace himself for the next blow.

Cullen reached the back door and tugged it open as quietly as he could. He eased himself down on the bench in the dark and found the bootjack with one questing foot. His stockings were damp and sticky with tobacco juice, and he nudged them off with his toes. Then barefoot he found his way across the kitchen. The dining room was ghostly in the moonlight, and there were pieces of cloth piled on the table. Scarcely glancing at them he shuffled into the front hallway. He was at the foot of the stairs when he realized that above in the nursery his son was coughing.

He moved faster than his weary legs should have been able to carry him. The noise was harsh and relentless, a series of rattles broken only by a high, wheezing _whoop_. It was not a healthful sound; not an ordinary cough. The gasps Gabe had given the other night were nothing compared to this. He sounded as if he were choking upon his own lungs.

Cullen's mind scarcely registered the incongruity of the quadrangle of candlelight pouring from open nursery door. He rushed in and caught himself against the edge of the bedstead, clutching the footboard as he tried to take in the scene before him. The bedclothes had been flung back, and Gabe was sitting bolt upright as he had on Sunday night. His hands dug into the mattress and his body rocked with each sundering cough. Mary was sitting behind him, left foot on the floor and right leg tucked up to brace his back. The position dragged her nightshirt high upon her leg, baring it almost to the knee, but she was oblivious to that. She was leaning forward, curled around Gabe's right shoulder to watch his face. One hand was splayed upon the wall for balance, while the other patted fervently between the child's shoulder blades. Her eyes were wild and her face white.

"Breathe, dearest, _please_ breathe!" she cried as Gabe made another sharp, almost inhuman whooping sound that was cut short at its shrillest point by yet another cough. "Gabe! Gabe, you've got to breathe!"

"Son?" Cullen twisted his leg around the bedpost and sat heavily on the tick. The bed rocked and Gabe's body bounced, but he was coughing too hard even to notice. Cullen forced himself to take a breath, knowing he would be content never to do so again if only he could give his untainted lungs to his child. But panic would not help anyone. Gabe's face was a taut, pale mask dragging down toward the ring of his lips, but his eyes were glazed with terror. He needed his parents to be calm for him. "Son, it's all right. Remember? You got to cough. Just bring it out. Cough it all out."

He tried, his ribs heaving beneath the muslin of his nightshirt and his thin little shoulders bolting. The cough was a long, deep, ratcheting one, and it ended in a heartbeat of perfect silence. Then Gabe tried again to breathe, and again all he managed was whistling _whoop_ that could not even be called a gasp.

There was the pounding of feet on the stairs, and Cullen was dimly aware of Bethel's nightgown-clad form towering over him, of her capable dark hands moving in. One supported Gabe's head and the other rested consolingly on his elbow. The old woman murmured something low and soothing, but Cullen could not hear it. His ears were filled with the barking of the next series of coughs, and as he watched something still more dreadful happened.

Gabe's lips, until a moment ago a brilliant pink with the strain wracking his young frame, drained first to a white that rivaled Mary's and then to a ghastly, unearthly, inhuman shade of blue.

"Dear God!" Cullen choked, feeling the color abandon his own face.

"What? What is it?" cried Mary. She glanced hastily at Cullen and then looked at her child. Her wild eyes grew manic as she saw it, too. "Bethel, what's wrong? He can't breathe! Why won't he breathe?"

Gabe wheezed again, this time not even taking in enough air for the sharp crescendo. The next cough sent him doubling over his lap despite the gentle hands bearing him up. For a single, awful moment Cullen thought he had lost consciousness, or even – but that was unthinkable. Then Gabe's whole body shuddered and he took in a gasp of air so deep and sudden that it sounded as if it could have filled the chests of four little boys, and it came out in a keening terrified wail.

Mary looked ready to swoon away with relief at the sound, but she didn't. She wrapped her arms around her son's waist and hauled him into her lap, rocking him to and fro. Her right hand slipped up to cup his forehead so that his head was drawn back against her breast. "There, darling. There, there," she said, as breathless as though she had been the one lost in the fit of horrific coughing.

"Hush, chile, that my li'l lamb," murmured Bethel.

Cullen could say nothing. All he could manage was to sit there, limp with gratitude, and watch as his boy's face flushed red again and the hideous azure left his lips. Gabe sobbed twice, thinly, but he was exhausted. He twisted in towards his mother, nuzzling against her.

"What is it? What happened?" Mary gasped. She was looking at Bethel, and Cullen found his own eyes shifting in the same direction. Bethel's sensible, beloved old face was carved in crevices of care.

"I ain' see'd it in fifty years, Missus," she said. "Not since I was a girl out in Charleston an' we all come down with it." She was looking at Gabe as though measuring him for a winding sheet. "That chile, he have the kink-cough."

"The what?" squealed Mary, scarcely able to form the words. Gabe's face was florid, but hers was still ashen.

"'Hoopin' cough, some folks call it," said Bethel. Her hand crept up to her throat and she closed her eyes. They rolled up into her head so the whites showed beneath trembling lashes and she moaned; "Lor' have mercy, Lor' have mercy!"

"Whooping cough?" Mary's lips moved, but her throat scarcely formed the words. "No. Oh, _no_!"

Then Gabe stiffened in his mother's arms, gave a little hiccough and began to hack again, harder this time. It scarcely seemed possible for such a cacophony to tear from such a small body, but it did. This time the _whoop _made Cullen's whole body jerk. He reached instinctively for his boy, a sharp motion that aborted fruitlessly not two inches from his shoulders. Mary forsook her own hold as though her arms might choke the last vestiges of air from him. Lost in blinding fear, Cullen very nearly struck out with his fist when someone seized his arm just above the elbow.

"Mist' Cullen," Bethel said. Her voice was hard now, stern and commanding. She had control. She knew what must be done. He knew he would obey her. "Mist' Cullen, you gots to ride an' fetch the doct'r right this minute!"


	50. A Midnight Ride

**Chapter Fifty: A Midnight Ride**

His riding boots were standing outside the bedroom door where Mary had left them the previous evening, and Cullen thrust his feet into them with such force that it was a wonder he did not put his heels right through the soles. The sound of Gabe's coughing and the awful, fruitless struggle to breathe chased him down the stairs like a demon and through the front door. Only dim instinct closed his hand upon the knob to drag it closed again behind him. He tore around the gatepost and ran to the barn, flinging his whole weight into hauling open the right-hand door. He snatched up the box of matches and lit the lamp, his hands deft and remarkably steady despite the pounding of his heart. The animals were sleeping, and when he flung open the gate to Bonnie's stall she snorted and shook her head, disgruntled at the sudden awakening. Cullen slipped the bridle over her nose and settled the bit. She licked at it, her sharp dark eye rolling to look at his face. She sensed his agitation and stamped restlessly at the straw beneath her hooves, nickering a question.

The sound woke Pike, who shuffled in his stall and then bowed his head to drink. Cullen lifted his saddle off of its rack and settled it across Bonnie's strong, sleek back. At once she tossed her head, her mane slapping at his face as it flew, and let out a long whinnying noise of triumph. Ordinarily Cullen would have said something encouraging in response to this show of joy, but he was too distraught now. Never in his life had he cinched the straps and fastened the buckles with such speed, not even on the morning Mary had gone into labor. Then he had known that despite his own consternation the situation was natural, and that Bethel had the matter well in hand. But tonight his son was suffering, unable even to draw breath, and Bethel had been just as terrified as anyone else at the sight.

He forced himself to check the leathers, for it would do no one any good if the saddle slipped, harming the mare or sending him rolling into a ditch. By now the mules were awake, too, bawling and braying indignantly. Cullen set his teeth against the hateful sounds, half-wishing he could march down to the far end of the barn and swat their noses to make them shut up. Instead he led Bonnie out and yanked the stable door closed with such force that it shuddered. He brought the reins around to the back of her neck and thrust his boot into the stirrup, the stacked heel catching as it was meant to. He swung into the saddle, casting one last, anxious look at the glow of candlelight behind the nursery curtains. He almost believed that he could hear the rattling coughs and the wretched, choking whoops as his son strove fruitlessly to draw breath, but of course that was ridiculous. Gathering the reins he tapped his heel against Bonnie's flank.

"Ya!" he cried, and she broke at once into a strong canter.

Responding to the cues of his body, the Morgan followed the drive into the shady lane. Cullen held her steady as she took it, for the way was dark and the ground rutted, but as they turned out onto the main road he let loose upon the reins and urged her on. With a cry of pure delight Bonnie sprang into a gallop, gaining speed so swiftly that Cullen's stomach seemed to press against his spine. Her mane flew and his hair whipped back, and nimble hooves pounded the packed dirt. The moon, round and yellow and just past full, lit their way as they thundered past Boyd Ainsley's empty cotton fields and the path that led to his home. The stand of old, wild wood flew by upon the left, and then the rolling acres of the Graham plantation appeared.

Cullen saw none of this. He kept his eyes upon the stretch of road ahead, the wind of Bonnie's swift passage stinging his cheeks and plastering his damp work shirt to his chest and arms. His body rose and fell with hers in the organic rhythm of one bred to the saddle from childhood. His right hand gripped the reins, keeping them loose enough that his steed could exert all the speed her wild heart wished but snug enough that he could guide her as the need arose. His left, bobbing low beside his hip, held the hanging tails so that they did not slap her side or offer any distraction in her flight. His heart was hammering in his chest and his pulse throbbed in his throat and temples. He could not think. He could scarcely breathe. All that he could do was make haste.

The distance that took an hour to cover in the buggy flew past in less than a quarter of that time under Bonnie's full gallop. Cullen reined her in, but only a little, as they came to the edge of the town. In the deep of the night Meridian was all but silent, the houses dark and the businesses shut up. Somewhere a tomcat squalled, and here and there a loose gate rattled as horse and rider thundered past, but there was no sign of human activity in the slumbering community. Cullen steered Bonnie along the little cross-street and down the hill to the neat stucco house standing sedate in the moonlight. Not troubling with the gate, he tightened the grip of his knees against Bonnie's ribs and tugged back. In a smooth, long motion she jumped the low hedge, hooves digging into the grass of the front lawn.

Almost without prompting she slowed to a trot as Cullen guided her around to the back of the house. There was a hitching rail beside the stable, and a trough filled with water. He dismounted in haste, tying off the reins more out of habit than design. Bonnie, flanks heaving with the invigorating ride, bowed her head to drink. Even as she did so, Cullen was bolting up the back steps onto the encircling veranda. He dashed around past the porch-swing towards the front of the house, and was hammering upon the door even before his feet stopped moving.

No immediate answer came, of course, for even in this house accustomed to midnight awakenings it was the hour of repose. But as Cullen continued to pound a flicker of candlelight showed beyond the glass set in the door and then drew nearer. The door swung in and Ellie, candlestick in one hand and shawl around her shoulders, leaned to see who had roused her from her bed.

"Why, Mist' Bohannon!" she cried, opening the door still wider and taking his forearm to draw him into the entryway. "You look like you's been chased by the Devil hisself."

"I need the doctor, Ellie," Cullen said, his words tripping out over a tongue incapable of adequately expressing the urgency of the situation. "He got to come straight away. My boy… he's taken a turn. Bethel thinks it's whooping cough. He can't hardly breathe."

Ellie clicked her tongue and guided him to the chair that stood by the door for moments such as these. In his agitation Cullen's instinct was to fight her, but now that he had ceased moving the strength seemed to ebb from his limbs. He sat down meekly, his ribs heaving. Every breath stabbed him with guilt at its instinctual ease. Was Gabe even now unable to draw in even the smallest measure of air? Was he blue with coughing in Mary's arms? Had he passed out from the strain? Was he…

No. His mind shrank from that possibility. It could not be so. It must not be so. Upstairs he heard heavy feet thundering back and forth. Ellie was still beside him, but his frantic knocking had obviously awakened Doctor Whitehead. Such a noise at this hour could only mean one thing, and the man was already dressing.

"Jus' you sit," Ellie was saying, her firm hand upon Cullen's shoulder. "I's goin' fetch you some water, an' you jus' catch your breath. The doctor be down direc'ly."

"No," Cullen gasped, shaking his head. Perspiration was trickling into his eyes, smarting fiercely, and now that he was still his damp clothes were chilling him. "Go up and tell him, Ellie. Tell him he got to hurry. Please."

"Mist' Bohannon, he know he got to hurry," Ellie reassured him. "Ain' nobody come 'round here this time of night unless there cause to hurry."

She disappeared into the parlor and came back with a tumbler full of water. Cullen took it, but his hands were shaking now and more fluid dribbled into his beard and down his front than reached his mouth. When he heard the footfalls draw near the head of the stairs, he hurriedly thrust the glass onto the little table beside him and got to his feet.

"Ellie?" Doc Whitehead's steady, quiet voice came down the stairs just ahead of him. "Who is it? What's happened?"

Cullen bolted for the foot of the stairs, gripping the newel post. "It's me, Doc. My boy—"

"Oh, dear, taken a turn, has he?" Doc asked. His tone was brisk but calm.

"Whooping cough," Cullen choked out.

Doc stopped on the last stair, eyes widening. For an awful moment his countenance was one of startled dismay. Then his eyelids grew narrow and he nodded once, curt and businesslike. "Ellie, my coat," he said as he stepped down. "Cullen, just you run next door and tell them to get Silas over here to saddle up Castor—"

The thought of waiting for a drowsy Negro boy to bestir himself, dress, and then make his way over to the doc's stable was too frustrating. "Hell, no, I'll saddle him!" Cullen cried. "Ain't no time to waste, Doc. His lips went blue."

Ellie was holding the physician's greatcoat so that he could slip his arms into the sleeves with ease. He did so, and took his hat from its peg. "Go on, then," he said. "My tack's on the left. I'll be out just as soon as I put a few more things in my bag."

It took Doctor Whitehead less than ten minutes to fetch what he needed, but by the time he came out Cullen had the gelding ready and both horses waiting at the gate. It had taken him a little longer to saddle Castor than it had Bonnie, for he was unfamiliar with the doctor's tack, and still he had to stand restlessly waiting. The older man came out at last, hurrying down the steps. He hooked his dark leather satchel to the saddle and took the reins from Cullen. Together they mounted and moved wordlessly out into the street as Ellie came down, barefoot and clad in her nightgown, to close the gate.

"Take care you don' ride too fast," she said. "Ain' goin' help that chile if one of them horses turns a foot or throws a shoe! Ridin' out on All Hallows Night; ain't right."

"Children don't chose when they take ill, Ellie," Doc said soothingly. "You get on back to bed, now. I may be gone some time."

Bonnie was restive and it took all of Cullen's self-control not to simply let her tear off towards home again. He led her into a canter out of consideration to Ellie, and Doc followed. But the moment they were out of sight of the house Cullen urged Bonnie on. He let her gallop, but not at speed: Castor was no match for her. Side by side the two riders thundered through the streets of Meridian and up to the road that led back to the Bohannon plantation.

_*discidium*_

Bethel put the kettle on the stove and stirred up the fire, then stood back and wrapped her shawl more snugly about her shoulders. Mary, her dressing gown flung haphazardly over her nightgown, was sitting in the old woman's chair with her son in her lap. Gabe was curled against her, feet tucked up against his bottom, his strength utterly spent. The second fit of coughing had been the worst, no doubt exacerbated by distress at his father's sudden departure. Neither woman had even heard horse and rider go, so frantically had they been tending to the child. There was nothing to be done in the throes of such paroxysms: all they could do was sit Gabe up and support him so he did not tumble over, and to try to murmur words of comfort that he might well be too far-gone to hear.

There had been a third fit close upon the heels of the second but not so violent. Then Gabe had subsisted for a while in Mary's arms, gasping shallowly while hot tears streamed down his plump little cheeks. Hoarsely he had repeated over and over; "I couldn' bree'd, Mama. I couldn' bree'd." At last he had fallen quiet and Mary had tried to lay him down upon his pillow again.

That had been a mistake. No sooner was he on his back than the coughing started up again, punctuated by the horrible whooping until his lips took on a bluish cast and his whole body jerked with each wretched attempt to draw breath. After it passed again he had started to tremble, whereupon Bethel had suggested they take him down to the warmth of the kitchen to wait for the doctor. She had fetched Mary's wrap, while Mary bundled Gabe in the quilt from his bed, and they had come downstairs.

Cullen had not been gone long; intellectually Mary knew that. Surely it had not even been an hour yet since he had fled from the house to fetch the doctor. It was too soon to expect him home. But as she held her exhausted child and felt his fever burning under her palm a terrible thought struck her. Suppose Cullen rode into Meridian, only to find that Doctor Whitehead was already abroad? She knew her husband would not simply wait for him to return, but Cullen might have to ride another ten miles or more to find him if he were out at one of the plantations south of the town, or the small farms on the other side of Sowashee Creek. The thought of such a delay turned her cold with anxiety.

"I's goin' fix you up some of that New York tea, Missus," Bethel said quietly, coming out of the pantry with the precious little packet in her hand. She paused, shrugging the shawl higher on her shoulder and studying Gabe's curled form. His eyelids were fluttering, neither open nor quite closed. "How that fever?"

"Just the same, I think," Mary murmured. Gabe stirred at the sound of her voice, but did not speak. "How serious is it, Bethel? Is he… might he…"

"Some does, Missus Mary. Some does," said Bethel.

"But you said you had it, and you came through," Mary said worriedly, desperate for some reassurance, no matter how small."

"Yas'm, I did," said Bethel. "But I were eight-nine year old. Li'l ones, they gets it worse, jus' like mos' things. Ain't to say we gots no hope," she added hastily at her mistress's stricken expression. "Jus' to say it ain't no 'stravagance sendin' fo' the doctor."

"Extravagance?" gasped Mary. "No, of course it's not." Then the implication of these words struck her and she felt a thrill of despair. "I don't know how we'll pay him, but surely he'll extend us some grace."

Bethel went soundlessly to the dish dresser and poured a cup of cool water. She came back to Mary and squatted beside the chair so that she could look Gabe in the eye. "You wants a li'l water, honey?" she cooed. "Is you thirsty?"

"T'irsty," Gabe agreed, his eyes opening. He pushed against Mary's breastbone with one hand, sitting up on her lap, and worked the other free of the blanket so that both could reach for the tin mug. Bethel let him take it, but her fingers hovered nearby, ready to catch it if his grip slipped. Gabe slurped greedily, smacking his lips as he swallowed. He drained the whole cup and nodded stoutly. "Good," he pronounced. His poor little voice was hoarse from coughing. "T'ank you, Bet'l." He twisted to look at his mother. "Where Pappy gone?"

As Mary's lips parted to answer, Gabe's flew wide. His tongue thrust against his teeth and he gave a shallow little cough. For a moment there was silence, the two women watching in breathless, desperate hope that it might end there, but then the onslaught began. Gabe's chest heaved and jerked as he coughed, and his ribs went taut as he strained to breathe and brought in nothing more than the high-pitched wheeze. Mary's arm, a moment ago resting against the side of the chair, curled swiftly around her son's back. Her fingers took hold of his thigh just below the hip to keep him from tumbling off of her lap. Again Gabe coughed, thrice in rapid succession, and again he whooped. The next series of sharp barks terminated in a strangled sound, and his little belly rippled. His hand moved to clutch at it while his other flailed in an anxious little gesture. Then, after two more sharp coughs he leaned forward and began to retch.

Bethel snatched up a bowl, but not quickly enough. The first gout of vomit – chiefly water intermingled with the pureed remains of the child's supper – splashed on the quilt and splattered Mary's sleeve. The hand that was not holding Gabe in place moved to his brow, bracing him as he gagged again, this time into the dish. Another cough tore through him, swiftly followed by more bile and fluid. He was shaking now with sobs he could not articulate for want of air, and the next cough brought up thick white mucus with the last of the contents of his stomach. He wheezed and began to choke.

Swiftly, still holding the basin with one hand, Bethel reached around and thumped him between the shoulder blades with a firm fist. There was a hollow popping noise as the air was driven from his lungs and the aspirated vomit was sent bursting out of his throat into the bowl. Then Gabe took in a deep, harsh, sundering gasp of air and began to weep loudly. Mary had to restrain the urge to smother him in a tight embrace, and instead let her palm slip down to caress his cheek.

"Good boy, brave boy," she chanted, jiggling one leg gently beneath him. Her frightened eyes followed Bethel as she laid aside the soiled dish and wetted the corner of a rag, but she did not let her terror show in her voice. "That's my little man. It's all right, dearest. It's all right."

"I m-m-maked a mess!" Gabe sobbed, pointing at the sour-smelling stain upon the blanket. Then his hand plucked at Mary's sleeve where the fluid made the cherry silk a deep carmine. "I maked a mess on _you_!"

It was another of those poignant little moments that told Mary her son was growing up. He was not merely miserable, sick and distressed: he was ashamed. "Never mind, lovey. It washes out," she murmured.

Bethel bent to wipe the froth of foul spittle from Gabe's mouth and chin. Mary's hand slid down to his shoulder to allow the older woman more room to work. "That ain' nuthin' t'all, Mist' Gabe," she said. "Why, when you' pappy was a li'l boy, he sneaked him some green peaches one aft'noon, an' he sicked 'em up all over the parlor rug! Now, that _there_ were a mess to put right."

Gabe hiccoughed and looked up at her with eyes both wondering and disbelieving. "He did?" he asked.

"Sure he did," said Bethel. "His gran'pappy scold him sumthin' fierce, too, fo' stealin' them peaches."

"Is you goin' scold me?" asked Gabe. His breathing was levelling now, and the tears had stopped. Mary blessed Bethel for her astute distractions.

"Nawsir," said Bethel with a shake of her head. "You didn' take nuthin' you ain' s'posed to. T'ain't you' fault you took sick."

"No, ma'am," Gabe mumbled, shaking his head. "I didn' mean it."

Bethel patted his tearstained cheek with motherly tenderness. "I know you didn', honey," she soothed.

Mary adjusted her hold so that she could lift Gabe out of the soiled blanket, and Bethel tugged it away. The child's bare feet scrabbled briefly on his mother's lap as he settled back against her. Bethel used the cloth to blot at the splotches on Mary's sleeve until the younger woman waved her off.

"Never mind that," she said distractedly. "It doesn't matter."

Bethel started to speak, and then stiffened, straightening and looking over Mary's head towards the dining room door. Mary's heart caught in her throat as she heard what had brought the older woman up short. "Here!" she cried, drawing herself up instinctively and repenting of it as Gabe stirred disconsolately in her lap. "In here!"

Booted feet hurried through the dining room, and a moment later Doctor Whitehead was at her side. Bethel withdrew swiftly and the kind-eyed gentleman bowed. "Good evening, Miss Mary," he said gently. "I'm sorry to meet under such circumstances."

"Thank you for coming!" Mary exclaimed. "We've been so frightened."

"Yes," said the doctor. "Yes, that's perfectly natural." He bent again, this time taking hold of the armrest so that he could look almost levelly at the child. "Well now, son, do you remember me?"

Gabe nodded. "You's de doctor," he said. His whole face furrowed into a miserable frown. "I's sick."

"That's just what I hear," said Doctor Whitehead. "Would it be all right if I boosted you up onto the table and had a little look at you?"

Gabe glanced askance at Mary, and she forced her lips to smile as she nodded. "Guess so," he said, lifting his arms so that the man could take hold under them.

"That's a good little man," Whitehead said as he lifted. "Ooph! You've got heavy since the last time I picked you up, haven't you? You'll be running this place in no time."

He set the child on the edge of the table, bare legs dangling, and put out his hand. Turning in the chair now, Mary saw Cullen standing in the doorway with the physician's black bag in one tight fist. He rendered it up and retreated against the wall, eyes fixed on his son. His hair was wild and his shirt dark with cold perspiration, but his face was carefully neutral as Gabe twisted to look at him.

"Pappy!" he said happily, but quite without his usual vigor.

"I'm here, son," Cullen said. His voice, too, was hoarse and strained.

"Now then," said Doctor Whitehead as he opened his satchel and spread a roll of gleaming steel instruments on the table; "tell me about this cough."

"It's awful," said Cullen starkly. "He started, and he just couldn't stop. Couldn't even take a breath. When he tried it would just catch in his throat, sharp-like."

The graying brows furrowed. "How'd it sound?" he asked.

"Rattling. High-pitched." Cullen shook his head helplessly. His eyes were stormy with misery "_Painful._"

"Like this," said Mary, sitting up straight and exhaling. She drew in a breath very quickly and sparely, tugging it up against her palate and into her sinuses in a harsh, wheezing _whoop_. Cullen stiffened and Bethel's head snapped to the side to look at her. Gabe's eyes grew wide.

"That's it," Cullen gasped after a moment's shocked silence. He pointed feebly at Mary. "Just… _just_ like that."

Doctor Whitehead nodded, and looked over his shoulder at her. "Thank you, Miss Mary," he said. "That was an uncanny impression. Sounds like whooping cough to me, all right."

Bethel swallowed a noise of despair. The kettle was at a lively boil now, and she busied herself in taking it off the stove. From the dish dresser she brought the china teapot, and started measuring out the dark leaves with a silver spoon.

The doctor picked up a flat tool with a gently curved tip. He curled his left hand behind Gabe's head to support the base of his skull. "Tilt your head back, now," he said; "and open up wide."

Gabe obeyed, and the instrument came down carefully upon his tongue. Doctor Whitehead squinted and shook his head. "Cullen, could you bring the lamp and hold it here, just over my shoulder?" he asked.

Cullen moved around him and reached for the squat bowl of the kitchen lamp. His hands were shaking and he paused, staring sternly at them as though willing them to be still. It seemed he was successful, for the tremors stopped and he cupped his fingers around the glass bulb, using his other palm to brace the bottom. He positioned the light above and just to the left of the older man's shoulder, and the doctor nodded.

"Fine, that's fine," he said. "Now, Gabe, I need you to give me a nice, long 'ahh'. You think you can do that?"

Gabe obliged, the sound coming thickly. The doctor peered intently into his mouth as he did so, and when the boy fell silent and drew in a breath through his nose he removed the retractor and nodded. "No inflammation of the throat or tonsils," he said. He reached to undo the tiny buttons that fastened the throat of Gabe's nightshirt. "Son, I'm just going to have a little feel under here," he said, planting the first two fingers of each hand under the little boy's jaw. They worked expertly, palpating the sides of his throat. "Now, it may hurt a little if there's any swelling. Just you let me know if you feel it, that's a good little man. Cullen, you can go ahead and put that down; just keep it near. Have you got another handy? We could all do with a bit more light, I think."

Mary thought that what he was actually trying to do was to give Cullen something to occupy himself so that he might forget his anxiety for a moment or two. She was grateful. Doctor Whitehead knew her husband well, and was surely aware of the stiffness in his bearing and the grey tint to his complexion that meant he was almost sick with worry. Cullen brushed wordlessly past Mary and vanished into the dining room, reappearing a moment later with the best lamp in one hand and the second-best in the other. He lit them, turning the wicks as high as possible without running the risk of them smoking. With their glow the room was almost as bright as on a cloudy afternoon, and a good deal more cheerful-looking.

"Oh!" Gabe said sharply, and all three adults looked immediately to him. Doctor Whitehead, however, seemed unconcerned. He withdrew his hands and smiled.

"Good boy," he said. "I'm sorry that stung." He put his palm flat on the tabletop and frowned. "It's a little cold, isn't it? Bethel, do you have a towel or something for this child to sit on?"

"Yes," said Bethel; "yassir." She opened the door in the little side cupboard and brought one out. Cullen picked Gabe up, holding him close with one hand pressed high upon his back as if he might thus insure him against the dreaded cough. When Bethel had spread the cloth over the corner of the table, Cullen moved to set Gabe down again.

"Just a moment." Doctor Whitehead tugged up the back of Gabe's nightgown to the waist, so that he sat down bare-bottomed on the towel. Cullen drew back, but only a half-step, hovering protectively. From his bag the doctor brought his stethoscope. It was one of the patented flexible models, with the chest cup and the narrow earpiece conjoined by a spring covered in silk. He rolled Gabe's nightshirt high on his back, and Gabe squeezed his arms close to his body without being told, holding the cloth in place. Pushing it back a little further with the hand that held the cup, Doctor Whitehead brought the other piece to his ear and listened.

"Take in a big, deep breath, and hold it, son," he instructed.

Mary's heart was in her throat as Gabe obeyed, certain that the action would bring about another fit of coughing. But though Gabe's cheeks puffed out like a bullfrog he held his breath successfully until the physician instructed him to let it out. He did so all at once, in a big, hot puff that ruffled the hair behind Doctor Whitehead's ear.

He chuckled, shaking his head and adjusting the stethoscope. "Let's just try that again, shall we?" he said. "This time, try and let it out nice and slow so I can listen how your lungs sound. That all right with you?"

"Yassir," said Gabe happily. He knew he was doing well, and he was proud. Mary was, too. After the hellish struggles of the previous hour her son was remarkably calm and collected. Indeed, he was the most serene of all of them. Even Doctor Whitehead, for all his air of quiet capability, seemed uneasy.

"Right, now. Deep breath," he said. "And out, nice and slow."

Gabe pursed his lips and blew very slowly, his ribs deflating visibly as he did so. But he was not even halfway through expelling the air when his breath hitched, coming sharply in instead of out. Then his jaw fell and a harsh cough tore from his body, followed immediately by another and another. The doctor hastily withdrew the stethoscope, dropping it on the table and taking hold of Gabe's hip and shoulder to brace him. Another cough ripped free from the little boy's throat and he tried to take a breath, only to have it catch shrill and brutal in an excruciating _whoop_.

"Do something!" Cullen snapped as Gabe began to cough again. "Ain't you goin' do something?"

"Nothing I can do," said the doctor quietly, scarcely audible over the ratcheting coughs. Gabe wheezed again, clutching at a fistful of his coat sleeve. His face was a lurid red and his eyes were brimming with tears. "Nothing anyone can do but ride it out. There, son, that's a brave little man. You'll be all right in a minute. You'll be all right."

Mary got to her feet and hastened to Gabe's other side, scarcely caring that she had to nudge Cullen aside to do it. Her husband was still staring in consternation at the doctor. Bethel had abandoned the tea things and was now standing as near as propriety permitted, her body fraught with anxious energy as if she awaited only some command to spring into action. But there was nothing any of them could do. This was a battle the child had to fight for himself, this awful struggle for life's most basic nourishment. Mary traced a circle on his back, wishing that she had the power to draw the cough out through her fingertips. She wanted to cry, to scream, to beg the Lord to smite her with the sickness and spare her son, but none of that would help him. Instead she murmured senseless, quiet words of comfort as his small body shuddered and heaved and the color left his face.

"Good God," Cullen whispered, burying his head in one hand as Gabe's lips began to purple and the whoops took on a fresh note of panic. For a moment he stood, an image of despair, and then he flung his arm down to his side and straightened his spine, squaring his shoulders. "What the hell do you mean there ain't nothing you can do?" he bellowed. "You're the doctor, ain't you? Help him, dammit!"

Gabe's ribs jerked anxiously and his wide eyes rolled towards his pappy, terrified not so much by the outburst itself as by the realization that his father was just as frightened as he. Mary's head whipped to her right shoulder and she fixed stern eyes on her husband. "Cullen, hush! You're frightening him!" she hissed.

It was the nearest thing to scolding him she had ever done in the presence of a visitor, but at the moment she did not care if she looked like a shrew. Gabe had cause enough to panic, unable to breathe, without Cullen's anxiety for him coming out in angry words. Cullen seemed to realize this, for he blinked like one suddenly awakened and nodded unsteadily. He reached an arm between Mary and the doctor, and planted it on Gabe's knee, gripping reassuringly.

"Look at me, son," he said. "Just look at me. You'll be all right in a minute. We're here. We're all here. Ain't nothing to be scared of."

As abruptly as it began the fit was over. Gabe drew in three deep, desperate gasps and let out a little whimper, then leaned towards Mary's body. She hugged him close, kissing the crown of his head, and Doctor Whitehead withdrew his hands. Cullen moved in nearer, his hip pressing close to Mary's as he ruffled Gabe's hair.

"There," he said, trying to sound cheerful despite the quaver in his voice. "It's over now. It's over."

Gabe's head bobbed, but his eyes were screwed tightly closed and he said nothing. His hand closed on Cullen's sleeve, twisting the coarse, damp cloth. Now that the moment of panic was past Mary could feel the chill of her husband's wet clothes through the thin silk of her dressing gown. He was quaking, deeply and almost imperceptibly.

Doctor Whitehead curled the stethoscope and tucked it into his bag. He looked pensively at the child and sighed. "Perhaps we might step into the other room?" he suggested. "Bethel? Would you please…"

Mary looked up, startled by the intimation that she should abandon her child, but Cullen had a grip on her elbow and drew her gently but firmly away. At once Bethel took her place, so swiftly that Gabe scarcely had time to straighten himself to sit unassisted before there was another loving arm to lean against and another familiar breast to rest his head upon.

"Here, honey, le's go sit by the stove where it warm," Bethel murmured, gathering him tenderly into her arms and smoothing the nightshirt back down over his legs. She rocked her body as she walked, cooing softly to the child. Mary, looking back over her shoulder even as she was led into the dining room, saw the mournful love in the old woman's eyes and felt the strength leave her legs. Bethel was looking at Gabe as if she were locking the memory of embracing him deep within her heart. She was looking at him as if this might be her last chance to hold him.

Doctor Whitehead had picked up the good lamp, and he set it down on the dining room table as Cullen closed the door. Mary let him guide her to the nearest chair and her trembling knees gave way. A strong, calloused hand settled on each shoulder, and she tried to forget that they were quaking. "Doctor?" she whispered. "Doctor, how bad is it?"

"I've seen worse," said Doctor Whitehead, gripping the edge of the table and regarding her gravely. "Only mild swelling of the glands, no sign of scarlet fever or other disease. He's a strong boy, well-nourished and obviously well-loved. He's got a good warm house to live in, and plenty of folks to care for him. He's nearly four years old now, isn't he?"

Cullen's grip tightened a little as he nodded. "Four this winter," he mumbled.

"Well, see now, even a year younger and I'd give him less of a chance," the doctor said, his voice rising a little in pitch as he tried to sound optimistic. "Whooping cough is hardest on new babies and the very young. Most children over eight survive it with no lasting ill-effects."

Mary felt sick. Gabe was only four.

"What about boys his age?" Cullen asked hoarsely. He never shied from the truth, however bitter it might be.

"It can be fatal," Doctor Whitehead told him, frank but still very gentle. "If he takes an especially bad spell, or if he comes down with pneumonia or some other complication, there ain't much I can do. But like I said, he's strong. He's been healthy as a little French pony all his life up 'til now, not counting them chicken pox. You remember how frightened you were by the chicken pox, Miss Mary?"

A thin, nervous laugh bubbled over her lips, and she nodded. Despite Bethel's calm assurance that every baby had his turn with them, the itchy red blotches had terrified her. Gabe had only been eighteen months old, and for a week he had been positively miserable. But for all his distress and for all her fears he had recovered completely, with only one little scar on the inside of his left ankle to show for the ordeal.

"Well, if you get to fretting you just remember that," said the doctor. "By the grace of God, there's a real hope that a year from now you'll look back on this just the same way."

"Whooping cough ain't chicken pox, Doc," Cullen said. Now his tone was hard. "You said yourself he might… might…"

His voice broke and he bowed low over Mary's head. Her hands flew up to grip his wrists. She wanted to turn and embrace him, but she lacked the strength to stand. Doctor Whitehead took two steps, closing the distance between them. He laid a firm, consoling hand on Cullen's back, and curled the other over Mary's frantic fingers.

"Now, it ain't no good dwelling on that," he said, very softly. "It ain't no good, son, you hear me? That boy in there needs his pappy to be brave and cheerful: he's gonna be frightened, and he's gonna be sick and he's gonna be miserable. He needs to be able to look to you and see there ain't nothing worth getting scared over. Best chance he's got of coming through this is if he believes he's gonna get well, and how's he supposed to believe that if he thinks you don't?"

Cullen cleared his throat and straightened his backbone. He nodded. "Sure," he said huskily, slipping his right arm out of Mary's grasp so that he could take her hand. "Sure, I can see that."

"Isn't there anything you can do, Doctor?" Mary asked quietly. She did not really dare to hope, but neither could she help it.

"You can dose him with soothing syrup if it eases him any," said Whitehead. "I got to admit in my experience it don't seem to do much. Give him warm baths to settle his chest; I got a camphor liniment I'll leave with you, too. Don't use no more than you can put on your first two fingertips, or else sometimes it can raise a rash. Best to keep him in the kitchen during the day: the stove gives good heat without smoking. If you do need to put him up where there's a fireplace, have your man clean it first. Is there a flue in his bedroom?"

Mary shook her head. "A cast-iron heater," she said. She had always before thought her husband's grandfather a fool for neglecting to put a fireplace in the middle room. Now she was glad.

"Good," said the doctor. "Keep it lit at night, and the vents open just enough to draw a strong draft. Plenty of blankets on the bed, good warm clothes during the day. Don't let him go barefoot. Tonight's the first time this has happened, yes?"

"Yes," said Cullen. "Well, no, not exactly. He woke up Sunday night coughing; gasping in between. But it weren't… it weren't nothing like tonight."

"It's only just begun, then," Doctor Whitehead said quietly. "I won't prescribe a purgative just yet. We'll wait and see how he manages without. I don't like purging small children. It's different when they ain't out of diapers, but at Gabe's age it's hard on the spirit. We got to try and keep his spirits high. I've seen hundreds of children with whooping cough over the years, and the ones who come through are most often the ones who kept cheerful. I'll come back on Thursday and check on him."

"But Doc—" Cullen began.

The older man shot him a sharp look. "I'll come back on Thursday and check on him," he said firmly. He offered his arm to Mary and helped her to stand. "Now, you just go in there and sit with him a while, and let me have a little word with your husband. Was that tea Bethel was brewing? I'd sure admire to have a cup."

"Yes," said Mary as he guided her to the door. The reflexes of a hostess overtook her and raised a small smile. "Shall I have her bring some in?"

"No, no," said the doctor. "I'll be in in just a minute or two and take it by the stove. Give me a chance to have a little word with Gabe before I go. We all got to do our best to keep him hopeful."

"Thank you, Doctor," Mary murmured. "I don't know how I can ever thank you."

"Just like that will do nicely, Miss Mary," he said kindly. "You make the loveliest 'thank yous' I ever heard in my life."

Then he ushered her back into the kitchen. He closed the door firmly behind her, shutting her out of whatever conversation he wished to have with Cullen, but Mary did not care. She had eyes only for her son, curled in Bethel's lap and tugging absently at one of the buttons on her basque. He looked up at her with glassy, tired eyes. "Mama?" he sighed, rubbing his cheek against Bethel's collarbone. "I's sick."


	51. Doctor Whitehead's Instructions

**Chapter Fifty-One: Doctor Whitehead's Instructions**

As the door closed upon the portrait of his pallid child curled in Bethel's lap with Mary hovering anxiously above, the strength left Cullen's knees. Bereft now of his wife's slender, courageous shoulder to caress, he gripped the back of the chair now left vacant, his knuckles blanching with the effort of keeping his body upright. His mind was a turmoil of dark thoughts and grim imaginings, and every single one of them seemed to wend its way sooner or later to a little pine box no longer than a tobacco crate, propped on trestles in the parlor. He thought he could smell lilies and peach blossoms, which made no sense at all because they didn't grow lilies and the peaches would not be in bloom for months yet. His jaw trembled, and he locked it.

Doctor Whitehead had turned from the door and was watching him now. Cullen could feel the penetrating blue eyes upon him, saddened and soft with understanding.

"Son, he's got a hope of coming through this," the older man said quietly. "A good hope, better than a lot of children his age."

Cullen snorted. "That so?"

"That's so." Doc moved near to him and gripped his forearm just below the elbow. "He's well-nourished and well provided-for. You've done everything in your power to ensure that boy is strong and healthy, and you've succeeded. I see children his age all the time, dirty and under-weight, rickety or malarial, with fathers who can't or won't do what has to be done to keep 'em fed. They live in tar-paper shanties or ragged old tents, or in some overcrowded backwoods cabin with half a dozen brothers and sisters sleeping together in one room. If even one of those little ones can come through this, your Gabe can. You know I can't make promises, but I can tell you he's got the best chance any parent could give him, and I'm going to be sure he gets the best I can give, too."

"Ain't there anything I can do, Doc?" Cullen asked. His throat was tight and the words came out thinly. The man's words should have comforted him, but the enormity of the dread was too great to allow that.

"You're doing it," said Doc. "You've taken the best care of that boy that any father could, and you did the right thing and fetched me straight off before things got serious."

"He couldn't breathe," muttered Cullen. "Seems to me that's pretty serious."

"That's whooping cough, son, and it's going to happen again and again. I won't lie to you, Cullen: if he comes through it'll be a long illness and a long recovery. It ain't going to be easy on any of you." Doctor Whitehead sighed and shook his head. "I wish there was more I could do, but there ain't. He's just got to weather it, and it's our job to help him along the best we can. Right now, that means makin certain he's warm and comfortable and keeping a sharp lookout for complications."

"Pneumonia, you said." Cullen closed his eyes, bracing against the shudder that came with that thought. "What else?"

"We'll talk about that if it comes to it," Doc murmured. "Ain't no sense in worrying about things that might not even happen. Bethel knows what to do to keep a sick child comfortable: your boy's in good hands with her. Maybe the best hands in the whole county. She brung you through all your childhood maladies, didn't she?"

Cullen nodded unsteadily. "Did I ever come down with this?"

The older man's brows furrowed. "No. No, son, you didn't, and that's something else we got to talk about. Is there anyone on this place who did?"

"Bethel," said Cullen. "She said they all had it in Charleston when she was a girl."

"Miss Mary?" the doctor pressed. "Any of the other slaves?"

"Not Meg or Lottie," Cullen told him, sure of that much at least. "If I ain't had it, it's a fair bet Nate ain't neither, but Bethel'd know for sure. Elijah… don't know. Most likely _he_ don't know. But I can't see Mary having it and forgetting."

"She might, if she had it young enough," said Doctor Whitehead. "Perhaps you'd like to write to her folks and find out?"

"Why?" asked Cullen. "What difference will it make? You're suggesting anyone who ain't had it before might get it again, ain't you? So either she'll get it or she won't: ain't no sense in wasting money on postage and upsetting her mother when it ain't goin' change the outcome."

"Then you don't intend to write Miss Mary's parents and tell them their grandson's fell ill?" Doc queried softly. "Don't you think they got a right to know?"

"They ain't even met him," said Cullen, more coldly than he meant to. "I'll write 'em if he…" He shook his head spastically and forced the words out. "If he dies."

"Or when he gets well," said Doctor Whitehead. He scrubbed at his jaw with one palm and sighed. "Well, if Bethel's had it that's something. Even if everyone else comes down with it she'll stay clear. I don't want to leave you out here without someone healthy on the place. Whooping cough ain't dangerous in adults, mostly, but it can lay a body up pretty quick; keep him from riding for help on a cold night, for certain."

"I can't afford to take sick, Doc," Cullen muttered, his weariness suddenly a millstone across his shoulders. He had forgotten his exhaustion in his terror, but it fell upon him now and his shoulders sagged. "Too much damned work to do."

The hand on his arm moved higher, consoling and irritating at once. "I know that, son," said the doctor. "This couldn't have happened at a worse time. Lord, but you have had a hard week, haven't you?"

Cullen scoffed, but not very vehemently. His eyelids felt heavy and his limbs were weighted with lead. _Hard_ was not the word for this week, these last ten days. Then he remembered something else, something that had sat so uneasy in his mind for days until the terror of Gabe's illness had driven it briefly out. "Doc, I got to thank you," he mumbled.

"Now, you know it's only what I'd do for anyone. Midnight rides are a part of the profession."

"Ain't that," said Cullen. "My fine. The money. Ellie… she told you I came and took it?"

"She did." Doc's voice was kinder now than it had been even when he had spoken of the possibility of Gabe's death. He kept his hand where it was, and although Cullen could not quite bring himself to raise his head and meet his benefactor's eyes he knew they were gentle but not pitying. "I'm just relieved there was enough in the house to answer the need."

"Without it… hell, Doc, I might still be in jail this minute if it wasn't for that money." The words came out stilted, choked with gratitude and a mortification Cullen could not help but feel. "If I hadn't been here tonight, if Mary'd had to cope all on her own…"

The thought sent a chill up his spine, and once he started shivering he found he could not stop. The hard ride in the cold night, bareheaded and without a coat to cover his wet work clothes, had chilled him to his marrow. The warmth of the kitchen was cut off by the closed door, and it was that hour now – the witching hour, when even in the heat of the tobacco barn his body could not seem to warm itself. Ashamed, he shrugged off Doc's well-meaning hand.

"Best not dwell on that," said Whitehead. "You _were _here, and everything turned out as well as could be expected. Cullen?"

Seized by a sudden nervous energy that was not entirely an excuse to hide the clicking of his teeth, Cullen pushed off from the chair he had been gripping and strode across the room. As he stepped into the darkened corridor he heard the doctor hurrying after him. He hurtled into the parlor and groped along the mantelpiece for the box of matches, fumbling as he lit the lamp. His ring of keys was in the top drawer of the sideboard with the cocktail spoons, and he snatched it up with unsteady fingers. He had the secretary unlocked and the leaf lowered before the physician caught up to him.

"Cullen?" he repeated, rounding the couch but stopping two paces short of the desk.

"I'm grateful, Doc," Cullen said, sucking at the nib of his pen and spreading one of the precious sheets of fresh writing paper. He did not trouble with the delicate little chair, but leaned down over his work, locking his left elbow to brace himself. His hand was shaking and his writing was far from its usual tidy copperplate script, but the result was both expedient and legible. He held the paper, fanning it carefully, while his right hand groped in the secure drawer and brought out his sparse fistful of gold coin. He crossed to the physician and thrust the money into a hand that caught it out of reflex.

"It's all I got to give you now," he said, aware that he was speaking very quickly and that his mind was not quite keeping pace with his mouth. "Two dollars for tonight's call means it's only six down on my debt, but here's a draft." He glanced briefly to be certain the ink was dry enough, and forced the paper into the other man's hand. "Here's a draft for ten more. I know it ain't even half of what I owe, and I don't… I can't… I ain't got no more to give you, not for coming to check on my boy Thursday or any time else, not until the tobacco's shipped and sold, and Doc, I can't have you coming round here out of charity—"

"Hush," said the doctor, his voice very firm. He set the draft down upon the back of the couch, and reached for Cullen's hand. He turned it and pushed the fingers open with his thumb, then pressed the coins into his palm. "Hush. You got no right to think about money at a time like this. No right at all. That boy is going to need constant care, and if he takes on a secondary infection I got to know about it at once. That means regular visits, at least every couple of days probably for weeks. The money just cannot be a consideration, Cullen, you hear me? I won't compromise in any child's care over that, and certainly not your child."

Cullen looked at him helplessly. "But Doc, the crop—"

"Ain't what you hoped it might be," Doctor Whitehead finished. "I know, Cullen, and that's hard. Heck, life's been harder for you this year than a lot of men could stand. But this here? This ain't hard. It's simple. You just keep that money on hand, and when all this is over if there's any settling-up to be done we can do it then. When your boy's well again, and you ain't run ragged with exhaustion and chilled to the bone and half-crazed with worry. That's the time to talk 'bout money. Not now."

"Take it," said Cullen hoarsely. "I'd sooner you take it."

The doctor shook his head. "Son, talk sense," he said. "You're gonna need that money for other things. Quite likely for medicine. I'll give you credit and I won't ask awkward questions. You got an account with the druggist in Meridian? Or would you have to talk him out of whatever slander Abel Sutcliffe put in his ear about you?"

The grim truth of this was almost too much for Cullen to face. He stared down at the coins, dollars and half-dollars both bright and tarnished, and they seemed to taunt him. "You got to take the money for tonight, at least," he breathed.

"I won't," said Doc. "I'll just go right on into that kitchen and give it to Miss Mary. Or to Bethel, if your wife won't take it. I ain't going to let that child do without medicine, any more than I'll ride on out of here without the promise to come back in a couple days' time. I brung that boy into this world, Cullen. You got no right to tell me to walk away from keeping him in it."

Defeated, Cullen's fingers closed over the money and his hand fell to his side. In the corner of his vision the bank draft was almost impossibly white against the dark horsehair. He picked it up. He held it out, and Doc shook his head. Cullen set his jaw. "Take it," he said, his voice raw and hoarse with fatigue. He lifted his eyes at last, imploring. "Please. You got to take it. Against my debt."

Doctor Whitehead examined the paper. "Ten dollars," he said, and he sighed. "Cullen, I'll be truthful. I'd feel better about taking it if I didn't think it was the last money you have in the world."

"It ain't," said Cullen. "I got a fifteen dollar balance to draw against. Got to keep something in there for when I have to draw a loan to ship the crop. I ain't a fool, Doc."

"No." The doctor shook his head. "No, you ain't a fool, Cullen, but sometimes your pride drives you do to foolish things in spite of that. If it makes you feel any better, I'll take this. I can't promise I'll find the time to get down there and cash it, but I'll take it. You know how unpredictable a doctor's days can be. Ain't always got time to wait in line in a bank."

He was telling Cullen that the money would still be there if some fresh calamity struck and he had need of ready cash. Cullen knew that, but he also knew that Doc was giving him an honorable way to protect his family while still showing earnest intent to repay his debts. It was a kindness, but a kindness he could accept without further bruising his battered pride. He nodded. "You take it," he whispered.

Doc folded the paper carefully and tucked it into the inner pocket of his greatcoat. "Best put that money away again," he said. "You'll be needing it."

Cullen reached the secretary before the thought struck him, and he looked down at the coins in his clammy hand. "That soothing syrup, Doc," he said, not turning to look at the man. "We ain't got none left. Bethel and Mary been dosing him with blackberry root tincture and sorghum instead. D'you think… would you maybe pick up a bottle for when you come out Thursday? I can't spare the time to ride to town myself. I'll give you the money right this minute," he added hastily. "You ain't got to be out of pocket."

"Of course I will, Cullen," said the doctor, and he spared Cullen the humiliating offer to pay for the medicine himself. "A bottle sells for half a dollar."

Cullen kept back one tired-looking coin and shut the rest up safely in their drawer. He gave the money to Doctor Whitehead as he strode back to the sideboard and tucked away the keys. Then he reached a shaking hand for the whiskey decanter.

A heavy hand upon his shoulder stopped him. "You don't want that now, son," Doctor Whitehead said, very quietly.

"The hell I don't," croaked Cullen. His nerves were rattled and his weariness was clawing at him. All he wanted was something to take the chill out of his chest and steady him a little.

"You don't," Doc repeated. "Have Bethel put a drop of brandy in your tea instead."

"I don't drink no tea," he protested feebly.

"Well, you're going to drink some tonight," said the doctor. He drew Cullen away from the temptation of the amber liquor and reached to snuff the lamp. With a hand on Cullen's arm he steered them both through the dim corridor and back to the glow of the dining room. "You're going to have some tea, with warm cream and a little brandy, and then you're going to go upstairs and get out of those cold clothes and into bed. You got to keep up your strength; not just for your work but for your son. You hear me?"

"Someone got to sit up with him," Cullen protested.

"That's Bethel's place," said the doctor. "She can make up a pallet in the nursery, just like she used to do when you were ill, remember?"

"She was younger then," Cullen protested. Doctor Whitehead had picked up the lamp and was now standing with his hand on the knob of the kitchen door.

"Maybe, but her heart is every bit as big now," said Doc. "Just you try and stop her, and you'll see what I mean."

And Cullen had to admit there was truth in that, too.

_*discidium*_

It was an unearthly feeling, sitting in an empty house with only a sick child for company. Although she knew the others were nearby – Lottie and Elijah in the sweet potatoes, within calling distance of the back door; Cullen and Nate and Meg in the tobacco; Bethel down at the drying shed – Mary felt as isolated as a traveler marooned on a desert island, or a maiden locked high in a tower. The latter was likely the more accurate portrait. For here she was, in a nice warm kitchen with the pieces of Meg's new basque in her lap, while the others were out in the cold and the wet, fighting time and mud and weariness to bring in the crops. Even Bethel, who at least was dry and sheltered, would be bored and uncomfortable and sore.

Gabe was sitting on the worn old rug close by the stove, warmly dressed in small flannel trousers, vest and topcoat. Mary had put him in one of his winter undershirts, too, and his brow was bright with a sheen of perspiration from the persisting fever. But Doctor Whitehead had been adamant that he must be kept warm, and she was determined to do her best. She had finally managed to get him to stop trying to untie his shoestrings or wriggle out of his jacket, though not before two fits of violent coughing had put to rest his protest that he was no longer ill.

Doctor Whitehead had stayed for a cup of tea and a few gentle and encouraging words with Gabe, before riding for home at half past three in the morning. By that time, Bethel had a roaring fire in the little heater in the nursery, and a bed made up on the floor for herself. Gabe had fallen asleep in Mary's arms, and it was Cullen who had carried him to bed at last. All three of them had watched breathlessly as the child settled against his pillow, waiting for the coughing to begin again, but it had not. Not immediately, anyhow. Mary had awakened after a scant forty minutes of slumber to the terrifying sound of whooping in the nursery, but though she had flung herself out of bed at once it had been over by the time she reached her son with her husband on her heels. Indeed Gabe had been all but asleep, Bethel smoothing the blankets over his body. If it had happened again, Mary had slept through it – though she did not think that was possible.

Despite the chaos of the night and the meager hours of slumber Cullen had been up before the sun, and Mary had taken Bethel's place at the sickbed so that the old woman could fix a hasty breakfast for him. By the time Gabe was awake and alert it had been midmorning already, and everyone else long gone to their work. The rain had started up at around that time, too, drumming steadily and relentlessly on the roof and rolling down the windowpanes. Mary had dressed her boy and brought him down to the kitchen, where he had settled down contentedly to play while she fixed a simple dinner that was now packed into three baskets: a small one for Bethel, and two larger hampers for the teams working the Bohannon fields.

Gabe had already eaten, slowly and cautiously at his mother's prompting. Near the end of the meal he had fallen to coughing, but the episode had been mild by the measure of the others and he had not lost his meal. He was now sitting almost cross-legged, with Stewpot in his lap. The kitten was lying on his back, all four paws in the air as he batted at the woolen tassel Mary had made for Gabe. Stewpot was at that amusing gangly size, half-grown and clumsy but quick as lightning. Gabe giggled softly as one of his claws snagged the string and tugged.

The kitchen door swung open and Lottie peered in. She was wearing her faded blue work dress and a short jacket made from a piece of stout worsted. Her shoes, caked with mud, were topped by mud-splattered stockings, and she had on a pair of baggy flannelette drawers that showed below the brief hem of her skirt. Her hands were clean, no doubt freshly laved, but her nails were dark with dirt and there were smudges of mud on her dress and across the bridge of her nose. She looked worriedly at Gabe, and then bobbed a curtsy to Mary.

"Missus?" she said. "How Mist' Gabe feelin'? Bethel say he poorly."

"G'day, 'Ottie," Gabe said, subdued but cheery enough. "Why you don' come play wid me no more?"

"I's busy bringin' in them yams," said Lottie solemnly. "Ol' Elijah break open the hills with his hoe, an' I pick 'em up and put 'em in the basket. We's picked a peck 'n a half already today, Missus," she added proudly.

Mary folded her sewing and set it on the table as she got to her feet. "That's wonderful, Lottie," she said, wondering what area of the field a peck and a half represented, and how much there was left to bring in. From the feel of the air coming through the open door, the first frost could not be many days away. "Come in and close the door; we must keep Gabe out of the draft."

Lottie obeyed, standing carefully near the threshold so as not to track mud any further than necessary. Her clothes were wet and the ends of her pigtails dripped, but the crown of her head seemed dry.

"Are you cold?" asked Mary. "Have you anything to put on your head out there?"

"No'm, not very. An' yass'm. Elijah make me a rain hat jus' like ev'yone else," Lottie said proudly. "It drip sumthin' fierce, so I lef' it on the porch."

"I wants a rain hat," said Gabe, tickling Stewpot's belly so the kitten wriggled. "I wants to go outside."

"Not today, love," said Mary gently. She did not add that he would not be able to play outside for many, many days yet to come. It was such a balm to her worries to see him sitting up and playing happily despite the fits of coughing and the lingering fever. Last night she had been convinced he would expire in her arms. "You may come near the stove and get warm, Lottie."

"No'm, I gots to get back: I on'y come fo' the food. I gots a pow'ful appetite, an' Elijah hungry, too." Lottie grinned. "We's goin' have yams 'nough to las' clear through to nex' Christmas, do them other rows got as many as them we's worked: that what Elijah say."

"I'm glad," said Mary fervently. As much as her own heart lusted after the potatoes still maturing in their own hills, the thought of having enough of any food to last until next Christmas was a comfort. "Do you know how they're making out in the tobacco?"

"I can't never tell," Lottie admitted. "They takes three leaves on one plant, six on the next, on'y two on the one aft' that. Ain' no tellin' how long it goin' take to finish pickin'. The curin' comin' 'long good, though. We gots jus' 'bout half the prime stuff packed. Eighty-four crates so far."

Mary kept her smile, but her mind skimmed through the arithmetic. Eighty-four crates was not even eight and a half hogsheads' worth. She did not ask if that was only prime tobacco, or whether it included the early harvest of lugs. She was afraid to. Instead she handed the little basket to Lottie and then stacked the two larger ones. "That's for Bethel," she said. "The bottom one is for the tobacco field, and this one for you and Elijah. I've put in a little treat as well. You may come back at four o'clock: I'll have something ready by then to tide everyone over until supper.

"Yass'm, thankee ma'am," said Lottie. "Ma say you jus' 'bout save their lives out there with that aft'noon meal. Even now we gots rabbit meat, they gets mighty hungry doin' that work."

"I know," Mary said, thinking worriedly of her husband. Bethel had complained he had eaten little at breakfast, and he was working on almost no sleep. "Run along, Lottie: they'll be watching for you."

"Yes, Missus." The child went to the door, sway-backed under her load, and Mary reached to open it. With one foot on the stoop, Lottie paused. "Missus? Mist' Gabe? He ain' goin'… I mean, he don' look _so_ sick."

"I hope he is not, Lottie," said Mary, swallowing her own terror. She smiled. "I hope he shall be well again very soon."

"Yass'm," Lottie agreed. She shot a tiny wistful look at the little boy. "I surely does miss him, I surely does. When the tobacco be cured, I's goin' play 'n play with him all the day long."

"Good!" Gabe said stoutly. His eyes were still on Stewpot, but clearly he had been listening to every word. "When dat stupid ol' tobacco goin' be cured?"

Lottie looked questioningly at Mary, but she did not know the answer any more than the girl did. "Go on," she said with a small encouraging smile. "Please remind everyone to try to stay warm."

Lottie nodded and bobbed her head, unable to curtsey. She looked around, perplexed with a puzzling problem. Understanding, Mary stepped out after her. The palmetto-frond hat was lying on the bench. She picked it up and settled it on the child's head.

"Thankee, Missus," Lottie said cheerfully. She stumped down the steps and strode off towards the rise.

Hurriedly Mary retreated indoors so that she could close the door and shut out the chill of the day. Gabe was dandling the string again, jerking it so that the tassel jounced just out of his kitten's reach. Mary stepped around them, her skirts brushing Gabe's boot, and bent to add another stick of fuel to the stove, stirring up the embers with the poker as she did so. The heat flared cheerfully and again she felt a pang of remorse at the thought of the others shivering in the fields. It was true that someone had to stay in the house, to do the chores and cook the meals but most importantly to care for the sick child. Still it seemed such pleasant work in comparison.

Stewpot had evidently tired of flailing on his back, for he turned and sprung up onto Gabe's thigh, hissing playfully as he leapt for the tassel. He overshot and tumbled to the ground, and Gabe roared with laughter, tossing aside the cord and picking his pet up. He cradled the furry body in the crook of one arm and tenderly petted the kitten's head with the opposite hand.

"Silly Stewpot," he said fondly. "You ain't got no t'umbs: how you goin' grab dat string?" Then he laughed again, a deep merry laugh unlike the tired little chuckles he had been making all morning. The very sound warmed Mary's heart and eased her gnawing fears.

But in the midst of the rollicking giggle, Gabe's breath hitched. In that instant Mary knew what was coming, but she was powerless to stop it. She did not even have time to drop to her knees before the coughs began, ripping out of Gabe's throat with the violence and the portentous terror of cannon-fire. Stewpot yelped, flying to his feet and bolting from his little master's lap. He careened towards the pantry door, running headlong into a milk pail before vanishing under the dish dresser. As Mary reached for her child Stewpot's white nose and glittering green eyes appeared, almost level with the floor and quaking with fear.

Mary had no interest in the cat: her eyes were on her son. Her hand closed gently on one shoulder, and the other went to his side. She could feel the ripple of each spasm through his abdomen, and the painful heaving of his chest when he struggled to draw breath and raised only the ear-shattering _whoop_. His eyes were bright with tears and fixed upon hers, and she tried to banish her own terror that she might ease his.

"That's it, that's my brave boy," she whispered breathlessly. "Cough it out. Go on. Good boy. You're all right, Gabe. You'll be all right. Mama's here. Mama's right here with you. Cough, darling. Cough."

Cough he did, over and over until the color left his lips. The first awful hint of blue appeared, and Mary's heart hammered hard against her whalebones. It was intolerable: unbearable. If only she could breathe for him! No, if only she could choke for him, and let him breathe all on his own. For nearly four years she had taken it for granted that her child could breathe. Now he could not, and there was nothing she could do.

At last, and before the bluish tint could spread too far, the coughing ceased. Gabe gulped his first desperate lungfuls of air and then flung himself into his mother's arms with a thin, tired sob. "Mama, I couldn' bree'd!" he panted. "It hurts me. It hurts."

She held him close, but cautiously. She still harbored a dread that a tight embrace might set him coughing again. "I know, dearest," she whispered, and she felt her heart would break. "I know it does."

_*discidium*_

The last day in the tobacco field was the equal in misery to any that had gone before. The rain that had begun on Wednesday fell through the night and on into Thursday without surcease. The wind was high, and lashed the bare faces and hands of the pickers with driving water that pummeled their backs in soaked work shirts and drizzled down their legs. Meg was wrapped in Bethel's old shawl, and even she quaked and shivered as she stood with the pole. The mud was a slick gumbo without a bottom, and Nate and Cullen fought it with every step, sinking deeper as they stooped and hauled their leaking boots free only to be sucked back in again. With every tortured step he took, with every leaf he cut Cullen cursed the crop and its broken promises, cursed the cruelty of the weather, and cursed above all the dark dragging mud.

The mud was everywhere: it was useless to try to stop its migration. His fingers were fat and slippery with it. He could feel it squelching between his toes where it had oozed in through the broken leather of his work-boots. It was clotted in his beard and matted in his hair. It trickled in the contours of his earlobes and weighed down his arms. A dried smear of it crackled across his forehead where the wilting palmetto hat afforded some shelter from the driving rain. It choked his nostrils and clung to his throat and crept up under the cuffs of his shirt. The stink of it smothered him until he would have sworn he could taste it, sour and cold and hateful.

Every pain in his body seemed magnified by the cold, and by the fact that he had once again slept scarcely at all. It had been his turn at the middle watch, but even those few hours of broken sleep left to a person on such a night had been disrupted. Gabe's cough had wakened him no less than six times, and with him Bethel and both of his parents. Cullen did not possess Mary's almost superaural ability to detect the first hitching of breath, but by the time his son came to the harsh, shrieking _whoop_ he was always wide awake with his heart in his throat. Of course there was nothing to do then but to run after his wife to the cozy and over-warm room where Bethel was already comforting their child. The fits were terrible to hear and a torment to watch: Cullen could only imagine what his son suffered. He had to be there with him.

And he could not shake the awful fear that each spell might be the one; the last one; the awful, unthinkable one in which even the painful wheezing ceased and Gabe simply strangled upon his own tortured lungs. When – if – that happened, Cullen would never forgive himself if he were lying in the warm cocoon of his bed, trying to sleep through it.

There were only a baker's dozen of rows left to work in the middle field when the rider came over the hill. He was bundled in a greatcoat with a muffler wound high and his hat tilted low, but even without Castor's familiar profile Cullen would have recognized the rider. He straightened as much as his anguish-riddled back would allow and scrambled past Meg, slogging through the mud and very nearly floundering before he reached the shore of indiangrass. He came up beside the horse, trying to ignore the mournful look in Doctor Whitehead's eyes.

"Well?" he demanded, panting heavily with the exertion of fighting the mud. "How is he?"

"Unchanged, I'm afraid," said the doctor. "No better, no worse. He might be that way for a week or more; he's not come to the crisis yet. When he does I want you to send for me: day or night, it don't matter. His fever is worrisome. It's low, but your dear wife says it's unremitting. It will exhaust him if it keeps up much longer, and that boy needs his strength. I may have no choice but to purge him."

Cullen frowned, tilting his head back so that a torrent of water poured off the brim of his crude hat. He wanted to take the fool thing off, but was reluctant to touch it. His hands were caked with muck and tobacco juice, and he did not much want it to spread any more than it had to. "I thought you said that's hard on the spirit," he challenged.

The doctor tugged his muffler lower, so that it did not obscure his mouth. "It is," he said; "but if the fever doesn't let up we'll have to do it. I'll bring a purgative when I come on Saturday, just in case. I hope we don't need it, but…" He shook his head. "Poor little man, he's so brave. Do you know what he said to me just now? 'I ain't so sick, Doct'r.' Just like that, like he was trying to put me at ease. He's his father's son, no mistake."

Cullen almost smiled at the thought of his courageous child, but his cheeks were stiff with mud and tar and wrapped in a thin layer of cold flesh. "He's a good boy," he said simply.

The doctor looked out across the field, eyes somber. "You going to keep on working out here until the frost comes?" he asked.

"No," said Cullen, stretching his stiff arm to point towards the end of the field. "We'll be done in another two or three hours, just as soon as we finish this stretch. The rest ain't worth saving: torn to ribbons by the hail. We got to get over to the yams and help Elijah. After that? Plowing for the winter wheat."

"Ah." The noise of comprehension fell flat beneath the patter of raindrops. The doctor tore his eyes from the weary November landscape and looked down again, studying Cullen's face with care. "You remember what I told you, son," he said, very softly. "You got to keep up your strength."

Then he turned the horse and trotted off, sending up plumes of dancing water from Castor's hooves. Cullen turned and waded back down into the Mississippi mire, flicking his thumb against the blade of his tobacco knife and setting his flagging courage to endure the final wretched hours in his battered cash-crop.


	52. The Last Day

_Note: Happy Easter!_

**Chapter Fifty-Two: The Last Day**

Nate had finished his row first, as always, and he stood waiting, back not quite straightened out of its unnatural curl. Meg was watching too, of course, holding a pole not quite two-thirds full. Cullen could feel their eyes upon him, burning through the layers of mud and sap that coated his hands, as he reached out with the knife one last time. There was a soft _snick_ of the wet stem, and the leaf came away. It was not even nine inches long, its edges ragged with old wounds from the hailstorm and its breadth pocked with the same. It was a sorry specimen, but still saleable provided it cured well. Cullen held it out and Meg took it with reverent fingers, spreading the slit gently over the head of the pole and easing it down to its proper place. She sighed, a noise of mingled disbelief and delight, and then laughed softly. The sound startled Cullen out of his stoop before his spine had quite accustomed itself to the idea of stretching. It was the first time he had heard Meg laugh since that ill-fated Sunday when she had gone over to Hartwood.

She was look at Nate now, not at him, and Nate's gaze had shifted to her. He too seemed surprised by her merry little giggle, but unlike Cullen he answered it with a grin. Meg's eyes were shining.

"That's it!" she said. "We's finished!"

"We sure is," Nate said with relish. In an uncharacteristically boyish gesture he wafted his arm over the field. "All picked, ev'ry las' one!"

Cullen wished that he could share in their delight at this moment for which they had each worked so ceaselessly all year, but all he could see was the long list of labors still ahead. Nevertheless he was the master, and his people had done good work. Hard, bitter work, and without complaint. They deserved his praise.

"We done it," he said, forcing some approximation of enthusiasm into his voice. "Ain't a hand in the county can beat the pair of you. Well done."

Meg's color deepened and Nate's tired shoulders perked a little. "Thankee, Massa," he said. "You ain't so useless you'self."

Cullen snorted good-naturedly. "You watch what you're suggesting," he said. Then he tried to dust his hands against his soaked oilskins and added bracingly; "Let's get this lot up to the barn: we got at least three hours of daylight. Meg, you can go on and help in the yams. Nate? You think we can get a start on clearing the fields?"

"Don't want to leave it," Nate said thoughtfully. "Longer them plants stand, the more they's gonna tire out the soil. Best mow down them that's got leaves left first."

Cullen shook his head. "We'll let them stand," he said. "If the frost don't come before we get the yams in, we'll come back and salvage what we can. It ain't worth risking the sweet potato crop for a penny a pound, but…" He shrugged painfully, shoulders and backbone rebelling. "If the frost don't come, we'll take what's left."

Meg lowered her eyes, but Nate did not. He met Cullen's steadily, pensive, and then nodded. "The stripped stalks, then. I reckon we can cut 'em. Mud's gonna fly mos' ev'rywhere, but we ain't gonna get no dirtier 'n we is now."

"That's what I thought," said Cullen. He managed a small, tired smile. "Go on, Meg. But just hoeing, you hear me? I don't want you stooping when your back ain't healed."

"It healed, Mist' Cullen," Meg said earnestly, looking up at him again. At his skeptical expression she amended; "It mos'ly healed."

"We'll let Bethel be the judge of that," Cullen told her. "I'd want you on a hoe anyway: you got the lightest touch of any of us."

Meg smiled at this small praise. "That so, sir, thankee," she said. "My mama allus said a body ought to go careful. A hoe ain't a pickaxe, is it?"

"No, it ain't. Go on. Nate and me'll take that." He reached for the tobacco pole, but Nate was quicker. Relieved of her burden Meg dipped a hasty curtsey, gathered her wet skirts in one hand, and waded up out of the mud.

It took three trips to carry the laden poles to the barn, where the two men settled them carefully on a low rail where they would not drip on any of the other drying leaves. Then Cullen hurried to the toolshed to fetch the scythes and the whetstone while Nate brought in some wood for Bethel in the kiln. Cullen was anxious to avoid that duty, for cold and sodden as he was she would fuss over him. He didn't understand why she was less anxious for Nate, who was after all her nephew by marriage, but experience had taught him she certainly was.

There was an almost pitiful relief in stepping out of the rain for a minute or two, and Cullen took just a little longer than he should have in hoisting down the scythes from their pegs and inspecting them. For the tobacco stalks they used the heavy scythes, which had not been used since the spring threshing. They had been carefully cleaned, honed and oiled before being put up for the season, and the blades had no hint of rust. Cullen wiped his hands on the grubby rag by the door and ran his thumb along the cutting edge of the two stoutest scythes, finding no fault in the steel. He checked the bolts that held them to the shaft, and examined the handles to be certain they were tight. Satisfied, and unable to justify further delay, he picked up the slender pocket whetstones and replaced his rain hat.

Nate was waiting for him at the edge of the middle field, drinking from one of the dippers. Cullen handed off a scythe and took a little water himself, and without a word the two men set to work. With his right hand on the near handle and his left upon the far, Cullen swept the curved talon of the blade close to the earth. It arced before his feet and bit into the nearest stalk, but did not cut straight through as Nate's had done: Cullen had misjudged the distance. With a small noise of disgust he adjusted his hold and tried again. This time the denuded plant fell, and a fine spray of mud flew from the blade. Lifting it a little, he swung for the next one, rocking his hips so that they bore the greater part of the motion. Arms tired swiftly at such work, and needed all the help the body could offer.

The trouble was that Cullen's body was stiff and riddled with pains, already exhausted and crying out for the comfort of dry undergarments and a soft bed. It had grudgingly resigned itself to the torments of tobacco-picking, but it was utterly unaccustomed to this. The inelegant but almost efficient motions that he had managed out of sheer repetition by the end of threshing time had abandoned him entirely, and he was clumsy and imprecise. The second plant fell at the first stroke, but the third did not, and he missed the fourth entirely on his first pass. The mud dragged at his feet so that he could not stride steadily behind the scythe, and his ankles rolled perilously when he happened to trod upon the tobacco hills. His fingers kept flexing against the wooden pegs of the handles, worn silken over the years by hands far more adept than his. Chopping tobacco stalks was more difficult than making hay or threshing wheat, but his ineptitude made a misery of what to a true farmer would be nothing more than a moderate challenge.

Three rows down, where there was no danger of their blades colliding, Nate was moving with accomplished grace. His scythe took out each plant with a single smooth swipe, and his boots propelled him forward with almost the same ease as if he were mowing the lawn in front of the house instead of wading through muck and treading on tobacco-hills as he went. After a few yards he had fallen into a rhythm that rocked to and fro so that the _whoosh _of the blade and the _splat_ of the fallen plants in the mud almost seemed to beat out a song. Had Elijah been present, no doubt the two of them would have taken up one of the call-and-response tunes they so favored.

By the time Cullen reached the end of his first row and paused to whet his blade, Nate was halfway down his second. There was no use in even trying to keep pace with him at this work: he was too much the better man with a scythe. Irritated but determined, Cullen whipped the whetstone along the curve of the blade, turned the tool with a flick of his wrist, and sharpened the other side. He was far better at honing the thing than he was at dulling it, but he started out again with grim resolve. Already his palms were burning and there was an ache in his elbows. When he rocked his body his hips ground in protest and the sickening agony deep in his kidneys flared. He ignored it all. For all his deft motions, Nate was in just as much pain as his master and both were equally determined not to show it.

They worked for an hour and a half, inching down the field while the rain fell and the wind battered at them. The weight of the oilskin overalls dragged on Cullen's shoulders and legs, and every time he twisted his tar-soaked undershirt tugged at the hairs on his forearms and chest. The little needles of bright pain were almost refreshing in contrast to the low, hot aches and the deep, boiling agonies in his muscles and joints, but even these were a welcome distraction. His frustration was mounting, and it was spurred on by more than his obvious incompetence and utter lack of skill with the tool in his hands. Here again was the futility of farming. Hundreds, thousands of hours had been lavished upon this crop: sowing the nursery rows, tending the dainty little seedlings, moving them one by one from their cozy sheltered beds to their muddy hills, weeding by hand so that the young roots would not be broken by a slip of the hoe, topping and suckering and coddling in the blistering summer sun, painting the plants with Bethel's noxious garlic water to drive back the aphids, picking two and three leaves in each of half a dozen passes of the field so that each would be taken when it was perfectly ripe. Added to that were the countless hours of worry, lost in praying for rain and mourning the hail, fretting about the quality of the soil and the seed, counting and figuring and ciphering until his fingers could hardly keep hold of the pen as he calculated the acres to lay in, the dates to plant and transplant, top and harvest, the careful rotations in the drying shed. And after all of that work, all the care and toil and misery, all it took was a few clumsy swipes of a scythe to raze the field back down to nothing but mud.

"Mist' Cullen? _Mist' Cullen_?" Nate's tone was terse with annoyance, and raised almost to a tenor note with ill-concealed concern.

Cullen blinked blankly at him, eyelashes wet from the rain driven at an angle sufficient to violate the shelter of the palmetto hat. He was still half a dozen plants from the end of the row, and Nate had stopped well down his own to call out. "What is it?" Cullen asked tiredly.

"You's jus' wastin' strength doin' it like that," Nate said. "Takes you three-four passes to knock down one stalk."

"I'm doing my best, dammit," Cullen snapped. He was not in the mood to be criticized for his ungainliness, even if that criticism was so well merited. "I'll get a feel for it sooner or later."

"Yassir, all it take is practice," said Nate. His eyes were impassive and his voice suddenly unreadable. "But we ain't got many hands, an' it a sin to waste them we has got by puttin' 'em to tasks they ain't suited to."

That was just a variation on the "ain't no work for white folks" theme, and Cullen had no patience left for that today. "If you're suggesting I go up to the house and have me a glass of sherry while I talk politics with the neighbors, you got to know right off that we ain't got no sherry," he growled.

"Nawsir, that ain't what I's suggestin' in the leas'," said Nate.

"I ain't going to give up and dig yams, neither," said Cullen. "My arms ain't as practiced as Elijah's, but they're damned sure younger."

"I know," said Nate, nodding. "I don' mean to say you doesn' b'long out here, an' I don' mean to say you ain't fit for the work. But this field gots to be cleared, don' it? Tobacco ain't no good fo' mulchin', not like corn. We gots to get them stalks out, an' I's thinkin': now we gots a bit of a lead, somebody oughts to stop choppin' an' start clearin'. Ain't pretty work, but it got be done."

"Oh." Cullen felt the fight go out of his arms, and the scythe blade sank a little further into the mud. What Nate was saying was certainly true: the field had to be cleared, and that meant someone had to go back and pick up all the fallen stalks. If they left them sit even overnight in this rain, they would begin to rot and the task would be all the more difficult and unpleasant. It was best to clear as they cut. It was true, too, that his scythe-work was so poor that his hands would be put to better use at almost anything else.

"Fine," he said, hefting the tool and swinging it again. This time he took down the plant with a single swipe. "I'll finish this row and then start clearing. How much more do you think you can cut before nightfall?"

Nate shrugged. "Twice again what been done, mos' likely," he said, and although his voice was mild the implied critique was not lost on Cullen.

_*discidium*_

More mud than mortal, Cullen slogged back to the house in the deeply clouded darkness. He was so coated in grime that he had deemed himself unfit to groom the horses: Elijah had discharged that duty while Pike and Bonnie shot bewildered glances over their shoulders. Gathering armloads of severed tobacco stalks out of the furrows and heaping them at the edge of the field had proved one of the most miserable chores he had ever performed. Had it not been for Nate's quietude and obedience in recent weeks, Cullen might have even suspected the man of entrapping him into it out of sheer spite. But they had almost a quarter of the middle field cut and cleared already: chopping the tobacco went much faster than threshing. If all went well they would be finished and out in the yams with the others before the end of the week. If all did not go well, they would have to abandon the cutting and make haste to beat the weather.

Cullen tried to scent the air for any sign of frost, but the rain and his inexperience rendered the experiment pointless. The almanac did not call for frost until at least the twelfth this year, but he was not sure how far he trusted that. There was no doubt that the publication was generally reliable, and it served him well in many respects, but in any such scientific effort there was a margin for error, and they were drawing awfully near that margin. Sweet potatoes still in the ground after a hard frost would quickly begin to decay. The sooner that essential crop was dug and laid up in the hayloft to settle, the better.

There was a bucket of warm water waiting for him on the stoop, set pointedly in the square of lamplight from the window. The rusted old washbasin was waiting for his clothes, and there were rags for scrubbing and the old quilt to hide his nakedness. Cullen had left his pants hanging in the toolshed when he had stripped off the oilskins: his hands were too filthy even after a cold rinsing to handle them. His soaked socks squelched as he pried off his boots, and the leather creaked irately. Even his footwear was tired. Cullen stripped, shivering convulsively as he tried to splash away the worst of the mud. He wondered just how cool the day really had been. The wind made it feel colder than it was, of course, and with the rain they didn't likely have much risk of frost tonight, but still he wondered and he worried. One more unfortunate twist of the weather would just about ruin them.

Bethel was at the dishpan when he came into the kitchen, carefully washing the plate and cup from her own supper. She looked up guiltily as he entered, and at once her face melted into loving anxiety.

"Honey, you looks halfway drownded," she said, wiping her hands hurriedly on her apron and hastening to draw him into the room. She closed the door and led him to her chair, drawn close to the stove. "Jus' you sit down an' have youself a hot drink while I gets you' supper. Missus Mary, she roast them rabbits tonight: done a fine job of it, too."

"How's my boy?" Cullen asked, managing to keep his teeth from clacking as he spoke. He inched his knees as close to the stove as he dared, drawn to its warmth.

"Sleepin'," said Bethel. "He mus' be sleepin': ain't heard a peep from upstairs in 'most an hour. Missus gone up to set with him so's I could warm water fo' your bath."

"I'm too tired for a bath," grumbled Cullen.

"An' you's too chilled to do without," Bethel argued. "An' too filthy to go layin' down nex' to that sweet lady. You's goin' have a bath, Mist' Cullen, if I's got to scrub ev'y inch of you myself."

He tried to snort at her, but his throat was clogged with phlegm from the cold and he managed only a thick sort of snuffle. She was right and he knew it, and furthermore he knew that he would feel much better for it. Determinedly he got his feet under him and moved around the chair to where the tub stood close by the stove. He let the blanket fall and stepped into the water, crouching as quickly as his weary limbs would allow.

Bethel, who had been cutting a thick slice of bread, turned at the sound of splashing and threw up her hands. "Chile, I's standin' right here!" she cried in exasperation. "I oughts to leave the room while you's getting in the bath. Ain' you got youself a lick of shame?"

"Too tired for that, too," he mumbled, sinking as low as he could in the cramped vessel and reaching for the sponge. He soaked it and twisted it out over his chest, closing his eyes as the hot water flooded over his cold skin. Rivulets of mud ran with it. "You just said you'd help me wash if I didn't do it myself."

"That diff'rent," Bethel declared. "Once you's _in_ the bath, that diff'rent."

"I don't see how," said Cullen, but without any challenge in his voice. They each had far too much of a stubborn streak, and if he didn't back down the debate might go on for an hour. He scooped up a fingerful of soap and lathered his palms and forearms. "At least I didn't get any in my hair today."

"Hah!" Bethel set his plate back on the warming shelf and hoisted the chair out of her way. Her strong fingers plucked at a matted curl, and Cullen felt the neighboring hairs drawn with it. "What you call this, then?" she asked, thrusting her hand around in front of him so that he could see the glob of wet earth she had plucked out.

"Heck, I was so careful, too," he said, not pausing in his scrubbing. "Can you wipe away the worst of it? I ain't got the energy to wash my hair tonight. It can wait 'til Saturday."

"You's lettin' standards slip," Bethel warned. "All this year you been lettin' standards slip. In no time 't all you's goin' be pickin' you' teeth with a huntin' knife an' putting you' feet up on the table."

"Bethel, it's just a little mud," Cullen said tiredly. "I've been out there up to my neck in it all day. By the time I get my hide clean it'll be nine o'clock, and I got to be up at a quarter to three. I ain't letting nothing slip except out of necessity."

"Close them eyes," said Bethel. "You ain't takin' care of youself, an' you gots to. You ain't never had the kink-cough, an' now it in the house. You's goin' take sick fo' certain if you doesn' show a li'l sense. Jus' you think 'bout that a minute or two."

Cullen started attacking his knees, blackened where mud and tar had soaked through despite every attempt to keep them at bay. He was suddenly blinded by a deluge of water as Bethel emptied the pitcher over his head. "Hey!" he exclaimed, spitting out a mouthful and squinting against the sting of the dilute mud. "You could give a fella a little warning."

"I did," said Bethel. "I tol' you to close them eyes. What you think I's goin' do? Put a Christmas package in you' lap?"

He bit his lip against an impudent retort, childhood experience reminding him ruefully that it was never a good idea to argue with Bethel when she had her hands in his hair. She was scrubbing now, working the gritty, strong-smelling soap through the tangles. The sinews of Cullen's neck tightened in an attempt to keep his head still, but this exertion was too painful for his strained muscles to sustain. Deliberately he loosened them and his head and shoulders rocked with the motion of Bethel's hands. He blinked away the worst of the water and resumed washing his body.

"I don' know how you 'spects to keep on like this," Bethel scolded. "You ain't hardly slept in days, not since that chile took sick, an' you come back from that prison lookin' like you been there a year. You does the work of three men, an' you doesn' hardly let up even when it get dark. Don' you think I didn' notice you not touchin' you' breakfas', neither. I sees every bite you puts in that mouth, Mist' Cullen, an' I knows when you ain't got no ap'tite. If you's goin' be ill 'gain, you gots to tell me. Ain't no tablet come down the mountain that say you gots to be the one clearin' them fields."

"Someone's got to do it," Cullen mumbled, bracing his left arm upon his closely-drawn knees so that he could wash beneath it.

"I know _someone_ got to do it. What I wants to know is how _someone_ means _you_," said Bethel. "Is you too good to pick yams?"

He tried to twist to glare at her, but she pushed him back. "Close them eyes, or they's goin' burn," she said. "Here it come 'gain."

This time he obeyed her, screwing his eyelids tightly closed and tucking his lips between his teeth as she rinsed away the grime and the stinging homemade soap. Her palm moved in circles over his scalp, fingertips digging in to shake loose the last of the flotsam. The warm water running over his shoulders and down his spine felt wonderful and deeply cleansing, and when Bethel took the towel and began to dry his hair vigorously he groaned softly.

Instantly her hands stopped moving and the cloth withdrew a little from his head. "What's wrong?" she asked hastily. "I hurt you, honey?"

"No, it feels good," Cullen said. He groped to find the corner of the towel where it was tickling his shoulder and tugged it around to wipe his face. He blinked away fine droplets of water as he opened his eyes. "I wish all the pleasures of life were that simple."

"If they was, you wouldn' hardly enjoy 'em at all," said Bethel sagely, and he could tell from her voice that she was smiling. "Now jus' you give them whiskers a quick rub, an' I reckon you'll be clean 'nough fo' tonight. On'y goin' get mudded up 'gain tomorrow."

"That's what I tried to tell you," he said fondly, taking a tiny dollop of soap to do as he was told.

At last, cleaned, clothed and fed he bade Bethel goodnight and moved for the dining room door, one arm hugging his father's smoking jacket to him. The faded old garment with its threadbare pile and fraying sash was oddly comforting tonight, and the clean underclothes were all he could have wished for. He could just about overlook the dark stains at elbows and knees, across the seat and the shoulders and down the outside of the legs. Tobacco juice, faded a little by resolute scrubbing and Tuesday afternoons in the sunshine, but still indelible and unmistakable. They matched the stains on his arms and hands, on his shins, on his neck. There was even a streak across his nose and cheekbone today that even Bethel could not scrub away.

The lamp was not lit, but the dining room was aglow. As the kitchen door swung closed behind him, Cullen saw but did not quite comprehend the silver candlesticks on the table, with the stubs of the last beeswax candles flickering merrily within them. He had thought they'd burned them away when the Tates had been to visit: Mary had put tallow candles on the table for the last several suppers with the guests. But here they were, fragrant and clean-burning, to greet him inexplicably at the end of a day of filthy toil. Before his place at the head of the table stood two of the crystal wine goblets from their wedding service, and between them the tall decanter. It was filled with pale golden fluid: Château d'Yquem, the finest and most expensive white wine in the world.

And at her accustomed place sat Mary, resplendent in her ballgown of French silk. The fabric shifted and shimmered like a sapphire, and above the elegantly draped bertha her shoulders and her throat rose milky in the candlelight. Her hair was simply but elegantly dressed, unembellished but beautiful, and her slender arms curved beneath the delicate lace wings that evoked a sleeve without concealing her dainty elbows. She looked almost ethereal, displaced from the world of mud and work and worry, and for a moment Cullen could only stare.

Then he came back to himself and was acutely aware of his own appearance: the clean but stained undergarments, the old smoking jacket preserving the illusion of modesty, bare feet in down-at-heel slippers. His hair was clean but disheveled, his beard untrimmed, his face branded with tobacco sap.

"Why…" he croaked, but he could not form the question.

Mary turned to him and smiled, the illusion of majesty broken only a little now that she was no longer in profile. She rose gracefully and came towards him, hoop swaying enticingly and skirts rustling like the wings of the seraphim. "I thought we should celebrate," she said.

"Celebrate what?" he asked. It wasn't their anniversary, he told himself anxiously. It wasn't. He might have lost track of the time now and then, but he hadn't lost two whole months. She took his hands in hers, and his arms stiffened as if to shy away, lest his nightly disarray should sully her perfect loveliness. But he did not want to shy away. He wanted to be near her. He wanted to be one with her. It was all he could do not to clutch her to him and devour her where he stood.

"You're finished," said Mary. "The tobacco. It's picked. Meg told us." She smiled, and she was radiant. Her eyes were brimming with love and triumph.

He couldn't let her believe that. "It's picked," he said; "but it ain't finished. We got to finish curing and packing, and then we have to haul it into town to the depot, and I got to take it down to New Orleans and—"

She kissed him, her sweet breath blowing away his protests like dandelion fluff. "The picking," she murmured; "is finished. No more stooping from dawn 'til dark. No more soaking in the dew. No more tobacco sickness. We're going to celebrate that, Cullen."

She drew him further into the room, hardly seeming to walk so much as float. He followed, transfixed, and she stopped between their two chairs. She picked up the decanter and pulled the bulb-shaped stopper, filling the glasses generously. She took one in each hand, holding the first out towards him. He took it, reaching clumsily but finding his grace as the weight settled in his hand. His fingers and the pads of his palm were tender from working the scythe, and the delicate fluting of the stem seemed heightened by the rawness; the cut lozenges of the bowl almost painful to touch.

Mary held her glass aloft, level almost with her shining eyes. "To hard work," she said; "and perseverance."

To hard work, and more to come, he thought, but he did not say it. She was trying so hard to cheer him a little, to make him feel as though he had actually accomplished something. He had been fighting the awful futility of his labor all through the miserable afternoon; he could not inflict it upon her as well. And in the mire of discontent there was this gem to cherish: the woman who stood by him in his struggles and loved him unconditionally, who saw neither his shabby clothing nor his stained skin, but only a man she could be proud of. He had to try, however weary he felt, to remain that man.

His lips curved into a small, tender smile. "To the comfort of home at the end of the day," he said, saluting her deeds as she had saluted his.

They drank, and the airy sweetness of the wine filled Cullen's mouth and rose into the back of his throat. The hot water had cleared it, and he could feel the liquor sublimating into his sinuses in the moment before he swallowed. Mary's eyes were closed in bliss. Her father favored the reds, but this wine was her favorite. She looked in that moment both so exquisite and so like the girl he had courted that Cullen could no longer resist the urge to touch her. His free hand moved to caress her velvet cheek, and she tilted her head into his touch. The blackened beds of his nails looked crude and almost obscene beside her, but he scarcely saw them. Long lashes, so dark for a woman of her coloring, fluttered and lifted, and he was looking into her eyes. Her lips parted as though to kiss him, and he could almost feel them conjoining together, but instead she lifted the glass and took another sip of wine.

"It won't be long now," she said; "and harvest will be over. I'd sooner have you in the sweet potatoes than the tobacco. I've been sick with worry since you first took ill in it."

Cullen's hand slipped down and he masked the hot flush of shame with a hasty swallow of the sunshine trapped in his glass. "That happens sometimes," he said uncomfortably. "It don't do no lasting harm."

"Perhaps not," said Mary. "Still, you won't get sick digging yams."

"No, I won't," he promised, chuckling. He swirled the wine so it glittered and let his hand rest at her waist. "I thought you was upstairs with Gabe."

"Lottie asked if she could sit with him a while," Mary said. "She misses him. I need to go up and relieve her soon; she needs her sleep as much as anyone else." Her smile faded. "He's had a tiring day, poor darling. There wasn't an hour when he didn't cough, and every fit is a bad one."

"Doc stopped by the field," said Cullen. "Told me he might keep on a week or more before the crisis. He tell you what to look for?"

Mary nodded, staring down into her glass. "A higher fever," she said. "Coughing frequently, several times an hour. Loss of appetite, possibly delirium… Cullen, do you think—"

He shook his head fiercely. "Doc says he's got a chance, a good chance," he proclaimed. The conviction in his voice was as much for his benefit as for hers, and he couldn't even pretend it was not. "He says we done right by that boy, and he's strong as can be. We'll take care of him, and Bethel. He'll come through all right. He got to."

"He does. He has to," Mary whispered. The surface of the wine rippled. She was weeping. "He must. Cullen, I can't. I can't lose him, not Gabe."

"Here now," he huffed, his breath hitching high in his throat. He reached and set down his glass so that he could take hold of both shoulders. The tiny puffs of silk crackled beneath his grasp, and the lace oversleeves rippled. He bent his head, trying to look into her eyes. "Here now, none of that. We ain't goin' lose him. Mary. Mary, we ain't. God ain't goin' ask that of us, not that. He knows… He knows we couldn't stand that."

"But He could." The words were scarcely audible now. She was trembling. The wine glass tilted and she tightened her grip, steadying it.

"He won't," Cullen said harshly, his eyes pricking traitorously. It was a desperate prayer as much as a bold declaration. All that had been sent his way this year he had borne, not always with good grace but with determination. Bethel loved to remind him that the Lord only sent trials to those who could weather them. He could not weather this. The loss of his son, his boy, his beloved little Gabe? He could not bear that. God knew he could not: He would not thrust that burden upon him. Upon Mary. He wouldn't.

Mary looked up at him, eyes wounded but somehow hopeful. No, not hopeful, but trusting. "Thank you," she sighed, as though he had made some pledge it was within his power to keep instead of a ferevent denial of his deepest terror.

Cullen tried to smile, but his lips would not move. He swallowed, and his throat burned. He cleared it with a shallow little cough and was about to speak, to break the potent silence with some inane remark about the quality of the wine, when the noise began above.

They both stiffened, Mary jolting against Cullen's hands while his grip tightened, crushing the silk beneath them. Hurriedly she set down her glass, but he was already at the door. She came after him, broad skirts billowing in the narrow canal of the stairway, but as Cullen ran he grew less and less aware of her. He burst through the open door into the nursery, where the lamp was turned low. Gabe was sitting stiff and frightened in bed, drawing in his first _whoop_ as Lottie looked on in wide-eyed horror.

"Mist' Cullen, he were sleepin'!" she cried. "Jus' 'til this minute, fas' asleep!"

"I know, Lottie, I know," he said in breathless consolation. Somehow even in his terror he remembered that she too was only a child, and in need of comfort in her fear. But his eyes were on his son and it was Gabe he reached for, cupping the little boy's shoulders as he had Mary's and bending to look into his eyes. "It's all right, son," he chanted. "You're all right. Look at me: just look right at me. It'll be over soon. There, good boy. I'm right here. Pappy's here."

Mary settled on the bed behind Gabe, graceful even in her distress. Her hand traced gentle circles on his back and she started up her own quiet litany of platitudes. Gabe's eyes were wide and tormented, but there was no sharp sheen of terror in them. He rode the fit gallantly and when he took his gasping breath at last he closed his mouth hastily. Mary reached for her wrist before remembering she was not wearing long sleeves. Cullen, understanding, plucked his own handkerchief from the pocket of the smoking jacket and handed it to his son.

Gabe took hold of it with one small hand and lifted it to his lips. He spat copiously into it, thick and flocculent spittle that was white and milky in color. "'Ucky," he pronounced. He looked from Cullen to his mother and back again. "You all done workin', Pappy?" he asked.

Cullen almost smiled. Certainly the corners of his eyes crinkled a little. "Yes, son," he said. "I'm all done for the day. We finished picking the tobacco this afternoon."

"You's finished?" Gabe cried happily, with the same innocent and ignorant joy his mother had shown in preparing her little celebration. "You's _really _finished?"

"Well, only the picking," Cullen said honestly. "There's still the stalks to cut, and the leaves to cure. And the yams need digging: Lottie can't do that all by herself, now can she?"

"No," Gabe agreed somberly, wearing a very man-to-man expression. He looked towards the door, grinning again. "Hear dat, 'Ottie? Pappy's goin' he'p you—'Ottie? Why's you cryin'?"

Cullen looked, and saw that the child was pressed against the doorpost, one hand clutching her waist and the other pressed to her mouth. Her dark eyes were wide and shining with tears, and one rolled down her cheek. "Aw, Lottie," he sighed; "he's all right. He come through it all right."

"Yassir," Lottie said raggedly, swallowing a sob. "But he soun' so _sick_! I thought… I thought…"

"Come here, Lottie," Mary said kindly, holding out her arm and beckoning. The girl ran to her, bare feet flying, and hugged her tightly. Cullen cringed, fearing for a moment that she would soil Mary's finery, but then he noticed she had changed into her good dress for the visit upstairs. He blessed her good sense and her new grown-up notions. "Gabe is all right," Mary was murmuring, embracing Lottie consolingly. "It's just a dreadful cough, and it sounds very frightening when it's happening. It feels frightening, too, doesn't it, Gabe?"

"Yeah," he said matter-of-factly, and eerily it seemed Cullen could hear himself in his boy's inflection. "I's mostly scared all the time I's coughin'."

"Yes, it is scary," Mary agreed. "But it never lasts long, and then he feels himself again until the next time it happens. And Doctor Whitehead says that Gabe is strong, and he is going to come through it and be well again. We mustn't worry, Lottie, and we must _try_ not to be frightened, even though it isn't easy. Do you understand?"

"Yes, 'Ottie, I's strong," Gabe promised, reaching to pat his playmate's arm. "Un'erstand?"

Lottie nodded, sniffling a little as she lifted her head from Mary's shoulder. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and smiled shakily. "Yas'm," she said. "Yassir, Mist' Gabe. You's strong. Ain't you allus beat me when we's wrasslin'?"

Mary raised an eyebrow, and Gabe punched the mattress. "'Ottie!" he groaned in exasperated dismay. "Ain't dat our secret? Bet'l's goin' scold us!"

"That's fine, son," Cullen said, reaching to ruffle the boy's disarrayed curls. "Your mama and I won't tell Bethel: it can still be a secret, just between the four of us."

"And 'Lijah," said Gabe. "He catched us one day, didn' he, 'Ottie?"

The girl laughed at the memory and nodded. Then she looked at Mary. "Missus Bohannon?" she said. "I oughts to be gettin' on, if you's done your party."

"Yes, Lottie, you should," Mary agreed. She stood, smoothing her skirts with the reflexive gesture she always used, and took the girl's hand. "Cullen, would you try to settle Gabe? I'll see Lottie out."

"Course I will," Cullen promised. Nothing would have wrenched him from his boy's side at that moment, and he was amazed that Mary could find the strength even for Lottie's sake. The girl exchanged sweet goodnights with the little boy, and then Cullen and Gabe were left alone.

"You want to sit up a while yet, son?" Cullen asked, remembering the misery of trying to settle him the night before. Each time he laid down, it seemed the coughing came on again. He reached to plump the pillow, intending to tip it against the headboard, but Gabe shook his head.

"I's tuckered," he said. "I's goin' lie down." Determinedly he shifted his bottom higher on the tick and flung himself down on the pillow with a satisfied _oomph._ He blinked at Cullen as the man drew up the bedclothes. There was no sign of coughing; not so much as a hitched breath.

Cullen settled the blankets and rested his hand on his son's hip, watching him with a thoughtful expression that signified nothing. For the first time all day he was not thinking at all: no worrying or fretting, figuring or counting or wrangling or debating. He was only watching his child, drinking in every detail of his dear young face.

"Pappy?" Gabe said at last, breaking the spell. "Ain't we goin' pray?"

Cullen smiled. No matter how many times he was awakened in the night, it seemed that Gabe associated settling in bed with prayer. And certainly at a time like this a little extra worship could do no harm. "Sure, son, we's goin' pray," he said.

He wasn't sure whether he could get his aching body down onto the floor – or whether he would be able to get himself up again once on his knees. He decided a merciful God wouldn't care, just this once. He folded his hands into the traditional pose, and Gabe did the same. "_Now I lay me,_" Cullen began, and Gabe joined in with devout solemnity; "_down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should—"_

And Cullen stopped. The familiar prayer, uttered through his own childhood, suddenly had meaning again beyond the rote rhythm of the words. His stomach clenched and his blood was cold in his veins. But Gabe, blissfully unaware of the petition in the simple verse and apparently unconcerned that his father had ceased to speak with him, went on cheerfully.

"_If I should die b'fore I wake, I pray de Lord my soul to take_."


	53. A Morsel of Comfort

_Note: This chapter, originally posted prior to the filming of Season 4 on April 23, 2014, was modified on October 5, 2014, in order to incorporate the canonical name of Cullen's _firstborn _son given in Episode 410. For the full explanation, see the Note on Chapter 88._

**Chapter Fifty-Three: A Morsel of Comfort**

He was tired, so tired. His eyelids drooped and his head felt heavy, bobbing and swaying as he tried to stay awake. He wanted to stay awake, wanted to keep himself upright, because it was worse when he tried to lie down. Almost every time he did, it would start again, and as tired as he was, he would rather fight off the urge to curl up in the nest of blankets that sat so invitingly under the kitchen table than suffer through another fit of coughing.

Mama was by the stove, adding thin slices of carrot and parsnip to the big stew-pot. She had sent out dinner with Lottie just a little while before with jugs of the hot broth to warm the people working in the cold and the mud. Now with what was left she was making a thick soup for supper. It was just vegetable soup: Nate had come by the house while Gabe was trying to eat his breakfast – a breakfast that had nearly all come up again in the wake of another spate of coughs – to report that there had been no rabbits in the traps. "Too col' for 'em, mos' likely, Missus," he said. "Firs' few col' days, them jackrabbits likes to burrow up an' take shelter."

Mama had smiled and told him that was quite all right, and had thanked him for the meat he had provided for many days before, but after Nate was gone she had sighed. She looked tired, too. Tired and worried, and every time she looked out the window her brave mouth collapsed into an expression of terrible sadness. Mama was fretting, and Gabe didn't really know why. He guessed it had something to do with not having any meat to put on the table, but it couldn't just be that. Before Nate had thought of making his traps there had been ages and ages when there had been no meat: everyone had just eaten eggs instead.

Now she was stirring the pot with Bethel's big wooden spoon. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of the concoction, then made a small nod of satisfaction. Mama said, when it was just the two of them and there was nobody else to hear, that she would never be the cook that Bethel was, but she could do her best. Gabe thought she cooked just fine, and he had told her so. The food she made was always hot and good, and it filled up his tummy – when he could keep it down. The coughing always seemed to make everything want to come right back up again.

He hadn't coughed since dinnertime, not once, and he was determined not to. He didn't want the sour taste of vomit in his mouth, but more than that he longed to keep breathing. It was so scary, so unspeakably terrifying, not to be able to breathe. Even when Mama rubbed his back and looked into his eyes and told him that he was a good boy, a brave boy, and that everything would be all right; even when Bethel's comforting dark hands supported him and she sang her soothing songs; even when his pappy was there to encourage him, to tell him how proud he was, to promise it would be over soon, Gabe could not help but be frightened. The tight, choking feeling in his ribs, the spasms in his throat, the unhappy longing for just a little bit of air… they were all so awful. He didn't want to cough.

Mama put the heavy lid on the pot again and turned from the stove. She looked down at him, sitting on the rag rug with his tin soldiers scattered forgotten before his crooked leg, and she smiled gently. "Would you like to lie down and have a little sleep?" she asked, tilting her chin towards the pallet under the table.

"No'm," Gabe mumbled, shaking his head. It swung like the pendulum in Charlie Ainsley's tall clock. He missed Charlie. They had fun together, and he was never sick at Charlie's house.

Mama gathered the skirts of her work dress into a pad for her knees and knelt before him. She reached for one of the small red soldiers with a musket over his shoulder. "Would you like me to play with you a while?" she asked.

"No'm," he said.

Mama set down the toy and reached to pet Gabe's curls. Her hand was cool against his overheated brow, and he leaned into the motion ever so slightly. "What would you like to do?" she asked.

He would like not to be sick anymore, but he didn't say that. He knew she was worrying about him, too, just as much as she worried about whatever she could see out the kitchen window. "I wants to cuddle," he mumbled softly. "Jus' a li'l while?"

Mama's lips smiled, but not her eyes. "Of course we can cuddle, dearest," she said. She got to her feet, smooth and graceful, and she bent to put her hands under his arms. Gabe pushed off with one foot, leaden in its copper-toed boot, and let her carry him to Bethel's chair. The little quilt from his bed, clean and sweet-smelling, was draped over the back. Mama picked it up and wrapped it 'round him as she sat, drawing him close in her lap. Gabe nestled against her, letting his head rest upon her collarbone. He drew his legs up close so that his thighs were snug against his chest. That helped a little with the deep, discontented ache in his ribs. He felt cozy and safe in his mama's arms, and he thought maybe if they sat like this for a while he could fall asleep even though he was not lying down. He wanted to sleep so badly: he'd hardly slept at all last night, or the night before that or the night before that. The awful, hateful cough kept waking him up, squeezing his lungs and closing off his throat and making him feel like he might never breathe again.

The very thought made him shiver, and he huddled nearer to his mother. She hugged him, one hand running up and down his arm, but she did not hug too tight. It was as if Mama knew that the cough did that, and she didn't want to remind him of how it felt. Her left leg jiggled under his bottom, and that felt good, too. If only Pappy were here, Gabe would have been just about happy. But Pappy was digging yams today with Lottie and Meg and Elijah and Nate while Bethel was in the tobacco barn. Gabe didn't understand why Bethel had to be out there, if the picking was all finished, but he also did not have the energy to ask.

Sleep was beckoning him, lulling him quietly out of the waking world. He would be safe in Mama's arms, still and quiet and upright where the cough couldn't get him. It mostly happened when he moved around too much, or stood up suddenly, or ate too fast. Or, of course, if he tried to lie down. Gabe swallowed cautiously, his lips smacking a little, and let his eyes close at last. Through Mama's dress he could hear the soothing _thump-bump_ of her heart, and the edge of her corset pressed against his cheek. She was humming softly as she rubbed his arm, and she began to sing one of her lullabies. Mama's songs were different from Bethel's, but they were just as calming, just as beloved. Gabe didn't listen to the words, but rode the gentle melody on and on towards the slumber his worn-out little body craved…

And suddenly he was awake again. Not only awake, but moving very quickly. Mama swung him onto her hip, bunching the quilt around him as her arms strained to lift him. On her feet all at once, she was rushing from the kitchen. Gabe's head jounced against her shoulder and he could not help but whimper, just a little. He had almost fallen asleep!

The air upon his face grew cool as Mama hurried through the dining room and into the dim entryway, and a blast of cold wind struck him when she opened the front door. A figure in a big black coat stood there, a cream-colored muffler wrapped snug about his throat, and a broad-brimmed hat tilted low. Gabe could just see the black bag in one hand, and searched at once for the kindly eyes, his own still blurred with drowsiness.

"Doctor, please come in," Mama said, a little breathless. She stepped back so that the man could draw the door closed, doffing his hat as he did so and setting his satchel on the chair by the door.

"Afternoon, Miss Mary," he said courteously as he began to unbutton his greatcoat. He leaned in a little and smiled at Gabe. "And how are you today, my little man?"

"I's sick," Gabe croaked. His throat was scratchy from coughing and he didn't even sound like himself anymore. He shifted disconsolately in his mother's arms, and lifted his head up off of her shoulder. It seemed strangely light now, floating at the end of his neck, and his mouth felt hot and cottony. He scrubbed at his eyes with one fist, while the other arm crept around Mama's to brace against her back. Rainwater sprinkled from the doctor's coat as he hung it on a peg beside Pappy's second-best jacket.

"We've been sitting in the kitchen," Mama said, taking another step backwards and then turning to lead the way. "We've followed your instructions to the letter, keeping him warm and as comfortable as we can. The cough has been worse these last two nights, hasn't it, darling?"

Gabe nodded as they turned into the dining room, and realized too late that it was a mistake. The tickle rose in his throat, rumbling up from deep in his chest. He tried to swallow it, and when he could not attempted instead to draw in a big breath while he still had the chance. It was already too late. The moment he opened his mouth, his lungs contracted, rippling and spasming beneath his sore ribs. The first cough tore out sharply, rattling off of his teeth. His tongue thrust against them, bucking as the second cough came. This one was long and very painful. The muscles of his chest strained and twitched with the effort, and his backbone shuddered. He could feel his mama rushing into the kitchen, but the rooms were a blur. It was as if a giant's mighty hand had closed upon his body and was squeezing it, squeezing tighter and tighter while the coughs bolted against the great grasping fingers.

His lungs were empty now and his lips trembled in their taut ring as he tried to remember how to breathe. His stomach thrust out and he did his best, but all he could do was wheeze, a sharp and agonized jerk high in his throat that gave him just enough air for a fresh spate of coughs. His vision was filled with black spots, and he could feel his heart hammering in panic. He was sitting on something hard now, and tender hands were bracing him. The indistinct shape before him was his mother's face, and distantly he could hear her murmuring unintelligible words of empty comfort. He was frightened. He had never been so frightened. All the world was terror, and coughing, and the desperate yearning for air. His throat stung and his chest burned as he tried again to gasp, and only managed the horrible _whoop_ that brought no relief at all. His temples throbbed and his arms were wooden, dancing and jolting like the arms of a puppet.

Hot tears coursed down Gabe's cheeks, but the sobs that wanted to claw their way out of his tormented little body were lost in the next chorus of barking coughs. It hurt! It hurt so much! He couldn't breathe! He couldn't breathe! Why couldn't he breathe?

_*discidium*_

It was Lottie who heard the horse as she stood at the garden edge of the sweet potato field, carefully emptying her small basket into the big two-bushel sack. From his position three-quarters of the way up the next row, Cullen saw her shoulders fly back and her head cock to the sound he had instructed everyone to listen for. Hastily she set down her burden and came running back through the mud. Her feet in their sorry-looking little shoes flew as if over dry ground, sending up sprays of muck and water as she went. Unlike the rest of them, she seemed unaffected by the sucking mire that had once been well-ordered hills and furrows. After weeks of lonely duty in the drying shed, she was blissfully happy to be surrounded by willing listeners, and she had been chatting and singing and telling stories all morning. Now she clapped her hands as she drew near.

"Mist' Cullen, Mist' Cullen!" she sang out merrily. "Them's hoofbeats, all right: I knows it! Mus' be the doct'r: ain't nobody else goin' come callin' on a wet Sat'day!"

Cullen's hamstrings strained as he lifted himself out of his low crouch. The three field hands were working with the hoes, cracking open the hills with gentle twists of the blades. He and Lottie were the pickers, creeping along behind to gather up the exposed fruit of the earth. It was filthy work, and he would have much rather been in Nate's place, but Cullen was almost as clumsy with a hoe as he was with a scythe. When weeding the corn or laying in the beans this was not much of a problem, but breaking open the hills of yams required a delicate touch. If the skins were torn or the orange flesh bruised by a careless thrust of the hoe, the sweet potatoes would go soft and rot. So he squatted in the mud and dug almost elbow-deep in search of every last yam, breaking off the tired old tops and setting them carefully in the basket he dragged with him down the rows.

At least he _could_ squat, he thought as the effort of standing sent the old daggers of pain into his kidneys and made his jaw clench. The leaves were worthless, and so did not need to be guarded from tearing. The hills were slashed open, and so did not need protection from a stray, dipping knee. The stress upon his legs was uncomfortable, but it was nothing to the torment of stooping as he had been obliged to do in the tobacco fields. Had the ground been less fluid, he might even have crawled along on hands and knees, but he was wet enough as it was. The rain had lifted to a drizzle that morning, and stopped entirely before noon, but the mud was deep and chilled and terrible.

"I got to go and see what the doctor says," Cullen announced, looking from one dark face to the next. They had all turned to him anxiously as he rose: every one of them was worried for Gabe. He felt a thrum of gratitude that almost warmed his half-frozen chest. The day was calm but very cold. He doubted the temperature was much above forty-five, and the work not nearly exerting enough to warm him in his wet clothes. Meg looked warm enough, with Bethel's old shawl around her shoulders, and Lottie seemed impervious to the weather, but Nate's jaw was tight and Elijah was shivering. The cold was alarming: it did not have so very far to fall before a frost might be expected.

"Keep on working," he said. "I'll be back the minute I can be, and I'll have Mary brew up some hot coffee. I…" He looked at the field, his eyes travelling from the overturned rows to those still left undisturbed. Closing his eyes regretfully, he forced out the words he had been skirting all morning. "It don't look like we'll be able to stop at two: we got to work on as long as we can. We might get frost any day now, and if we intend to have a rest tomorrow…"

His hand flailed helplessly. Nate looked at his hoe and lifted it, bringing it down with great force in the furrow between two hills so that it lodged there, canted at an angle but upright even when he took his hands away. He stepped over the row he had been working and marched up, eyes hard and teeth set. For a moment he stood almost nose to nose with his master, and Cullen tried to muster himself to cope with the defiance he was sure this pronouncement had awakened.

But then Nate dropped down into a crouch at his feet, shoving his sleeves up above his elbows as he went. He thrust both hands into the hill Cullen had been working, and fished around, coming out with one last small yam. Scuttling sidelong like a crab, he moved to the next hill, looking up at Meg as he began to grope.

"Hurry 'long," he said, almost teasing. "I's goin' catch you up if you don'."

Meg nodded and slipped her hoe into the next hill. "You take what time you needs, Mist' Cullen," she said as she rolled her tool gently. "That chile come firs'."

Lottie hopped back to her place behind Elijah, bending at the waist to root in the earth. The old man nodded and set back to work. Cullen watched them for a moment, profoundly thankful to be spared a conflict for which he had no strength, and then started wading back through the mud towards the house. He halted briefly at the water buckets to rinse away the nebulous gauntlets of mud that reached almost to his rolled sleeves, and climbed the garden fence tiredly. Now far enough away from the slaves as to escape their careful scrutiny, he drew a frigid hand across his eyes. They had been stinging with fatigue all day. Though the previous night had been his rest from the watch on the fires, he had not slept more than an hour at a time. He had awakened, his heart in his throat, every time Gabe began to cough, and he had hastened just as swiftly as Mary to be with the little boy as he struggled to draw breath. Now Cullen's exhaustion was a yoke across trembling shoulders, threatening at any moment to make him fall.

He scraped his boots as best he could and climbed the brief steps onto the stoop. He hesitated briefly, his hand upon the doorknob as he tried to marshal his strength and hide his weariness from Doctor Whitehead's scrutinizing gaze, and then he stepped in to the cheery warmth of the kitchen.

Doc and Mary were both standing at the table, upon which Gabe's quilt was crumpled. The child himself was seated with his legs dangling down over the edge, but his arms were flung about Mary's neck and she was running her hand up and down his spine as he wept against her. Tiny sobs and stifled sniffles came from the crook of her neck, and she was bent awkwardly to accommodate him. The doctor was digging in his bag, and as he looked up at Cullen's entrance his stethoscope emerged.

"Another fit?" Cullen asked hoarsely. He was reluctant to move further into the room with his muddy feet and clothes, but neither could he stand aloof while his child was suffering. With the toe of his left boot he dragged the bootjack near, and gripped the doorjamb as he used it.

"Quite a bad one," Doc murmured. He pinched the tail of Gabe's little topcoat and shook his head. "Miss Mary, we'll need to take this off," he said.

Mary swallowed hard and nodded, reaching to disentangle the small hands clutching the back of her collar. Gabe yipped anxiously and clung all the tighter. "Oh, lovey, we need to take your coat off so the doctor can listen to your breathing."

"No, _no_," Gabe moaned, shaking his head without lifting it from her shoulder. His grip tightened and one leg hooked around her hip. Mary sighed and embraced him again, casting a helpless look at the doctor.

Cullen had the boots off now, and crossed the floor on wet stockings. "Son, we got to get your coat off. Waistcoat too?" he asked. Doc nodded. "And your vest. C'mon. I know you ain't so attached to 'em: you sure give Bethel a hard enough time about putting them on."

Gabe raised his head at last. His eyes were rimmed with red from weeping, and there were thick tear-tracks down his round little cheeks. He sniffled, his shoulders jerking with the effort, and released his mother to reach for Cullen. "Pappy," he said plaintively.

Cullen looked down at his shirt, wet and streaked with mud. He couldn't hold a sick child in this condition, but his hands, though cold and stiffening, were clean enough. He pinched the cuff of the right sleeve with one hand, reaching inside the small coat with the other to guide Gabe's arm out. The boy bent his elbow obediently, and let his father remove the garment. Mary swiftly unfastened the small buttons on the vest, and Cullen removed it as well. But when he reached for the wee little braces holding up the child's trousers, Gabe crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head.

"No!" he protested frantically. "No! He ain't goin' listen! It goin' make me cough! I don' wants to cough, Pappy! Don' make me cough!"

Cullen's heart ached. His brave little boy, who had borne the wretchedness of the last few days with such stoicism, was worn out with fever and sleepless nights. Gabe knew that on both of the physician's previous visits the slow exhalation under the stethoscope had set off a coughing jag. He was rightly anxious and understandably reluctant to subject himself once more to that ordeal.

Doctor Whitehead moved nearer to the child, and Mary drew back half a pace to let him. The gentle hand with its fine lines of middle age settled on Gabe's shoulder. "I'll tell you what, son," he said softly. "What's say I just listen while you breathe however you want? No deep breaths, no letting them out slow. All right?"

"You goin' make me cough," Gabe said in a tiny voice that quivered with misery. "I don' wan' cough no more."

"I know," Doc said somberly. "I know you don't want to cough no more, and I'd stop it if only I could. But I need to hear how your lungs are sounding so that I know you ain't getting no sicker. Just you let me have a quick listen, that's a good little man."

"N-n-no," whimpered Gabe. He turned enormous eyes to Cullen. "Please, Pappy," he begged.

Something twanged painfully in Cullen's chest. It broke his heart to have to deny his child anything, but the doctor had to examine him. "Son, you got to," he said, though the words sickened him. "Come on, now, and let me take off them suspenders. It'll only take a minute, and then it'll be over."

Gabe's lower lip trembled, but his arms fell to his sides. Gently Cullen slipped the little straps off of each shoulder and plucked the shirttails out of the back of the child's trousers. He lifted shirt and undershirt, exposing the milky skin of Gabe's back to the physician's instrument. "There we go," he said softly. "Just you keep breathing like you always do; it'll be all right."

Doctor Whitehead had been warming the ebony cup against his palm, and now he placed it carefully to the left of Gabe's spine. The little boy's body shuddered with dread, and his hands flew to clutch at Cullen's arm. Mary reached to cradle the crown of his head. "Good boy," she murmured.

Doc listened carefully, a pensive frown upon his face, and then shifted the position of the stethoscope to listen higher in the lung. He moved to the other side of the small, stiff backbone and did the same. Then he brought the instrument to the front, and Cullen lifted the shirts again, this time baring stomach and breastbone. All the while Gabe watched his father's face, as though dreading to look down. At last Doctor Whitehead withdrew, coiling the stethoscope again.

"There," he said. "All done. Aren't you a brave boy? Just like your pappy."

A tiny smile touched Gabe's lips at this praise. "Like Pappy?" he asked.

"Just like Pappy," Mary pledged, reaching to straighten the garments Cullen had disarrayed. "And see? It didn't make you cough."

"No," Gabe said thoughtfully. "No, not dis time."

Cullen found his own breath coming easier as the doctor returned to his bag to fish out the tongue depressor. He checked Gabe's throat and felt the glands of his neck, then put his hand into each armpit. With the back of his hand he felt Gabe's brow and cheeks, his frown deepening. At last he sighed.

"You're doing well," he said to the child, earnest but not without sorrow. "I can see you've been a good little man, and I know you're the bravest boy I've treated all year. But the fever's no lower." He turned this to Mary and Cullen, looking gravely from one to the other. "The cough is coming more frequently, and the fit I just witnessed was a bad one. I'm afraid we have no choice but to purge him."

Mary swallowed her despairing protest for the benefit of the listening child, but Cullen could read it in her eyes. He cleared his throat. "Doc, may I have a word?"

He took the older man by the arm and drew him over to the pantry. Mary fell at once to fussing sweetly over her child, murmuring soft words of praise and smoothing his curls. She asked a quiet question and Gabe nodded, replying softly. It was obvious he was not paying attention to the two men.

Through his teeth Cullen whispered; "You sure you got to do that? He ain't slept in two nights: he's low enough as it is."

"The fever hasn't come down at all, Cullen," the doctor said regretfully.

"It ain't no higher," Cullen reasoned desperately. "And we ain't tried nothing for it. We could sponge him down, or try a cold bath. We could dose him with… I don't know. Ain't there something to give for a fever?"

"A purgative, son: that's what you give for a fever," said Doc Whitehead. "The poisons build up in the blood, and the only way to get them out is to purge. I could give him an emetic instead, but that's as likely to make him cough as anything else, and if he aspirates there's nothing I can do."

Cullen glanced over the man's shoulder at his son, now studiously trying to button up his own little waistcoat. He missed the intended hole and reached for the next, but Mary gently guided his hand back. Gabe slid the button through and grinned up at his mother. He was nearly four, learning how to take care of himself and finding such pride in his moments of independence. To force him to regress to needing help in using the chamber pot – perhaps to soiling himself if sufficient haste could not be made – seemed far too cruel.

"No," he said.

The doctor frowned. "Cullen…"

"I said no. Not yet. It ain't going to help the cough any, is it?"

Whitehead shrugged helplessly. "Well, no. No, I can't say it's likely to do much for the cough."

"The fever ain't that high," Cullen declared. "We can wait and see. You said yourself we got to keep his spirits up. Besides, Bethel ain't said nothing about purging him."

"No," the doctor sighed. "Bethel never did much like it when I purged you, neither. But son, she's just an old darky. She knows plenty 'bout nursing, but she ain't a medical expert. I'm only a country doctor myself, but I do know a thing or two about childhood aliments. A fever like this, if it drags on too long it's going to use up all his strength. We can't just let it smolder on unchecked."

"Will it do him any harm to wait another day or two?" asked Cullen. "Honestly."

"I can't say. Most likely it won't, but there's no way to be sure." Doc shook his head unhappily. "There's still so much we don't understand. Doctors, scientists, we like to think we know everything, but the human body's the greatest mystery there is. Some children get better all on their own, some fade away even with the promptest treatment. There ain't no way to predict how it'll go for your son."

"So you'd sooner take the chance and treat him," said Cullen, understanding; "because if things go wrong it's easier to tell yourself you did all you could." His throat was tight and he swallowed fiercely, sniffling to clear his running nose and hoping that the gesture would not betray how near he was to tears. "You can't help the cough, so you try and focus on the fever."

The gentle eyes were soft and sad. Doc nodded. "That's so, son," he murmured. Then he scrubbed his hand against his chin and sighed. "We can wait a day if you really want to, but I don't advise it. If he don't get a break from the fever before the crisis, he might not be strong enough to ride it out."

Cullen felt his shoulders droop under the weight of his own helplessness. What could he say to that? And indeed, in the end, would he be able to live with himself if things _did _go wrong, and he could not believe they had done all they could? "All right," he whispered, closing his eyes as he condemned his child to indignity and further discomfort. "All right, we'll purge him. If you think it's got to be done."

"I do," the doctor said in earnest reassurance. "It's for the best, Cullen. I promise you that."

Cullen nodded and smiled thinly. He clapped Doc's elbow and stepped around him, fixing his eyes on his boy and forcing his voice to rise cheerfully. "All dressed up like a dandy, son?" he asked, nodding at Gabe's vest. "You button it up all by yourself?"

"Yassir!" Gabe boasted. Then he flushed and amended honestly; "Mama he'ped a li'l bit."

"Mama's a fine helper," said Cullen. He put his hand on his son's shoulder and squeezed reassuringly, in case his voice should falter. "Now, Doc's goin' give you some medicine for your fever, maybe help cool you down some. What do you think about that?"

"Do it taste bad?" asked Gabe, wrinkling his nose. "My udder medicine taste bad."

Cullen looked questioningly at the doctor, studiously ignoring the despairing look on Mary's face. Doctor Whitehead was taking an amber glass bottle from his bag. He smiled at the child. "It does taste bad, I'm afraid," he said earnestly. "But maybe Mama will give you a spoonful of molasses to make it go down easier?"

"We ain't got no molasses," said Gabe, shaking his head. "It to 'spensive."

Despite the persistent chill in his damp clothes Cullen felt suddenly hot with shame. He eluded the sharp look the physician shot him. Mary reached for her son, petting his knee. "What about some strawberry preserves instead, lovey?" she asked. "You can have a whole bowlful if you want it."

"Yes, please," Gabe said contentedly. He smiled at Whitehead. "I's a good boy, Doct'r. I goin' take dat medicine."

_*discidium*_

The mixture that Doctor Whitehead had given, and then left with instructions to administer a dose on a coffee spoon every three hours, proved milder than Mary had feared. It had no affect at all until suppertime, when Gabe passed a soft stool with little discomfort and sufficient notice to manage his own trousers. Just before bedtime he produced another, this one more fluid but still not without warning. By that time Bethel was in from the tobacco barn, and she helped him to clean up before his bath. It was Cullen's turn to take the first watch, and so once the child was settled in bed there was nothing more to do in the house. Mary sat in the nursery for a while so that Bethel could satisfy herself that the kitchen was in order. The old woman came running when Gabe awoke after less than half an hour's rest, coughing and strangling on the harsh whooping intakes of meager breath. It happened again as Mary was changing into her nightclothes, and again soon after she climbed into bed. Each time his face grew first red and then ghastly pale, and his lips took on the terrible blue tinge that never failed to strike terror in his mother's heart. But each time, in the end, the coughing ceased and a deep, frantic gasp heralded the blessed return of breath.

Gabe was tearful in the wake of these fits, clinging to Mary like a frightened babe. He could be coaxed back to bed only by Bethel's capable hands, which seemed to soothe him even in his worst fears. When he was asleep again at last Mary withdrew from the room so that Bethel could lie down again. They had brought up the mattress from her bed so that she could sleep in some comfort, and it was made up on the floor so near to Gabe's bed that the old lady could reach out and touch his arm without raising her head from the pillow. The little heater glowed comfortingly, and the room was luxuriously warm. Mary's own chamber was dank and cheerless by comparison, and as she slipped again between sheets chilled by the night air creeping through the broken windowpane, she wished it were she who might lie on the pallet beside Gabe's bed, drowsing but watchful through the night.

She was exhausted, her very bones aching with weariness as she curled beneath the bedclothes and shivered until the heat of her body gathered between the sheets and warmed her. Her throat smarted and her eyes stung, and as she settled into her accustomed place on the tick she found her thoughts retreating into a thick fog. She drifted there awhile, her fears for her son and her worries for the household all growing vague and somehow distant. At last there was nothing but dim serenity as she sank at last into sleep.

And at once she was awake again, the muscles of her legs and torso stiffening as she sat up even before her mind knew she intended to move. Bare feet slid into her bedshoes, and she snatched her dressing gown from the table by the bed as she ran. The bedroom door was open, and the nursery door as well, and she flew unimpeded to her suffering child. The business was routine now. She scarcely gave a conscious thought to how she clambered up on his bed, taking this time the position before him. Bethel was already at his back, bracing him gently and cooing quietly in his ear. Mary bent low, her hand slipping through the cuff of the wrapper and reaching to hold his shoulder. She repeated again and again the litany of reassurances that Gabe could not really hear. He coughed and coughed, and the color left his face. Two days ago that would have left Mary paralyzed with shock and horror. Now, though her heart clenched in terror she felt no trace of surprise. Could it be she was growing accustomed to this, unthinkable though it was?

The deep, wheezing gasp that signaled the end of the chorus of coughs faded to shallow panting as Gabe sagged back limply into Bethel's arms. His lashes shone with tears in the dim lamplight, and his lower lip quivered. Bethel adjusted her hold so that both were more comfortable, and murmured; "That my li'l lamb. There, honey: it all be over now."

Mary did not know what to say. She wanted to burst into tears of hurt and weariness. Why must her darling child suffer so? Why could she do nothing to help him? Unsteadily she tried to smile, for Gabe was watching her. "There, dearest," she said. "Would you like a little water?"

Gabe gave a tiny nod, but as Mary shifted towards the edge of the mattress to reach for the cup on the nightstand he sat suddenly bolt upright, his eyes wide with dismay. Mary and Bethel stiffened, bracing themselves for the next series of hateful coughs, but instead of choking Gabe yelped. "Bet'l, I gots to…" he began.

Swift and sure the old woman was on her feet, lifting the child with her. In an instant she had him in the far corner of the room, hitching up his nightshirt as she whisked the lid off of the chamber pot. Gabe's feet struck the floor just in time, and he squatted, gripping Bethel's arms to keep from losing his balance. His worried expression changed to one of immense relief: he had reached his destination just in time. Once begun the process was swift, and when he tried to straighten up Bethel produced an old bit of rag to tidy him. Then she let him stand, and Gabe tugged the hem of his nightshirt back down about his calves. He looked at the pot, wrinkled his nose, and then blinked up at his nurse.

"T'ank you, Bet'l," he said unsteadily.

She replaced the lid and patted his cheek. "Good boy," she said. "Jus' you allus tell me quick like that, an' we'll get by awright. Now you go 'n get back under them covers 'fore you catch you' death."

Gabe nodded and scurried around the foot of the straw tick on the floor, and Mary restrained herself from picking him up, allowing him to climb for himself instead. He burrowed his feet between the sheets and tried to drag the heavy pile of blankets into his lap, but did not move to lie down.

Bethel stood up, the chamber pot in her hand. "I's jus' goin' go clean this out, Missus," she said. Mary nodded wordlessly and Bethel moved to the door, shaking her head. "Purgin' li'l boys as gots enough woes already," she muttered. "There be times them doctors don' know a thing 'bout nuthin'."

The words of discontent faded away as she went for the stairs, and Mary turned her attention back to her son. She offered him the tin cup of water and watched, heartsick, as he took tiny, cautious sips. Her hands were shaking with fatigue as she took the vessel back and plumped the pillows. "Would you like me to hold you a while, Gabe?" she asked.

"No," he said in a very small voice. He looked around the faintly lit room, his sweet face crumpled in disappointment. "Mama?" he asked. "Why ain't Pappy come to see me? He forget 'bout me?"

"No!" cried Mary, pushing herself up beside him with one foot. The dressing gown pulled at her shoulders and she tugged it free from her pinning hip. Her arm wrapped carefully around Gabe's shoulders, cuddling him close without pressing upon his ribs. His head tilted against her breast. "No, lovey, Pappy's working. He's out in the tobacco barn: he can't hear you out there."

"Oh." Gabe fell silent, but his expression was now one of understanding mingled with puzzlement, no longer one of hurt. "Mama, ain't he never goin' be done wid de tobacco?"

"Just a few more weeks," Mary promised. "When the leaves are all cured and packed, Pappy will take them on the train to New Orleans."

"Where dat?" asked Gabe, reflexively curious.

"It's a big city, down by the ocean," said Mama. "There are beautiful houses, and great tall buildings with dozens of windows, and many, many people."

"How many?" The question had a sleepy note, and the weight of him against her grew heavier.

"Do you know, I'm not sure," said Mary. "Not as many as there are in New York, I should think, but a good many more than you'd find in Jackson."

"Is it as big as de town?" asked Gabe. His left hand crept across to feel for her right, and she let him twine his fingers with hers. "De town pretty big. All them trains."

Mary found herself smiling despite her worries and her weariness. She marveled that he even remembered Meridian: they had last taken him into town at Eastertime. He was such an intelligent child, as keenly observant as his father. If only he lived through this nightmare, he would grow into a clever man - another piercingly brilliant Bohannon. Whatever their financial difficulties, they had to find some way to provide for his education. It hurt her that Cullen had been unable to finish his schooling. They had to do better for Gabe.

"Yes, Meridian is big," she agreed; "but New Orleans is much bigger. There are thousands of people living there, and all the cotton and the tobacco in Mississippi gets shipped down to big warehouses to be sold to merchants from New England and Europe. Your pappy's tobacco might go all the way to Boston, or even to France or Germany. It…"

The little body was limp against her now, his chest rising and falling slowly, and the hand curled in hers had gone soft with slumber. Mary slid her arm gently free, using it to cup the crown of his head as her other hand supported his shoulders and eased him down upon the pillows. Gabe stirred as she began to withdraw, his brows drawing briefly taut, but he slept on. Mary drew up the blankets, smoothing them with care and tucking them loosely about him so that he would not find himself trapped when next he awoke. She turned onto her hip and kissed his clammy brow, still hot with fever despite Doctor Whitehead's purgative. Gabe's own little lips, blushed deeply now that the coughing had abated, pursed briefly as if to blow her a kiss in return. His cheek nuzzled the pillow and his hand crept up towards it, thumb questing for his mouth. Mary reached to stay it as she had done countless times this year, but then she stopped. Poor little thing, he had had such a miserable day. Surely it could not hurt to let him have this one small comfort.

Bethel came back into the room so quietly that Mary did not hear her approach. She paused in the doorway, studying the tableau of mother and child with sad, tender eyes. Then she replaced the chamber pot in the corner, not tucking it under the washbasin where it belonged but leaving it instead where it might be most easily reached. She bent to straighten her own bedding, and then offered Mary her arm.

"You oughts to try an' sleep, Missus," she said. "You goin' wear youself out if'n you don'. I wish't you done had this here cough already. I thought you might, comin' from the city like you do. City childern, they mos' gen'ly get sick more'n country childern."

Something about this bit of social commentary tugged at Mary's tired brain as she gripped Bethel's wrist and slid down past Gabe's feet to climb off the bed. She stood, finally troubling to fasten the ties of her dressing gown. "I think I'll go downstairs for a while," she murmured. "It's nearly time for Cullen to come in from his watch; I could put on some fresh coffee."

Bethel shook her head. "Hot milk, that what he need. Ain' got no cinnamon lef', but a li'l pinch of nutmeg an' some vanilla be almos' as good. Teaspoon of sugar, too: don' give him no sorghum today." She smiled tiredly, almost nostalgically. "He goin' scold you fo' fussin', but it'd do him good to drink it. Keep up his strength."

Mary inclined her head. "That's just what I'll do. Will you be able to sleep? We ought to take it in turns to lie in here with him; then you could rest."

This prompted a snort of disdain. "Missus Mary, does you think I could sleep knowin' that baby might be suff'rin' where I cain't hear him? Don' you know this ol' nigger better 'n that? If you turned me out of here, I wouldn' sleep one wink, an' ev'y time he waked I'd be running up them stairs, an' me with my ol' hips! No ma'am. I's goin' stay right here where I can be near him. I loves that boy: his own gran'ma up in heaven couldn' love him no more'n I does. I'll ten' him fo' you, an' you go see what you can do fo' that blamed fool pappy of his."

Seized by a sudden impulse, Mary leaned in and hugged Bethel tightly. For a moment the lean body was rigid with surprise, but then Bethel softened into the embrace and moved tentative hands to Mary's back, reciprocating the gesture.

"I don't know how we would manage without you," Mary whispered. "You're the heart of this family, Bethel. You truly are."

"No'm," said Bethel, but there was a note of humble delight in her voice. "No'm, that Mist' Cullen: ain' he the one brung us all together? Go on, now. Don' you let that milk get scalded."

She slid out of the hug, and Mary flushed a little as she smoothed the ruffled front of her wrapper. She nodded, blinking very rapidly. "Thank you," she whispered, and retreated quickly from the nursery.

The parlor was dark, but she found what she wanted by feel, lying on the sofa cushion where she had dropped them on Tuesday evening. In the kitchen she lit the lamp and filled the large saucepan with water, putting it on to heat while she poured milk into the smallest one and mixed in sugar, vanilla and a few grains of nutmeg. She settled the little pan inside the bigger one and then picked up Jeremiah's letter written from Philadelphia.

It was much as she had expected it to be when Cullen had brought it to her: his thanks for their hospitality, an account of their northward journey, and greetings from his wife and daughter. Mary skimmed all this absently, but stopped at the last line before her brother's signature.

_We had intended to remain a Week with Frances's Family, _it read; _but Missy is afflicted with a Cold in the Chest and we wish to depart for Home immediately. I shall write again when we are comfortably in Bangor. Your fondest Brother, Jeremiah._

Heart in her throat, Mary dropped the letter and reached for its mate. She broke the seal carelessly, her thumbnail crumbling it into small pieces that spilled upon the floor as she unfolded the paper. The sheet was not one-third full of writing: an extravagant waste that was so unlike Jeremiah as to fill her with dread even before she could bring the words into focus. Breathless, she read:

_Dearest Mary Beth,_

_We have arrived Home, and our Travel was without Incident, but our Darling Missy is grievously ill. The Physicians believe it to be Whooping Cough, and are attending her with all Due Care. They assure us that at her Age it is seldom fatal, but in younger Children the Disease is exceedingly dangerous. I beg you, Mary, if your dear Little Son should show any signs of Sickness, seek help from a Qualified Practitioner of Medicine at once._

_It is a Consolation to me, Sweet Sister, that you have already survived this Dread Disease, for the Doctors say it is seldom contracted but once. My fear is for your Son, and I pray most heartily that he shall be spared this Plague. I remember well how you suffered, being but two years old at the time, and your Joshua Gabriel is but three. My Dear Mary Beth, if he does fall ill know that we will pray for him most earnestly. If you have need of Money for Medicines or Anything Else in this time of Tribulation, you have only to ask. Send a Telegram at my expense, and I shall wire you a Draft for any Monies required._

_May your House be spared from Sickness._

_Tenderly,  
>Jeremiah<em>

Mary's hand shook so that the paper fluttered noisily. She screwed her eyes closed, but the dreadful words were burned upon the backs of her lids. _Darling Missy is grievously ill… in younger Children the Disease is exceedingly dangerous… your Gabriel is but three…_

"Nearly four," she whispered, trying to convince herself and so beat back the floodtide of terror. "He's nearly four."

The letter fell from her hand, fluttering to the floor between her bedshoes. Her hand clutched her throat, the other one pressed to her belly where it churned with nausea. She had no means of knowing how her niece fared, or even if she were alive or dead. She was not certain she wanted to know, for if Missy did die, how could she find any hope at all for Gabe?

"Bethel?" The creak of the door was accompanied by a puzzled voice. "You ain't waiting up for me, are you? Has he taken a turn? Is everything – Mary!"

The sound of her husband's voice brought her out of her reverie on the very brink of panic. She turned, eyes suddenly wide, to find Cullen hastily closing the door. In the speechless span of time in which they stood looking at one another, she saw that his clothes, though caked with flaking clods of drying mud, were no longer soaked, but that his face was very pale. The shadows under his eyes stood out in sharp contrast, and his backbone was curled with weariness. He was watching her warily, clearly fighting his own fear.

"What is it?" he asked, coming quickly towards her without stopping to remove his dirty boots. Dirt and dust fell from them as he walked, but the heat of the tobacco barn had parched the vigor out of the mud. He clutched her arms with strong hands still stained with picking, and shook her once, a bracing little jolt. "Our boy? Is he…"

"Sleeping," she said hastily, realizing the terror her dazed expression had awakened in him. "He's sleeping, Cullen. He's peaceful. He had another fit just now, but it passed. He's – just the same."

She had nearly said _he's all right_, but of course that was not true. He was as well as might be expected in the circumstances, but he was still dangerously ill and might awaken in torment at any moment. But her words were enough. The panic left Cullen's eyes and his grip upon her elbows became a gentle caress.

"Thank God," he whispered earnestly. He tilted his head, studying her face. "What're you doing down here at this hour?"

"I was already awake," she said softly. "I thought you might want something to warm you." Suddenly she remembered the milk and slipped from his grasp, snatching up the teaspoon and reaching for the saucepan. A film had just begun to form on the pale, frothy fluid, and she skimmed it off before stirring gently. The bottom of the vessel was hard and unyielding: the milk had not burned. "It was such a cold day," she murmured. "Such a very cold day to be out in the mud."

Cullen made a low sound, a haunted memory of his usual wry chuckle. "This from a woman who grew up in the land of the five-month winter," he said. He came up behind her and wrapped an arm about her waist, resting his chin upon her shoulder. "It weren't so bad, angel. We managed all right."

She shook her head, feeling the heat of his breath on her cheek. "You looked chilled to the bone," she said. "Doctor Whitehead saw it."

"I weren't cold so much as tired," confessed Cullen. "Always seems harder to stay warm when you ain't had no sleep."

"Take off your boots and wash your hands," Mary instructed, stirring the milk again. "This will be ready in a minute."

"Hot milk?" Cullen asked, dragging himself away from the slender support of her body and shuffling towards the bootjack. "I thought we was plumb out of cinnamon."

"I used nutmeg and vanilla," said Mary. "And a little of the store sugar."

This time he truly did chuckle, if only a little. The sound quieted some aching corner of her heart. "Château d'Yquem last night, store sugar today," he said. "Ain't we livin' high?"

He wiped his hands, blotted his face and went to the dish dresser to fetch two of the china teacups. Mary took the saucepans from the stove and poured the creamy mixture. There was just enough to fill each cup, and she used the water from the larger pan to rinse the smaller. Cullen curled his hand around his vessel, and drank. He closed his eyes and sighed softly.

"You fixed it up just right," he said. "Warms me right through."

"I thought you said you weren't cold," Mary teased tenderly. She sipped from her own cup. The drink was sweet and hot and comforting.

"Maybe I exaggerated a little." Cullen tried to shrug, but aborted the gesture halfway, the muscles to the right of his nose twitching as he restrained a grimace of discomfort. "The clouds is still low," he said.

"Does that mean more rain tomorrow?" Mary asked, offering a silent prayer of thanks that tomorrow was the Sabbath and there would be no labor in the fields.

"Maybe," said Cullen. "The main thing is that while the clouds is low we ain't got to worry about frost. Not unless it gets a heck of a lot colder, anyhow."

"Oh, I am glad!" Mary said earnestly. The last thing on earth they needed was a frost now.

"Yeah." Cullen moved as though to walk to the table, but his foot came down with a _crunch_. Puzzled, he bent, and came up with Jeremiah's letter in his hand. "What's this?"

"Oh, it's nothing…" Mary reached for it hastily. She did not want him to see those cheerless words. She cursed herself for a fool: he never read her letters in the ordinary way of things, but to find one thrust under his very feet was too much for his curiosity. "Cullen, give it back to me."

He twisted, blocking her with one shoulder while the other arm held the letter out of reach. There was a furrow between his eyebrows as he read. It did not take him long: he was, after all, an educated and highly literate man. Then his elbow descended heavily to his side and he looked at her. A bevy of desperate platitudes warred with one another, vying to be the first to break free from her lips and so to blunt the brutal hopelessness of Jeremiah's missive. But Cullen's eyes were soft, and a tiny smile appeared inexplicably on his lips.

"You've had it?" he sighed, tossing the letter on the table and reaching to caress the side of her face. His fingertips buried in her hair and his thumb stroked her cheek. "He says you've had it."

"Yes, he says," Mary parroted bewilderedly. "But he was only a boy; he would hardly know for sure—"

"He was sixteen when you was two," said Cullen; "and his daughter's got it now. He'd know. He'd recognize the sound. As long as I live now, I ain't never going to forget that sound. Will you?"

"No," she admitted.

Cullen's eyes closed and his whole body heaved with an exhalation of relief. "You've had it, and folks don't generally get it more than once. D'you see what this means?" He looked at her again, love and wonder in his eyes. "You ain't going to catch it. You're safe."

"Yes, but…" But what did it matter? Whooping cough was not a real danger to adults anyhow, unless they happened to come down with pneumonia to go with it: Doctor Whitehead had said as much. It was Gabe who was at risk, Gabe who would suffer, Gabe who might yet die…

"And you were two," said Cullen softly, pensively. "Bethel was eight, but you were two. You were two, and _you_ survived it. Don't you see, Mary? That boy upstairs, he's half you. Maybe he got the strong half. Maybe he can make it through, too, if his mama did when she was only half his age."

Mary looked up at him, struck with awe. This had not even occurred to her. It was surely too much to hope for, but it was a morsel of comfort. A generous morsel, when she would have been content for only a crumb. "Do you think it might be possible?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't it be?" said Cullen. "Doc already said he got a good chance: surely this only makes it better. Strong people make strong children: everybody knows that. Now I find out even as a little baby you was strong."

He kissed her, his damp whiskers tickling her cheek and the taste of vanilla upon his lips. Then he drained his cup and slipped his arm around her waist again. "C'mon," he said. "Let's get to bed while we has the chance. Maybe we can even sleep a bit, now we got this to cheer us."

She hurriedly emptied her cup and set it beside his while Cullen reached to snuff the lamp. Twined together they moved through the darkened rooms and ascended the stairs. Without word or sign they stopped at the nursery door. In the faint glow of the low kerosene flame, Gabe was lying sprawled on his stomach, having rolled over in his sleep. On the pallet on the floor Bethel lay curled in towards the narrow bed above her. Silvery curls spilled over her pillowslip, and her aged face was peaceful. Mary leaned into her husband's embrace, and Cullen squeezed her gently as he drew her on towards their room.

"Hellfire, it's cold in here!" he whispered as he dropped his trousers. He hurriedly dragged his nightshirt over his head before peeling off his muddied drawers, shifting from foot to foot on the chilled floorboards and scuttling as swiftly as he could to the island of his rug. "I told you: have Bethel lay a fire if you want one."

"I'm perfectly capable of laying a fire myself," Mary said in quiet reply. With the bedroom doors open they had to speak very softly to avoid disturbing the sleepers in the nursery. She removed her dressing gown, draping it over the little table again, and sat on the edge of the bed to slip out of her soft shoes. Everything was ready for the next hasty awakening. She buried herself beneath the blankets, turning onto her left side so that she curled towards the middle of the bed. Cullen tugged up the bedclothes on his side and slid in close to her, shivering.

"Why didn't you, then?" he asked as he reached for her hip and drew her nearer. The heat of his body warmed her though the sheets were still cold.

"We need the wood for the heater in Gabe's room," Mary murmured sleepily, tucking her head against his strong shoulder. The coverlet slipped over her cheek so that only her eyes and brow were above its cocoon.

"So?" said Cullen. "We got plenty of wood."

"No, we don't," she said. She was so near to the blessed release of slumber that she was no longer considering her words, but merely speaking her thoughts as they floated to the surface.

Cullen grew tense against the mattress, and the support beside Mary's temple was lost as he pushed himself up on one elbow, letting in a serpentine draft of cold air. "What d'you mean?" he said. "There was two cords laid up."

"Yes, six weeks ago," Mary said. She was awake again, but still not thinking. She was only reacting out of irritation at his naïve protest. "We've got less than a week's supply left, and keeping the kitchen stove hot and the little one burning all night it might not last that long."

"_Shit_," Cullen muttered. He rolled onto his back, landing heavily against the pillow so that the ropes beneath him squeaked. His left arm wormed its way out of the shelter of the bedclothes to clutch at his hair. Mary heard the soft flutter of his eyelashes as he blinked thrice in rapid succession. Then he sighed resignedly and slid his hand back under the blankets, tugging them high beneath his chin. "I'll just have to go out and get more, then," he said doggedly. "I should be able to bring in a good half-cord tomorrow."

Now Mary realized what she had said and knew she ought not to have said it. They needed wood, yes, but she might have waited until Monday to broach the subject. She had hoped he might pass his Sunday playing quietly with Gabe, husbanding his strength, and perhaps even indulging in a nap or two to recover some of the sleep he had lost.

"Oh, Cullen, not on your day of rest," she pleaded miserably.

"A farmer don't get no day of rest," he said sourly. "Not at harvest time. First thing Monday I got to be back in them yams. Ain't no other time to do it."

It was useless to argue with him, and it would only squander their precious hours of sleep to try. Mary reached in the darkness to stroke his beard with the backs of her fingers, drawing him towards her again. "At least you can sleep now," she whispered.

"Yeah," he murmured, rolling in and resting his forearm over the crest of her hip. "I can sleep now."

From the nursery came a sharp hitch of breath and a cacophonous, rattling cough.


	54. Misplaced Guilt

**Chapter Fifty-Four: Misplaced Guilt**

With Gabe fast asleep in the wake of his latest coughing jag, Mary dared to slip out of the nursery and down to the dining room. She left the door wide, knowing by now that she would hear him if he woke coughing no matter where in the house she was. The first bright lances of sunlight spilled through the windows, glittering in the all-but-full decanter of white wine on the sideboard and sending little rainbows to dance on the wall and floor. Mary stopped at the edge of the carpet, reaching to adjust a hairpin thrust carelessly into her knot so that it dug at her scalp. She had been fixing her tresses for the day when the coughing had begun.

The stove-lid rattled, and drew her on into the kitchen. Bethel was setting down the frying pan, a spoonful of lard already beginning to melt with the heat of the stove. She smiled wearily at Mary. "He awright?" she asked.

"Sleeping," Mary murmured. She fetched a cup from the dish dresser and filled it from the coffee pot. From the pitcher by the window she poured a dollop of rich cream, and then stirred in a half-spoonful of sugar. She was not much enamored of coffee and did not ordinarily imbibe, but she needed something to wake her up and take away the chill of the early morning. Cullen was already at the table, one hand curled around his own mug and the other propping up his cheek, its elbow braced on the board. His eyes were filmed with weariness and rimmed with red. Gabe had awakened them no less than six times between their first attempt to lie down together and this last episode.

Mary slid onto the bench beside her husband, sipping warily at the hot fluid and reaching to touch Cullen's forearm. He was dressed for laboring in his coarse trousers with the patched knees and one of the shabby, tobacco-stained shirts. He had not bothered with the top three buttons, and the fraying collar of his undergarment showed, gray with age despite careful laundering. Glancing under the table Mary could see his tired old boots, the leather stiff and dusty after yesterday's thorough soaking. At least the clouds had parted a little. Perhaps it would not rain today.

"We could wait," she said softly. "We have enough for a few days yet."

"Naw," Cullen sighed, his voice rasping in his throat. "Wood needs time to cure before it'll burn clean."

Mary succumbed to the temptation to rest her temple against his shoulder, her aching head eased by the motion. "I wish I hadn't mentioned it," she whispered.

"Hey." He raised his own head and twisted, obliging her to sit straight and to look at him. "Don't you talk like that," he said, almost sternly. "You need wood or anything else, you tell me, understand? I know I ain't much 'round the house, but it's still my place to provide what's wanting. Don't you think you got to coddle me." She nodded obediently, and he sighed, scrubbing at his somewhat overgrown beard. "I don't know why it didn't occur to me to check the woodpile. I only pass it four or five times a day."

"Usually in the dark," Bethel said archly as she spooned butter generously into the pot of grits. "You's doin' too much work for one man."

"I ain't doing no more than anyone else," said Cullen.

"That so?" asked Bethel, turning from the stove with a wooden spoon in one hand and the other fist on her hip. "Is you goin' get Nate down there choppin' with you?"

Cullen fixed her with an obdurate eye. "That ain't none of your business," he said, squaring his shoulders.

Bethel's chin thrust out combatively and she opened her mouth to speak, but an unexpected sound cut her off. Mary's first instinct was to bolt to her feet, for now any sudden noise seemed to her to be the first intimation of a cough. But then she realized that though the sound came through the dining room it did not originate in the nursery. Someone was knocking on the front door.

She glanced at Cullen, who was frowning in puzzlement. "Now who could that be at this hour?" he asked. His feet shifted as he tried to get them under him, but Mary put a staying hand upon his arm.

"No, let me go," she said. "You sit and rest just as long as you can. Bethel?" She spread her arms as she rose, in a questioning gesture every woman understood.

"Go on, honey: you looks jus' lovely," the old lady said. "If you needs us, jus' you call: we'll be there in a blink."

Mary pattered swiftly through the dining room. Her hand trembled as she reached for the door-handle. What but calamity would come visiting at dawn on a Sunday?

It was Doctor Whitehead, hat in hand and a small, kind smile upon his face.

"Good morning, Miss Mary," he said cordially. "May I come in?"

"Well, yes!" she breathed, flabbergasted but not entirely forgetful of her duties as a hostess. She stepped back with inbred grace and held the door so he might enter. He had his black leather satchel in his hand, and looking out into the yard she saw Castor tethered to the gatepost. "What are you… I mean to say I thought you were coming by on Monday."

"I am," said Doctor Whitehead. At her befuddled look he grinned, as if he understood her momentary fear that she had in her exhaustion somehow misplaced an entire day. "That is to say, I intend to. But I was in the neighborhood and felt I might as well stop in and see how your boy is getting on."

"Oh." In spite of herself, Mary felt a flush of relief as she closed the door against the dewy cold. "He's sleeping just at the moment, I'm afraid."

Now it was the physician who looked reassured. "That _is_ good news!" he said. "Has he slept through the night?"

"No," Mary confessed. "Not in the least, I'm afraid. He woke… let me see now, it must have been nine or ten times in all, coughing each time. Oh, Doctor, how much longer must he suffer like this?"

His eyes grew grave. "Miss Mary, we must be grateful that he is able to suffer," he said. "Whooping cough is a cruel sickness, but there's only one thing that's ever been found to cut it short."

Her throat closed upon her terror. "Of course," she whispered. "Of course."

"Doc?" Cullen was leaning on the post of the dining room door, frowning in puzzlement at the visitor. "You ain't expected until Monday."

"I was in the neighborhood," the doctor said. "Another midnight summons, I'm afraid. As I've just concluded doing what I can, I thought I would look in before I ride back to town. I wanted to ask how my patient is faring on his new regimen."

Cullen looked at Mary, prompting her to speak. "He isn't uncomfortable," she answered. "He last passed a motion about three hours ago, after he coughed. It was three hours, wasn't it?" Cullen nodded, hypnotic with fatigue. "It came on quite suddenly, but Bethel was prepared."

"Mmm. What about the consistency?" asked Doctor Whitehead. "Soft? Fluid? Grainy?"

"Like water," said Mary. "He hadn't much left in him: it was his fourth since we started dosing him."

"Good. That's good," said the older man, nodding in quiet approval. "What about the fever?"

"It was just the same when I left him," she answered. "That was only a few minutes ago."

"It don't seem to be doing much," said Cullen pointedly. "Apart from giving him one more worry."

There was a gleam of challenge in his eye that Mary did not like. She knew how short his temper could be, particularly when he was exhausted. After the all-but-sleepless night he might very well be spoiling for a fight, and she could not let him tear in to their dear friend and benefactor. "Won't you come and sit down, Doctor?" she asked pleasantly. "Bethel is just laying on breakfast: you must join us."

"Oh, no, I didn't come to press myself on your hospitality, ma'am," Doctor Whitehead said. "I just wanted to have a quick look at little Gabe."

"I'm sure he'll wake soon," said Mary. Privately she believed he would sleep until the cruel cough roused him again, but if the night was any indication that would not take long. She wanted the man's reassurance that her child was no worse, for she feared that he was. "Please eat with us."

"Yes, Doc, you got to," said Cullen. The brooding irritation was gone and though his expression was mild his eyes were imploring. "Please, c'mon and sit down. The coffee's good this morning."

The doctor looked from one pale, earnest face to the other, and relented. "All right, then," he said. "That would be most kind. I've been up pretty near six hours already, and I have to say a hot breakfast would go down a treat."

Cullen stepped forward to take the man's hat, and the doctor set down his back before shucking his overcoat. Then Mary took his arm and led him into the dining room, happy that it was in good order and looked so cheerful in the early sunlight. Cullen followed them, and Doc pulled out Mary's chair so she could sit. She hesitated, knowing that it was her place to retreat into the kitchen to give Bethel instructions, but Cullen nodded to her and disappeared through the far door. Mary sat, and the doctor did the same.

"I'm sorry to hear you've had a hard night," he said. "It may be the first of many, I'm afraid. Has anyone else show signs of sickness?"

"Not that I've noticed," said Mary. "I've… I've had a letter from my brother in Maine. It seems his little girl is ill also. He mentioned…" She cleared her throat, unsure quite whether to broach the subject, but longing for reassurance. "He mentioned that I fell prey to it myself when I was two years of age. Obviously I made a full recovery."

Doctor Whitehead reached to grasp her hand where it lay upon the tablecloth. "Oh, Miss Mary, I'm happy to know it!" he breathed. "That is good news! No, you needn't fear of contracting it again: it scarcely ever afflicts the same patient twice. I had wondered if you might have had it, growing up in such a large city. I can give you my firm assurance that you will be safe."

"Thank you," said Mary. "But what I really wanted to know is… is whether that might in any way improve my son's chances of – of getting well." She could not quite bring herself to say _of survival_: the words were simply too stark. "I mean, Cullen thought perhaps that if I had come through it at half his age, perhaps that meant…"

"That your boy might be better equipped to do the same," the doctor said gently. Mary nodded, not daring to take her eyes from his face. He patted her hand fondly. "There's every chance," he said. "After all, there's a piece of you in that boy, and you're as strong a lady as it's ever been my honor to know. Yes, yes I think that we can take hope from that, Miss Mary. We certainly can."

She almost wanted to weep with gratitude at this affirmation of her desperate hope. "Thank you," she whispered again, tears prickling in the corners of her eyes. She blinked them away and smiled. "Thank you."

"I am sorry to hear about your niece," Doctor Whitehead said. "How old is she?"

"Seven," said Mary. "She'll be eight in the spring."

"Oh, then she has a good chance herself." Suddenly he looked very weary, and Mary was about to ask what was on his mind when Cullen came back, carrying the seldom-used silver coffee service on a tray.

"How do you like it, Doc?" he asked, setting down his burden and sliding into his chair with a studied grace that belied his weariness.

"Hot and sweet," said the doctor. He inhaled deeply. "That smells heavenly, Miss Mary."

"It's Bethel's talent, not mine," she said as she poured. She tipped a generous helping of sugar into the cup and set it before her guest, then set about preparing some for Cullen.

"No sugar in mine, Mary, thank you," he said.

She glanced at him questioningly. He took his coffee sweetened: he always had. His eyebrows lifted in a wordless plea, and she forced a small, ethereal laugh. "Of course not: where is my head this morning?" she said, setting the dark brew before him.

"Still dreaming," said Cullen. "Doc, did she tell you we was up half a dozen times last night because our boy was coughing? Is that…"

"It's to be expected, I'm afraid," the other man said. "It will get worse before it gets better."

"The doctor thinks you're right, Cullen," Mary ventured. "That there's hope because I came through it."

Cullen let out a heavy breath, the corners of his eyes relaxing visibly. "That's good to hear, Doc," he said. He took a slug of his coffee as if it were whiskey, disguising a grimace by shifting in his chair. "So what dragged you out of bed this time? Mrs. Sutcliffe's taken a turn, I s'pose?"

"No, son, not that I'm aware," said Doctor Whitehead. He swirled the fluid in his cup, staring into it as he sighed. "I was at West Willows. Young Miss Charity's ill."

"That's a shame," Cullen said absently, but Mary's blood ran cold.

"Oh, Doctor, no!" she gasped. What else could it possibly be, grave enough to bring the doctor out in the middle of the night?

Doctor Whitehead nodded. He looked to have aged ten years. "I'm afraid so," he said. "Whooping cough, serious enough for her father to send for me. Charlie's got a bad cold, which comes first, and Daisy's showing early signs. All I can do is pray the baby don't get it, but I can't see how she'll possibly escape."

"Damnation," muttered Cullen, setting down his cup so the saucer rattled. He glared down at his hands. "I'm damned sorry to know that, Doc."

"It's to be expected," the physician said wearily. "Once one child falls ill, it tends to spread: first to the next house, then all 'round the county. A fortnight from now half the children in the area will be sick with it."

Mary thought of ebullient little Lucy, bouncing on her knee and chortling happily. She was only nine months old. "Oh, Doctor, is there nothing you can do to protect the baby?" she asked.

"Miss Verbena could try to take her to stay with relations," said Whitehead; "but I'm afraid it's almost certainly too late. With three of her siblings sickening already it's only a matter of time."

Cullen pushed back his chair and got to his feet. "I'm going over there," he said. "Boyd's got to know that if there's anything I can do, any way I can help, all he needs to do is ask."

Doctor Whitehead reached up and caught his wrist, holding him fast so that he could not march out of the room. "He said I should tell you the same thing, son," he sighed. "He knows it goes both ways. Sit down. They ain't slept much over there; I shouldn't wonder if Boyd was back in bed. Best way you can help is leave 'em in peace today and eat your breakfast."

For a moment Cullen looked torn between skepticism and indignation, but then he jerked his head in grudging assent and sat. "Damnation," he mumbled again.

Bethel came from the kitchen with laden plates. She had done wonders on very short notice to enrich the simple meal. With the hominy and hotcakes there were two fried eggs apiece, and hastily blanched greens seasoned with pepper and fennel. She returned swiftly with a platter piled high with biscuits and a fresh pat of butter, then again with dishes of the good preserves: strawberry, blackberry and peach to choose from. Finally she brought out the china boat half-filled with red-eye gravy. How she had managed this without meat Mary could not guess, and was too conscious of propriety to ask in front of company. She poured tall glasses of deliciously cold milk as Bethel circumspectly left the room by the front door. Moments later her quiet footsteps sounded on the stairs.

"This is a treat," Doctor Whitehead said graciously, pouring gravy over his grits and tucking in with relish. "I confess I wasn't looking forward to the hungry ride home."

"Least we could do," Cullen said, shifting a little uncomfortably as he passed the dish to Mary. His eyes lingered covetously over the half-forgotten garnish, and she helped herself hurriedly so that he might have his turn. "You been good to us. At least treating Boyd's children you'll get your fees."

The fork was set down with a snap. "This again? Cullen, I told you: this ain't the time to think about money. Nothing is more important that getting that boy well again. It don't weigh on my mind none; why's it weighing on yours?"

"'Cause I'm the one's beholden," said Cullen flatly. "It might please you to overlook it, Doc, but I can't."

"I know, son," said the doctor softly. "Every man's got his pride. I just don't want you tormenting yourself. The money don't matter. I tend plenty of folks who can't pay at all: it ain't no hardship for me to wait a while 'til things is easier 'round here."

Mary chewed quietly on a bite of collards, but the crisp, savory vegetable was like ash in her mouth. Cullen was staring down at his plate, refusing to meet the doctor's gaze, but in doing so he was turned slightly towards her and she could see the torment and humiliation in his eyes. He took such pride in his independence, in his ability to provide for his family whatever the cost to himself. The existing debt was a sore enough blow, but the knowledge that he must go on accepting the other man's grace visit after visit was crippling.

"Doc…" he murmured, chasing a scrap of feathery egg-white around his plate. The older man reached and gripped his shoulder, and Cullen sighed softly.

The heavy thump of small boots rang on the stairs, and a moment latter Gabe came trundling into the room, tugging upon his lower lip. Mary pushed back her chair a little and patted her lap. "Good morning, sweetheart," she said cheerfully. "Did Bethel wake you?"

"He waked hisself, Missus Bohannon," Bethel said formally, standing respectfully in the doorway. "Say he smell't him some breakfas'."

"I's hungry, Mama," Gabe announced, climbing into Mary's lap and examining the contents of her plate. He reached for her biscuit and took a large bite, chewing ponderously as he looked at Doctor Whitehead.

"How are you feeling this morning, son?" asked the doctor, releasing his hold on Cullen and turning his attention back to his own meal.

Bethel was watching Mary, waiting for permission to leave the room. No doubt she wanted to go back upstairs and finish the chores she had gone to perform before her little master had interrupted her. Mary nodded and Bethel withdrew. Gabe was reaching for her fork now, and she handed it to him so that he could help himself to the hominy and gravy.

"I's feelin' hungry," he said matter-of-factly. "How's you feelin'?"

"About the same," Doc chuckled. "I hear you had a rough night."

Gabe shrugged one shoulder, munching contentedly. Cullen had resumed his eating, more hurriedly now. Mary tugged the front of her son's waistcoat to straighten it, and adjusted his position on her lap. Finished with the fork, Gabe handed it back to her and helped himself to a spoonful of peach preserves, which he smeared liberally on the biscuit. Before any other guest such a performance would have been contrary to etiquette, but somehow such things did not seem to matter so much before dear Doctor Whitehead.

"You come to see me?" asked Gabe.

"Why, yes I did," said the doctor. "Ain't you a clever little fella."

"T'ank you," said Gabe. He finished the biscuit and licked his fingertips, then planted his hands in his lap and looked avidly at the others steaming fragrantly on the platter. Doctor Whitehead raised his eyebrows at Mary, smiling indulgently.

"Would you like another biscuit, lovey?" Mary asked.

Gabe gasped as if he could not understand how she had read his mind. "Yes, please!" he said, reaching to intercept her hand as she brought one to him. Then he looked at his father's plate, at his downcast eyes, and at the warm roll in his hand. He reached over, stretching so that he could set it down on the rim of Cullen's dish. "You may have my biscuit, Pappy."

Cullen looked up in surprise, and the harried lines of shame and worry vanished in a sudden, earnest smile. "That's mighty kind, son," he said. "Thank you."

Gabe beamed with pride, watching delightedly as his father broke the top off the biscuit and spread it with the golden butter. Mary took another and gave it to the child, who set about studiously doing the same. She scooped the butter for him, but allowed him to apply it himself. He mumbled a belated "T'ank you!" around the first mouthful.

Cullen's melancholy seemed dispelled, or at least interrupted, by his child's gesture, and he made pleasant and insignificant conversation with his old friend as he finished his meal. But as soon as the last of the gravy was sopped up and the last morsel of biscuit eaten, he rose, blotting his lips with his napkin and nodding a half-bow to Mary. "I got to get to work," he said. "Thanks for looking in, Doc. I do… I honestly do appreciate it. More'n I can say."

"Work? On a Sunday?" Bushy brows knit together. "Cullen, you got to slow down. You'll run yourself into the ground."

"You sound like Bethel," Cullen snorted. "Wood needs cutting, Doc. The trees ain't just going to uproot themselves and lie down on the woodpile."

"Bethel's a wise woman," said Doctor Whitehead. "It'd do you no harm to listen to her for a change."

"If I'd listened to her yesterday, I wouldn't have let you dose my boy," Cullen said good-naturedly. "Bethel don't know everything." He reached down and tousled Gabe's hair. "You be a good boy, now, and mind your mama. Maybe you'll let her have a nap with you today, hmm?"

"Awright," Gabe agreed. He frowned. "Why you gots to go?"

Cullen snorted and bent to kiss the child's brow. "So many questions," he said, then strode out into the kitchen. A moment later the back door swung closed.

Mary tried to smile placidly as the doctor looked towards her. He did not seem to know what to say, but the worry in his eyes was plain. The awkward silence did not endure long, however. Gabe had been lifting the bottom piece of his biscuit to his mouth, and snatched it hastily away from his teeth. He stiffened on Mary's lap, clutching a handful of the table linen as his eyes grew wide. His breath hitched shallowly and came out in a small, hoarse little cough that presaged a flood of wheezing misery.

_*discidium*_

It was with sore shoulders and a heavy heart that Cullen returned to the house that evening. The stock had been tended and bedded down for the night, even the two mules he wanted to shoot, disembowel, and leave out for the crows. The team had been, to say the least, uncooperative. Having developed the habit of idleness during the long weeks of tobacco-picking, they had not been inclined to bend their backs to the day's labors. They had been content enough to pull the empty buckboard down into the creek-bottom, but when he attempted to drive them out again they had balked. The heavy load represented a full day's backbreaking toil, and bereft of sleep as he was Cullen's patience had been thin to begin with. The more emphatically he tried to move them and the angrier he grew, the more obdurate they became until what should have been a ten-minute journey to the dooryard stretched to almost forty. And after all that the logs still had to be unloaded and piled. There had been no time to split them, and he was not mad enough to try it in the dark. He would have to take time in the morning to chop a few down to useable size.

It was Mary, not Bethel, who was waiting in the kitchen with his supper. One look at her gray-hued face told him that he was not the only one who had had a wretched day. Though she smiled prettily for him and had nothing but gentle words to say as she led him to sit, carried away his boots, and laid the meal before him, he could see how careworn and exhausted she was. She moved like a sleepwalker, her beautiful blue eyes red and bloodshot. He scarcely dared to ask how his son was faring, but the fact she was not at his side could only mean the situation was not desperate.

"I need you to go upstairs and speak to Gabe," she said at last, when he had cleaned his plate and drained his cup. "He's had a hard day."

"What happened?" Cullen said. "He looked fine this morning."

"He was," she said. "He had another fit just after you left, and brought up his breakfast. Doctor Whitehead was very sweet: he held his head himself, and comforted him wonderfully. After he left we went upstairs to lie down. I thought perhaps we could both sleep a little…" She sighed. "The moment his head hit the pillow he was coughing again. All day, whenever he tried to lie down. Cullen, I don't see how we can possibly keep this up."

He caught her wrist and drew her to him, pushing the bench back from the table so that he could draw her down beside him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. With a palm roughened with fresh axe-handle blisters, he pressed her head against his shoulder and felt her lean upon him.

"We'll figure it out," he murmured, wishing he could believe it. They were both exhausted, and Bethel was, too. He might have suggested they take it in shifts to get up with Gabe in the night, but he knew he'd never be able to sleep through a fit himself and didn't suppose it would be any different for the women. They all knew that whatever the doctor said about hope, there was still a real possibility, even a probability, that one night the child might stop breathing altogether.

"You need to speak to him," said Mary. "There was… this afternoon…" She shook her head wretchedly. "He soiled himself, Cullen. It happened while he was coughing. Poor little love, he couldn't help it: he'd just had a dose of the purgative, and the fit was a bad one. When he came out of it he started sobbing, and I thought at first he was only frightened. Bethel cleaned him up and gave him a bath, but he was so mortified! He's hardly spoken to either of us since, and he won't even look at me."

Cullen closed his eyes. Gabe had not had such a mishap in a year and a half, and never since he had been breeched. Cullen could only imagine the humiliation of a child old enough to feel shame and too young to understand that it wasn't his fault: that the medicine was to blame and it couldn't be helped. "What d'you think I can say to him?" he asked miserably.

"I don't know." Mary's voice was small and tremulous. She pressed her palm to the front of his shirt, damp with sweat though it was. He was grateful that he had not been down in the mud today; at least he could hold her. "You must say something. He refused to eat any supper: he said it would only come back out again. If he doesn't eat, he'll never get well."

He hugged her tightly for a moment and then gently sat her up. "I'll see what I can do," he promised. "You got some food for me to take up to him?"

"Biscuits from breakfast," said Mary. "And apple butter and a boiled egg. If there's something else he wants, anything, I'll make it for him. Only he must eat, Cullen."

"Sure. I know." He got to his feet with an involuntary grunt, and picked up the plate his wife had indicated. He tried to smile, but his soul and his mouth were both too tired. "Don't come up just yet: best keep this between men."

She nodded. "It has to be," she said. "I've tried everything I know to."

He moved through the empty dining room and up the dark stairs. The light from the nursery was bright, and he came in to find Bethel sitting in the old armchair with her head in her hands. The sight of her so strained and defeated was more frightening than anything else. It must have been a terrible day indeed.

Cullen looked to the bed, but though the covers were drawn back Gabe was not there. For a moment he could not find him, and then he realized the little boy was sitting on the floor between the cast-iron heater and the chamber pot. His knees were drawn up to his chest, and his nightshirt pulled down over them so that his bare toes stuck out. His plump little face was pinched and pained, and his gray eyes were mournful. Cullen forced his lips into an unsteady approximation of a smile.

"Evening, son," he said. "Looks like you ain't had such a good day. Mama sent you up a little something to eat before bed."

"I don' wan' it," Gabe said sternly.

Bethel, who had raised her head at the sound of Cullen's voice, turned her sorrowful expression on the child. "Honey, you gots to eat," she pleaded.

"No!" cried Gabe, stamping one foot. The threads of his nightshirt creaked. "No! I don' wan' it! It jus' goin' come out again! It goin' make me sick, or it goin' make a mess!"

"Here, now, don't you speak to Bethel like that," Cullen said, calm but reproachful. "You got to mind your manners. Just say 'No, thank you, Bethel', and leave it at that."

"No, t'ank you, Bet'l," Gabe repeated meekly, chastised and clearly repentant. It was so unlike him to take such a tone with anyone: only illness and exhaustion made him quarrelsome.

"That's better," said Cullen. He moved and set the plate on the clothes press, and offered his hand to the aging slave. Bethel took it and stood with some effort. Cullen squeezed her fingers while his other palm patted her shoulder. "Thank you, Bethel," he said. "I think maybe I ought to have a little word with Gabe. Private-like. You go on downstairs and rest a bit. It's been a long day."

"Yassir," she exhaled, shaking her head. "Yassir, Mist' Cullen, it surely has been that."

She gripped his hand for a moment, and then left the room, pausing on the threshold with a question in her eyes. He nodded, and she drew the door closed. The hinges creaked crossly.

Left alone with his son, Cullen moved to crouch before the child. His hams stretched, protesting, but he raised one heel and rested his tailbone on it, dropping the knee to the ground. This helped somewhat, and gave him the vantage point to meet the boy's eyes with ease while still maintaining the authority of a higher altitude.

"Now, why don't you tell me what this is all about?" he asked. It did not matter that he had the story from Mary: he had to get it from Gabe. Not only would it do the boy good to speak his piece, but in doing so he might give Cullen some hint as to what he found most distressing in the unhappy situation.

"I ain't hungry," Gabe said. His cheeks were still flushed with bright fever-spots, and his eyes were glazed with fatigue. His little hands trembled as he took fistfuls of his nightshirt and tugged them.

"You ain't et since dinnertime," said Cullen. "Even when I ain't sick, I get hungry 'round three or four o'clock."

Gabe scrutinized his face and found nothing there but gentle concern. "Maybe I's a li'l hungry," he conceded. Then his eyes blazed defiantly. "But I ain't goin' eat!"

"Why not, son?" Cullen pressed as kindly and sympathetically as he knew how.

The boy's lower lip trembled. "Don' know," he stammered, faltering.

"Don't you?" asked Cullen.

Suddenly Gabe burst into tears, tucking his elbows close by his side and turning up his palms to bury his face in them. His shoulders shook with sobs. "I m-maked a mess, Pappy!" he wailed. "Jus' like a li'l baby! I maked a _mess_! In my _pants_! Bet'l had to wash me, an' she goin' have to wash dem, an'… an'… _an'…" _He shook his head frantically from side to side, his hands moving with it.

Cullen reached out and settled his palm across the heaving shoulder blades. Silently he waited for the weeping to die down and the sobs to abate. Gabe hiccoughed, stiffened in terror, and finally took a timid little breath. When it did not bring on a fit of coughing, he drank in another, this one deeper. "I maked a mess," he squeaked, so quietly that Cullen could hardly hear the words.

"I see," he said. He pivoted his hip so that he could sit down upon his foot, and crooked the other leg. He patted his calf, and without further invitation Gabe abandoned his forlorn posture and climbed into his father's lap. Cullen's arm wrapped protectively around him, but he was careful not to hold too tight. He did not want his son to feel like a baby just now, but like a grown boy.

"Now, son, you know when you're sick there's things you can't help," he said. "If I told you to stop coughing, could you do it?"

Gabe shook his head. "I wants to stop," he said. "But I can't."

"That's right. And when you coughed this morning and puked up your breakfast, you couldn't help that either, could you? It just had to come out."

Gabe looked up at him warily. "Bet'l say dat 'puked' ain't a nice word for gent'men," he warned.

Cullen found a chuckle somewhere within him. "Then I guess I'm in trouble," he said.

"Nope," said Gabe. "I won' tell her. Not dis time."

"Well, I'm much obliged," said Cullen. "But you tell me, now. Could you help it when you sicked up your breakfast?"

"No," Gabe allowed. "It jus' come up. I didn' _mean_ it."

"And did you mean it when you made that mess?" asked Cullen.

"No!" Gabe cried in consternation, shaking his head vigorously. "No, no, _no_, Pappy! I's a big, growed up boy! I knows how to use de chamb' pot! I didn' mean to make dat mess! I couldn' he'p it!"

"That's right," said Cullen. "You couldn't help it. It wasn't your fault: you ain't well. You can't help coughing, and you can't help being sick, and you can't help making a mess now and then. It ain't nothing to be ashamed of. You been so brave, and I'm so proud of you. Don't you go feeling ashamed."

Dark lashes blinked, glittering with tears. Gabe took hold of the front of Cullen's shirt, twisting the rough cotton into a swirling blossom. "But Pappy, growed boys don' make messes in deir pants."

"They do," said Cullen. "Sometimes. When they're sick and they can't help it, and the doctor gives them medicine to loosen up their bowels and help their fever. It ain't their fault: it's that bad old cough. It makes things happen, and you can't help it."

"Yeah," Gabe murmured. "Dat bad ol' cough."

"Right." Cullen pressed the back of his hand to his son's forehead. It might only have been the warmth of the room, or the fact that he had been sitting right by the little stove, but it seemed that he was hotter now than he had been the night before. If the purgative was doing anything other than making him miserable, it was not immediately apparent. "Listen," he said; "I ain't goin' give you no medicine tonight. Maybe that'll make your old tummy feel better. But you got to eat a little, all right? You and me, we got to keep up our strength."

"Awright," Gabe said, wiping his nose on his sleeve and sitting up straight in his father's arms. "Pappy? Did I make Mama sad?"

Cullen had to blink very slowly before he trusted himself to answer this. "No, son, you didn't," he said. "It's that bad old cough again. It's just making trouble all over the place."

_*discidium*_

At last Mary could bear it no longer. She ascended the stairs, Bethel a ghostly nightdress-clad figure behind her. The nursery door was open, though she had not heard it creak, and the lamp was turned low. Dreading what she might find but determined to face it regardless, she reached for the doorjamb to brace her as she stepped over the threshold.

The first thing she saw was that Gabe was fast asleep. He was curled on his side, the blankets drawn up over his shoulder and tucked cozily around his chin, but he was not lying down. He was nestled on Cullen's chest, held up at an angle by his father's body. Cullen himself was sitting up in the little bed, stripped to his undergarments under the covers. One arm was crooked around Gabe's body, concealed beneath the blanket. The other hung limp at his side, wrist and forearm resting on the tick. Gabe's pillow, packed down double, supported the small of his back. His shoulder blades rested against the bare wood of the headboard. His head was bobbing precariously, nodding as he began to doze in his exhaustion. It passed the tipping point and woke him, his chin jerking up but his body remaining perfectly still beneath the child. He blinked dazedly, and his eyes focused on Mary. He smiled, and his free hand moved to press a finger to his lips.

"I got him off to sleep," he whispered. Awkwardly he pointed at the bureau. "He ate everything but half the egg."

Mary looked at the plate, and wanted to weep with relief. She moved further into the room, approaching the bed unsteadily. Bethel came in after her, one hand upon her breastbone as she took in the scene. "Let me lift him," Mary said. "We can lie him down together."

Cullen shook his head. "I intend to stay right here," he breathed. "You said as soon as you lay him down he starts coughing?"

"Yes," said Mary, the whole hellish day flooding back to her. "But you can't sit up with him all night! You need your sleep. What about your shift in the barn?"

"Elijah said he'd take it on account of Gabe being ill," Cullen whispered. "He's a good man."

Bethel's lip curled wryly, and Mary understood. Cullen never would have consented to relief from any duty for his own sake, but to keep near his suffering son he was willing to make exceptions. Still, he could not stay like that through the night, contorted and upright and no doubt aching. "You need to sleep," she protested helplessly.

"I'm just about asleep already," Cullen said. "If you'd bring me my pillow I'll be gone in no time."

Mary wanted to argue, but Bethel was already gone from the room. A moment later she was back, noiseless on bare feet, with the cushion in her hand. Cullen tilted his head forward and lifted his shoulders carefully off of the bedstead. Bethel slipped the pillow behind them and he sat back again as she plumped it up to support his head. He exhaled contentedly.

"Much better," he murmured, turning his cheek towards the wall. His body relaxed visibly and his eyelids began to droop. His free hand brushed lightly over the child's curls before settling again on the counterpane. "Go on, get some sleep, angel. Gabe and me, we'll be all right."

Made mute with wonder and love for her clever and tender-hearted husband, eternally patient and selfless and so wonderful a father, Mary nodded. She bent to stroke Gabe's brow, still burning with fever but smoothed of its lines of strain, and then pressed her lips to Cullen's. They kissed, chastely but tenderly, and her cheek brushed against his whiskers as she withdrew. His eyes were closed now and he smiled faintly, all but lost to slumber. "G'night," he sighed.


	55. Alternative Treatment

_Note: Thanks to the fabulous _badgerlady**,** _"Down in the Valley" has been positively dated as in-period. Thanks! I'm very glad, because it seems to suit Mary Bohannon's character in my story and her remembrance in canon so perfectly._

**Chapter Fifty-Five: Alternative Treatment**

A warm, work-roughened hand upon his brow brought Cullen gently out of a deep and indistinct dream. Reluctant to abandon the succor of slumber, he tried to twitch his head away from the invading palm, moaning softly. It only shifted, sliding between his cheek and the damp heat of the pillow and urging him inexorably into the waking world.

His eyes burned as the lids fluttered at half-mast, and his jaw seemed locked open. His tongue bucked against the roof of his mouth and he made a hoarse, croaking sound. There was a crushing weight on his ribs, hot and heavy and uncomfortable – and somehow wondrously soothing. He felt the tickle of downy hair at the throat of his undershirt, and the contour of a small leg beneath his right arm, and he remembered. Gabe was lying on his chest, curled almost upright against the scaffold of his ribs to ward off the constant coughing that came whenever he attempted to lie down. Dimly Cullen remembered settling him after the most recent fit had found him despite that well-intentioned measure. From the way he felt that must have been at least an hour ago, but surely no more than three. Long enough to sink far into the slumber his mind and body craved, but not long enough to offer any true relief.

His vision was returning, obscured though it was by sharp little daggers of crusted rheum and the film of pernicious exhaustion. In the dim flicker of the lamp the familiar features of a well-loved face emerged out of the fog, dark eyes tender and lips turned up in a half-smile of regret.

"Mornin', Mist' Cullen," said Bethel softly. "It getting' 'long to dawn. I got you' breakfas' waitin' downstairs. Lef' you to sleep jus' as long as I could, but you gots to wake up now."

He grunted thickly and managed to close his mouth, lifting his left hand to flick the sand from his eyes and wipe the trail of spittle from his beard. He lifted his head from the bunched-up pillow, flinching as his stiffened neck protested the motion. His shoulders were knotted with aches that awoke to shallow, rippling cramps as he pushed himself up a little with one foot. He looked down at the little boy nestled so peacefully against his body. Even in slumber Gabe had a fist closed possessively on a handful of his father's shirt, and his cheek was pressed to Cullen's breastbone. It seemed such a shame to disturb him, even though now that Cullen was awake his whole body cried out to be moved from this awkward position.

He opened his mouth to speak, but his dry throat only clicked and emitted no sound. Bethel drew back a little, reaching, and a moment later she had a tin cup tipped to his lips. Cullen groped for it, right arm still holding his son, and sipped clumsily. The cool water seemed to rouse him to greater wakefulness, and made him acutely aware of his thirst. He drained the mug and Bethel took it away. Cullen drove his hand deep into the mattress and inched up still further against the headboard. Gabe stirred but then fell still.

"Here, let me take 'im," Bethel whispered, drawing back the bedclothes. Cullen let his arm roll down the child's side, and Bethel's capable hand slipped between boy and man, parting muslin from flannelette and tilting Gabe so that he appeared to be sitting. Her shoulder slid in to support his lolling head, and her other arm crooked around his back and bottom. As she lifted, Gabe's body jerked in a startle reflex and he turned his head to the other side.

"Pappy?" he mumbled drowsily.

Before Cullen could speak, Bethel shook her head. "It Bethel, lamb," she said. "You jus' go back to sleep."

"Yass'm," came the hypnotic reply. Gabe nuzzled against her, tongue flicking out to lick his lips as he slept on.

For a moment Cullen watched him, his front suddenly chilled despite the warmth of the room. His right arm ached ferociously, and though he knew it was from sudden movement after long inaction he could not quite help but associate the pain with the absence of his son. But the night was spent and daylight was coming. The best thing he could do for Gabe now was to get out there and make sure there were yams to feed everyone through the winter. Reluctant though he was to bestir himself, Cullen dug into the feather tick with his heel and pushed himself up off of the pillows. There was a ridge of discomfort over the middle of his spine where the headboard had dug into him, and his cushion tumbled down over Gabe's crushed one as he slid his backside to the edge of the bed. Bare feet found the space between the edge of the bedstead and Bethel's mattress, and he hefted himself onto stiff legs. Hurriedly he turned, gathering the layers of blankets and straightening them as best he could.

"Leave that be, Mist' Cullen," Bethel said. "You's kind to think of it, but I think we's goin' set up in the chair instead."

She carried Gabe to the other side of the room and sat in the armchair, drawing in his feet and covering him as best she could with the nightshirt. Cullen hauled the quilt off of the bed and shuffled to spread it over them, then looked around in the gloom for the little stool Gabe used to reach the washbasin. He nudged it across the floor, bracing it with the side of his foot so that Bethel could put her feet upon it.

She smiled for him. "Thankee, honey," she sighed. Her hand stroked Gabe's cheek, but her tender eyes were fixed on Cullen. "Ain't nuthin' to do but pour the coffee," she said. "You's goin' wan' it hot: day be chilly."

"Thanks," Cullen said huskily. His throat was clogged and he cleared it with a cough that he took care to muffle in his fist. Any intimation of coughing would wake Mary, and she needed all the sleep she could get.

Yesterday's clothes were in a heap at the foot of the bed where he had shucked them hurriedly the night before. He gathered them in one arm and picked up his boots, not lingering to dress in Bethel's presence. Less than a yard from the nursery door the floor was markedly cooler, and he hurried to the comfort of the rug on the stairs. The light from the kitchen drew him just as much as the wholesome scents of breakfast, and the heat of the cookstove was welcome on his half-clad body. He did not bother to dress first, but sat down to eat. Bethel had once more done wonders with limited resources, and although there was no time to savor the meal Cullen felt much the better for his full stomach.

He helped himself to a second cup of coffee as he climbed into his clothes. His extemporaneous solution had proved only partly effective: the child had awakened four times that he remembered, coughing violently each time. But at least he – and so everyone else – had managed to steal a little sleep out of what had promised to be a wakeful night. It had not been enough, for Cullen or anyone else, but it was better than nothing. He only hoped the next coughing jag would hold off for another hour or two so that Mary could rest. She had looked so worn-down last night.

The cold air struck him like a stinging slap as he stepped out into the grey predawn world. Jeb raised his head from his paws, yipping an eager question, and Cullen bent to give him the bit of biscuit he had saved. The old hound licked his hand and slid his head beneath Cullen's fingers, begging to be scratched. Cullen rubbed quickly behind the perked ears and was rewarded by a contented little yowl and the vigorous beating of the long, slender tail. "Go on, now: roust 'em," he said, and Jeb trotted obediently off towards the cabins.

Cullen had fed and watered the Morgans and was starting on the mules when Elijah came in. He mucked out the stalls while Cullen climbed into the hayloft to pitch down fresh bedding for the animals. The first of the sweet potato crop, the mud dried and dusted away, was curing in the corner. Any nicks or blemishes needed to seal in the warmth of the barn before the vegetables could be laid down in the cellar. They filled the air with a low, earthy smell. Cullen paused to inspect one in the cast-off light from the lantern below. The knobby root was heavy and comforting in his hand. If they could bring in the rest successfully, at least he would not have to worry about his people starving this winter. Carefully he laid the yam back among its fellows and descended the ladder.

He tried to look at Elijah, but a ferocious bolt of pain shot up into his skull and his head would not turn. Hissing involuntarily, he kneaded at his neck. It had been bent at an unnatural angle while he slept, and it was now reluctant to move as it ought. He turned his body instead, and found the old Negro studiously smoothing the straw in Bonnie's stall.

"I wanted to thank you," Cullen said. "For taking my watch in the barn last night. I know it ain't pleasant, and I appreciate it."

Elijah looked up and smiled, sparse teeth glinting yellow in the lamplight. "You's mos' welcome, Mist' Cullen," he said. "How the li'l massa this mornin'?"

"Still poorly," Cullen sighed. "But at least he got a little sleep tonight. Couldn't lie down for the coughing. I wound up sitting with him." His hand moved of its own accord to his chest, as though cupping his son's head where it had lain against his breast. He shook his head, an unbalanced motion that swung normally to the left and not a half-inch to the right. "I ain't seen nothing like this cough. It takes him right over."

Elijah said nothing, but the look in his eyes was eloquent enough. It was the look of a man who knew all too well the harshness of life and the cruelty of fate; the ravages of illness upon the young, and the sorrow of a world in which too many children perished in their innocence. Cullen wondered how many such deaths Elijah had witnessed. He knew almost nothing about the old man's life before his father had bought him. Elijah spoke now and then of "old times", but by that he always meant Cullen's childhood. Of his own he said nothing.

"Best get out there," Cullen sighed, shuffling to the door and stepping out into the dewy cold of the morning. His nose was running and he dug out his handkerchief to blow it. He squinted at the eastern horizon where the first glow of dawn was showing. Time passed so quickly, and there was so much to do.

_*discidium*_

Gabe leaned placidly against the arm of Bethel's chair while Mary rubbed the strong-smelling camphor liniment into the soft, bare skin of his chest. She did not know whether the unguent gave him any relief, but it certainly did no harm and the massage itself seemed to soothe him. He was fresh out of a warm bath and breathing more easily for it. The nocturnal awakenings had been less frequent and less fearsome than Mary had expected: clearly sleeping upright on his father's chest had helped to keep the cough at bay. Gabe had even slept on for a while in Bethel's lap, before a fresh fit had roused him and brought Mary from her bed. Broken though her sleep had been, she felt better rested than she had in days and she knew she had Cullen to thank for it.

She had finished applying the prescribed two-fingerfuls of ointment, and she withdrew her hand to wipe it on a corner of the towel bundled around her son's lap. Gabe reached for her wrist at once. "Don't stop, Mama. Please?" he said softly.

"That's all the medicine I can put on," she told him. "Otherwise it will make your skin red and sore."

"Not de med'cine. De rubbin'," said Gabe. "De rubbin' feel good."

Mary smiled and drew him closer to her, gently massaging his stomach just below where she had spread the liniment. Gabe looked down at her hand, tucking his chin to his collarbone to do so. After a minute he put his hand over hers and sighed. "Never mind," he said regretfully. "It ain't de same."

She kissed his temple. "I can put some more on in a couple of hours, dear," she promised. "Would you like to put your clothes back on?"

"Nope," Gabe said honestly. He stretched one bare leg so that the towel shifted off of his foot. He wiggled his toes, studying them thoughtfully. "Dey's hot. I's hot. Don't want no clo'es."

Of course he could not run around the house naked. Even if it had not been so unthinkable, the doctor had given explicit instructions that he was to be kept warmly dressed. But the stove was radiating brilliant heat through the open doors of the ovens and the firepan, and they were sitting right in front of it. Surely there could be no harm in lingering a while. Mary felt her son's skin, trying to gauge the fever, and then drew the towel up snugly around his shoulders.

"You can sit for a little bit," she decided; "but when I say it's time to get dressed you must do it. All right?"

"Awright," said Gabe, leaning against her and resting his head on her shoulder. "Jus' not _too_ soon, Mama, please."

He coughed shallowly and Mary tensed, preparing for the nightmare of another fit, but Gabe only snorted and closed his eyes. He wriggled in her lap, shifting first his shoulder and then his bottom, and finally his head. Then he sat up straight and looked at her. "Mama?" he asked. "Will you sing me a song?"

"Of course, darling," said Mary. It was the quietest hour of the day, between two and three when dinner was done and she did not yet need to make a start on supper. The food for the mid-afternoon relief was already packed in the big hamper, with a little basket for Bethel in the barn. There was nothing to be done but to tend to her child. "What would you like to hear?"

"Roses love sunshine," Gabe said.

For a moment, Mary was not sure what song he meant. It might easily have been one of Bethel's spirituals or old slave songs, save that in Gabe's mind there was a clear separation between "Mama's songs" and "Bethel's songs". Then she remembered the phrase, and nodded. Shifting her hand to pat out the beat on his back, she began to sing.

"_Down in the valley, the valley so low,  
><em>_Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.  
><em>_Hear the wind blow, love, hear the wind blow.  
><em>_Hang your head over, hear the wind blow._

_Roses love sunshine, violets love dew.  
><em>_Angels in heaven know I love you.  
><em>_Know I love you, love, know I love you.  
><em>_Angels in heaven know I love you..."_

Gabe was humming along, slightly off-key, and Mary might have continued to the wistful third verse had the sound of a booted foot on the dining room floor not startled her. She tightened her hold on her son, attempting to twist in the straight-backed chair to see who had intruded so unexpectedly upon their quiet moment. The instinctive terror of a woman left in an empty house with her child was swallowed immediately by the greater and far more familiar dread prompted by Gabe's choked gasp and the rattling report of a series of violent coughs. Instantly her attention was upon her son, gripping his arm to keep him from tumbling from her lap and looking intently into his eyes as she murmured reassurances even she could not hear.

A gentle hand, spotted with age but clearly accomplished in the art of soothing tormented children, reached to steady Gabe's back, and Mary's eyes were drawn briefly to the familiar face of Doctor Whitehead. He made no attempt to engage her in conversation or to divert her attention from the boy, but merely joined in her hollow chorus of inadequate consolations. When the whoops tore through Gabe's small body and filled Mary's ears with the anguish of witnessing her baby's suffering, the doctor did not even pause in his quiet encouragement. And when at last it was over and Gabe shrank against Mary's body, trembling and trying valiantly not to cry, the man's first act was to pet the crown of the boy's head.

"There, that's a brave little man," he said. "Such a strong, brave little man."

Mary cast him a look of gratitude as she rubbed Gabe's back and let him cling to her. The physician nodded, a sad half-smile playing upon his lips.

"I hope you'll forgive me, Miss Mary, for taking the liberty of seeing myself in," he said with the courteous sincerity only he seemed to truly feel. "I thought perhaps you would be unattended as you were the other day, and I did not want to disturb you just to answer the door. I'm sorry I startled you."

"It's all right," said Mary, a little perplexed but also grateful for the consideration. "I am alone in the house; you were right."

"May I ask why that is, my dear?" said Doc. "You shouldn't have to tend him all on your own. Where's Bethel gone?"

"She's watching the fires in the tobacco barn," Mary explained. "Lottie, our girl, she usually does it, but she's helping to bring in the yams. We still hope to beat the first frost, and everyone is needed."

"I see." Something flickered in Doctor Whitehead's eyes, but Mary could not quite read it. He set his bag down on the corner of the table, and came back to look thoughtfully down at the child. "How did he sleep last night?"

"Quite well, considering," said Mary. "He woke four times, coughing, but he settled quickly each time. I think it helped to keep him upright."

"Now, how'd you manage that?" the man asked, genuinely curious.

Mary flushed a little. The scene between her husband and son had been such an intimate one, so tender and so personal. But she knew she could trust Doctor Whitehead. "Cullen sat up in bed and held him in his lap."

"All night long?" Doc said softly.

"No," said Gabe before Mary could confirm it. "Pappy gone off to work while I was sleepin'. Bet'l took me to de chair, an' I woked up."

"He went at dawn to see to the stock," Mary explained.

Doctor Whitehead sighed. "I see. And it helped, did it? Sitting him up to sleep?"

"It certainly seemed to," said Mary. "Yesterday he couldn't lie down for even a minute without coughing. It was useless even to try. This morning he slept for nearly three hours uninterrupted."

"T'ree hours," Gabe agreed, though surely he had no real concept of how long he had been asleep.

The doctor hummed quietly, then said; "I see you've been making good use of the liniment."

"He seems to like it," said Mary. "It comforts him."

She knew what the next question would be before the doctor spoke, and she dreaded it. She had hoped Cullen might have heard the horse and come in from the field: the yams were not so very far from the house this year. Mary would have preferred to let him explain.

"And the purgative?" asked Doctor Whitehead.

"He hasn't had a dose since yesterday at about five o'clock," she said swiftly, before she could lose her courage.

For a moment there was silence. Gabe had found a loose thread in the towel and was picking at it. Doctor Whitehead looked from Mary to the child and back again. "May I ask why not?" he said. "There should have been enough in that bottle to last until Wednesday."

"There was. There is. It's… Cullen decided it was best to stop giving it." Mary drew in a deep breath. "You see, yesterday afternoon there was a mishap. Gabe was coughing, and he… well, Doctor, he lost control of his bowels."

Gabe squirmed uncomfortably, hanging his head. "I maked a mess, Doct'r," he confessed.

"I'm sorry for that, son," the man said. "Miss Mary, you had to know that was expected."

"Yes," said Mary; "but he was so distressed. It hurt his pride, Doctor. He was ashamed."

"I didn' mean it," Gabe mumbled.

"I know you didn't, dearest," Mary murmured, bending to press her cheek to the crown of his head. She looked back up at the doctor. "He wouldn't look at me, he would hardly speak. He told us – Bethel and I – that he didn't want to eat because it would only… er… come out again." She was flushing crimson now at these indelicate words. Spoken to Cullen they were the private remarks a wife might make to her husband about their child. It seemed almost shameless to say them to anyone else, even that child's physician, but if she didn't, who would?

"We can't have that," said the doctor. "He must eat. Gabe, you must eat, son. You must keep up your strength if you're going to get well again."

"I know," said Mary. "Cullen spoke to him about it. I'm not sure what he said. Gabe? What did Pappy say to you when he brought you your supper?"

"I didn' mean it," the child repeated.

"I know, darling. But what did Pappy say?" Mary asked.

"I didn' mean it," insisted Gabe. "_Dat _what Pappy say. It ain't my fault: it de bad ol' cough. Pappy, he proud of me," he added, puffing out his chest.

"We're all of us proud of you, son," Doctor Whitehead said. "You've been very brave. Cullen managed to get him to eat, then?"

"Yes," said Mary, still privately marveling at the simplicity of the solution her husband had found. Helping Gabe to understand, quite rightly, that the incident had been neither his fault nor any cause for shame was something neither she nor Bethel had managed.

Doctor Whitehead pressed the back of his hand to Gabe's forehead, and then to his bare chest. A faint frown tugged at his lips. "And he's eaten this morning? And at dinnertime?"

"Yes," said Mary. "He had a coughing fit at dinner, but managed to keep his food."

Gabe whimpered a little at the memory, swinging his foot against Mary's calf.

"And how are his stools now?"

"He passed one just before noon," she answered steadily. "It was soft, but not without warning. He was able to take care of himself. It's important to him, Doctor. He doesn't mind so much having our help, but when he couldn't even manage to tell us what he needed…" She gestured helplessly, cuddling her son closer with her other arm. "Cullen didn't think it was worth it, Doctor, and I'm not sure I do, either. Bethel seems to think it, well, almost _barbaric_."

"Did she say that?" Whitehead looked surprised. "Your Bethel?"

"Not precisely," said Mary. What Bethel had said, repeatedly, was that sometimes doctors didn't know best after all. "But she made it plain she did not approve."

"Bethel's always had funny notions about purging," Doc allowed. "Cullen's father never paid her much mind, and I brought your husband through all of his childhood ills well enough."

"I know you did, Doctor, and I'm grateful," said Mary. "I do trust your judgment, I do. It's just… he was so miserable yesterday, so low. Despairing, I'd call it. Please, Doctor, my son's too little to despair. It isn't right. Cullen couldn't bring himself to dose him, and I can't either. I can't put him through that again."

A soft, capable hand closed over hers, comforting and somehow faultlessly trustworthy. Tender eyes fixed on hers. "I understand, Miss Mary," Doctor Whitehead murmured. "I understand. My dear, if it is such a torment for all of you then there can be no question. We must stop with the purgative, even if the fever worsens for it."

"Oh, thank you. Thank you," Mary breathed, feeling as though she might weep. In her relief and the surprise that he was not scolding her as most other men of his profession surely would, she did not pause to think of the dreadful implications of the fever growing worse. "Doctor, you don't know what it means to hear you say that."

"We must simply try other means to bring down his temperature," he said. "I must warn you, Miss Mary, that they are not pleasant. We will try the gentlest measure first, but I do not know how much hope of success we may have."

"What would you suggest?" Mary asked uneasily.

"To begin, sponging with cold water," said the doctor. "Water fresh up from the well will do. Pay particular attention to the trunk and the axillae – under the arms, Miss Mary. You must keep him near the fire when you do it, and wrap him up warmly afterwards so he don't take a chill. And he should be given quantities of cold water to drink. No milk or cream, no butter, no cheese. No eggs, either; not for at least three days."

"But Doctor—" Mary began, and then bit her tongue. Here was something Cullen would never wish her to admit. She swallowed the protest that Gabe needed his eggs: they had no meat. She closed her eyes. "Cold water to drink," she echoed.

"Yes. Be sure he does not drink it too quickly, of course. But you know already how easily that might set off the cough." The doctor shifted his weight from one foot to the other uneasily. "There is every possibility that he will reach the crisis soon. Then there will be nothing we can do but try to ride it out. When it comes, you _must _send for me at once. Send one of your men, I mean: don't let Cullen ride out himself. He… when the worst of it comes, you should both be with your son, Miss Mary. Please believe me when I tell you that."

So earnest and mournful were his eyes, so tender and sober his voice, that she could not help but believe him, however she wished she did not. Reflexively she held her child closer, until she could feel his shallow, cautious breaths even through the sheath of her corset.

_*discidium*_

The little boy was shivering violently, taking in small, tremulous sniffs of air while his teeth chattered and his lips turned purple. It was not the purple of a coughing fit, praise the Lord, but it was terrible enough. Seeing it, Bethel wanted nothing more than to bundle him into her arms and to cuddle him close until he was warm again. Instead she dipped the sponge in the pail of frigid well-water, squeezed it, and then blotted his body: brow, neck, chest, underarms, the roots of his thighs and the backs of his knees. Brave as ever, Mister Gabe did not so much as whimper. Bethel's heart ached at this stoic silence more than it would have at plaintive weeping. The poor child was growing accustomed to misery.

He wasn't the only one, either. She had seen the dogged look in his father's eyes that morning when he had dragged himself up off of the narrow little nursery bed. For months she had watched him moving stiffly with hidden pains, facing each morning like a condemned man faces the scaffold, forcing himself on and on without pleasure or purpose or even hope. Now on top of his other cares, on top of the worries about money and taxes, about the tobacco crop and the price it would bring, about the other hundred tasks that had to be done before winter, he had this: his beloved son was sick, and might even die, and that sickness not only stole away the last shreds of Mister Cullen's peace of mind but robbed him of his meager hours of rest. He had slept a little last night: she had borne witness to that. But what kind of sleep could he possibly have found, sitting up in the narrow little bed with his neck canted and his hips twisted and the weight of a growing child on his chest? And what would happen tonight?

Her utter inability to ease the suffering of the person she loved most in all the world was torture for Bethel. She could no more take away Mister Cullen's burdens than she could banish the little boy's cough, and she would gladly have done both if she might have, whatever the cost to herself. She might philosophize all she liked about the Lord heaping burdens on strong shoulders, but the truth was that it was painful to witness.

Mister Gabe gave a tiny cry as the cold sponge touched him again. Biting down on his lower lip he looked up at Bethel with eyes that glistened with a sheen of incomprehension and misery. Unable to bear it any longer, Bethel flung the sponge into the bucket of cold water and swathed the little boy in the towel on which he was sitting. She drew him onto her lap and wrapped her arms snugly 'round him.

"There, li'l lamb. We's finished," she murmured, rocking back against her heels to soothe him. "All finished."

"T-T-T'ank you, Bet'l," he stammered. He craned his neck to look up at her. "Is I goin' get better now?"

"I hope so, honey. I surely do hope so," Bethel said. Her throat was stinging with unshed tears. It would never do to cry in front of the child. "Jus' 'nother minute or two, an' we's goin' put on your nice warm nightshirt."

Gabe nodded and then began to cough. Bethel eased her hold upon him, helping him to sit up straight. That seemed to help, if only a little. At least, if he was not upright when a fit began he certainly struggled to get there as quickly as possible. Each paroxysm tore at her heart, and with each harsh, wheezing _whoop_ she felt her own lungs constrict. On the third one the kitchen door flew open and Missus Mary came flying to kneel beside Bethel, cupping one hand behind the child's head and petting his arm with the other. Her face was white and drawn, and the shadows under her eyes stood out like bruises. She was bearing up bravely, and Bethel admired her for it, but the strain and the want of sleep were taking their toll.

The dish dresser rattled as the back door was flung hard upon its hinges. The weary body that had doubtless been dragging itself painfully back to the house only moments before now moved with nimble agility to join the clutch of anxious adults crowded near the struggling child. Mister Cullen dropped to his knees so heavily that the floorboards shook, and reached for his son with mud-stained hands. He stopped short, considered for an instant the repercussions, and then settled his palm on the small of the boy's back, pressing against the towel.

"There, son, it's all right," he panted, joining in the soothing incantations of the two women. "It's goin' be all right."

Mister Gabe twisted in Bethel's lap, though he was still quaking with coughs. His teary eyes widened and his blue-tinted lips twitched. The deliberate motion was lost as he sucked in another thin, inadequate tendril of air that came out in a spasm of coughing. Bethel forced herself to focus on the little one in her lap, because the anguish in his father's eyes was more than her heart could bear.

Then came the gasp, the desperate, sundering gulp of air, and Mister Gabe sagged against Bethel's arms in utter enervation. "Pappy," he croaked.

Mister Cullen looked as though someone had torn out his heart and flung it into the stove. But he blinked, slowly and deliberately, and locked away his misery beneath a tired but encouraging smile. "Right here, son," he said. "You done good."

Quivering lips curved upward, and bright grey eyes smiled. "Is you done workin'?" the little boy asked. "Is you goin' sleep in my bed tonight?"

Missus Mary opened her mouth to protest, but Mister Cullen was already nodding. "You bet I am," he said. "Just as soon as I get cleaned up. Looks like you've already had your bath?"

"Not a baff," said Mister Gabe conversationally. "Bet'l wipe me down wid col' water."

"For the fever," said Missus Mary, withdrawing her hands and reaching for the small nightshirt warming on the stovetop. "Doctor Whitehead said we might try that instead of the purgatives."

"Don't sound much better to me." Mister Cullen's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Son, do you like it when Bethel wipes you down with cold water?"

Slender shoulders shrugged. "She say she got to," Mister Gabe said simply. He twisted to smile up at his nurse. "You got to, Bet'l, don't you?"

"Yassir, Mist' Gabe," she said. "Doctor say I got to."

The man's jaw shifted uneasily. "Well, I s'pose it's preferable to what happened yesterday," he said. "Leastways he don't seem anywhere near so upset."

"I ain't upset," Mister Gabe promised. An enormous yawn cracked his face in two, and he scrubbed at his eyes. "I's tired, dough."

"Here, lovey, give me your arms." Missus Mary had the nightshirt bunched in her hands. Gabe freed his elbows from the towel and reached to slip his wrists into the sleeves. "You and I can go upstairs and sit a while so that Pappy can tidy up and eat his supper."

"I don' want to," the boy protested as his head came through the collar and his mother settled the garment around his waist. He pushed up on one foot to lift his bottom, and Bethel whisked the towel away while Missus Mary drew the hem down past his knees to cover him decently. "Why can't I jus' stay here wid Pappy?"

"I don't see why you can't," said Mister Cullen. "I've only got to get out of them boots and wash these dirty hands, and I'm bound to eat quick. I'm hungry as a bear, son," he added with a playful growl that made the child giggle.

"No, you have to have a bath and trim your beard," said Mary. "You don't want Gabe underfoot for that."

He frowned at her. "Why do I have to have a bath? I ain't that filthy. The mud's dried up some, and I been trying to keep out of it."

"If you're going to town tomorrow, you have to have a bath," Missus Mary said. She got to her feet and picked her son up out of Bethel's lap, balancing him on her hip. Mister Gabe tilted his head to the side to lean against her shoulder, watching his father with adoring eyes.

With a soft grunt of effort, Mister Cullen climbed to his feet and retreated towards the bootjack. There were mucky footprints where he had walked, but Bethel did not care. Certainly such things did not matter when faced with the spectacle that had greeted him after his long day in the fields. "Why would I go to town tomorrow? There's work to be done."

"Gabe needs more soothing syrup," Missus Mary said softly, almost apologetically. "And the druggist needs to make up more of that liniment: it does seem to do him some good."

Mister Cullen grimaced ruefully. "We could ask Doc to bring some by," he said. "I mean, I'd give him the money out of what we got left, of course. He'll be back on Wednesday, won't he? Ain't we got enough to last until Friday?"

"And there's the election," Missus Mary added.

An incredulous guffaw burst from Mister Cullen's throat, and he stared at her. "The election?" he barked. "You think I'm going to take a whole morning to go into Meridian just for the _election_? At a time like this?"

"Of course you must," said his wife, quiet but firm. "You need to cast your vote. It's your civic responsibility, and it's your right as a man. You cannot possibly think of neglecting it."

"Damned right I'm neglecting it!" Mister Cullen exclaimed. "I ain't about to leave you here, alone with a sick child. I ain't leaving him, neither! What if something happened, and I was six miles away? What if…"

Bethel was on her feet now, tidying up the space before the stove. She picked up the bucket and set it beside the others drawn and waiting for the master's bath. She had not expected him to forget such an important day, nor had she thought he would argue the importance of going to cast his ballot. Mister Cullen had always taken the duty of voting seriously before; it was at once strange and endearing that he was so dismissive of it now.

"Nothing will happen," Missus Mary said, squaring her slim shoulders and thrusting her head a little higher. Her hand moved protectively over her son. "Nothing will happen while you're in Meridian. It won't take you long, but you must do it, Cullen. It's important."

"Important," he snorted. "Heck, what's one vote? There'll be hundreds of men in the county turning out to have their say: who needs mine? Here is where I ought to be, digging the yams and keeping close on hand in case…" He shuddered and shook his head. "I ain't going."

"You must," the lady repeated. "It isn't about the strength of one vote among hundreds. It's about knowing you had your say when it mattered. This election… it's important, Cullen. You're choosing the next president tomorrow. At the very least I'd think you would want to go and cast a ballot against Sheriff Brannan."

He chafed at his beard and studied her face, then shook his head ruefully. "That's true," he said. "That _is_ true."

"And we ought to try to get the medicines ourselves instead of troubling Doctor Whitehead," said Missus Mary. "And… and I need to send word to Jeremiah. He may have written as well, sending news of Missy."

"Missy?" Mister Gabe piped up. "Is she comin' back? She ain't so bad: she like Stewpot awright."

"No, sweetheart, she isn't coming back," his mother said. "She's ill, just like you. She has the same cough."

"Bad ol' cough," Mister Gabe muttered wrathfully.

Missus Mary turned firm but pleading eyes on her husband. "Please, Cullen, you must go into town," she said. "You must vote. I'm afraid… I'm afraid you'll regret it if you don't. You have to say your piece for us, for all of us. Please."

Bethel wondered what importance the mistress was attaching to this election. Certainly she had never shown much interest in politics before, except as a dutiful wife must when her husband was in the mood to talk about it. Mister Cullen had scarcely thought about it all this year: there were so many more pressing, more personal concerns. But Missus Mary had a point, too. There were eight people in the household, and of them only Mister Cullen had the right to vote. It _was _his duty to do so, to let his voice be heard even if it was just one among thousands and to exercise the liberty for which his forbearers had fought and died. He had a responsibility to his home, his state and his country to vote: that responsibility was sacred.

All these same thoughts seemed to be whirling through Mister Cullen's stormy eyes as he studied his wife's expression. He looked from her to his son, who was still watching him with perfect trust and unquestioning love. Slowly he shook his head. "Fine," he said. "I'll go into town. You draw up a list of what you need, and leave this li'l fella with me so you can write what you got to for your brother. How 'bout that, Gabe? Looks like you can help me eat my supper after all. Then I'll have a bath," he promised as Missus Mary looked ready to speak. "And I'll trim my derned beard. After all, don't the Constitution say a man can't vote unless he's groomed up like a show pony?"

Irritation flickered across Missus Mary's face, and then changed to amusement as she realized that he was actually trying to joke with her after days and days of grim intensity. "I believe that's in the Third Amendment," she agreed. She moved around the table and set Mister Gabe down on the bench. "You be a good boy," she instructed. "Pappy is tired, and he needs his peace."

"Pappy is glad to see his boy, and he needs good company," Mister Cullen shot over his shoulder, lathering his hands with the strong-smelling lye soap. "Gabe ought to answer that quite nicely, don't you think."

"I do," Missus Mary said fondly. She bent to kiss her child's brow and then shot a swift look at Bethel. She wanted assurances that the little boy would not harangue his exhausted father. Bethel smiled and nodded. She would keep the child in line if the need arose, but she did not expect it to. Mister Gabe was almost as worn out as his pappy, and in any case he could do no wrong in Mister Cullen's eyes. Quiet and meek or merry and rambunctious, he would dote upon him. But her assent satisfied the lady, and Missus Mary slipped from the room. As Mister Cullen settled stiffly on the bench beside his boy, Bethel reached for the plate that held his evening meal.


	56. Civic Responsibility

_Note: Quotation by United States Senator Jefferson Davis, November 5, 1860._

**Chapter Fifty-Six: Civic Responsibility**

Meridian was alive with excitement. The day had dawned crisp and bright, and by ten o'clock the town was burgeoning with people from every corner of Lauderdale County. Doors stood wide in the cool autumn morning, parlors adorned with ladies entertaining their country-dwelling friends and kitchens filled with the laughter of visiting coachmen and maids. Children of every description played in shady yards or ran laughing up and down the streets: wealthy planters' children in stiffly starched suits and crinolines; farmers' children in their best straw hats, the boys with woven suspenders and the girls with frilled pinafores; barefooted backwoods children who only ever saw the town at fur-trading time or on Election Day; and of course the ubiquitous Negro children, running alongside the whites and laughing just as merrily in the spirit of the holiday. The roads were lined with light little buggies, heavy elaborate carriages, tired old wagons, and sturdy labor-scarred buckboards. Horses and mules were lined up at the hitching posts, enjoying their own sort of social intercourse as they nickered and brayed to one another or at the nebulous and ever-shifting crowds.

Businesses were bedecked with bright pennants, ribbons flying from upper windows and garlands of greenery and flowers draped above doorways. Here and there the flag of the nation was seen, stars and stripes rippling in the gentle wind, but its profusion was not what it had been in prior years. Feeling against Washington ran high in Mississippi, and her people were wary. For too long the interests of North and South had been divergent, with Congress and the Senate maintaining an uneasy truce by means of constant wrangling and a series of unpopular compromises. The splitting of the national Democratic Party in the spring was only a symptom of the greater unrest.

Yet despite the larger tapestry of national concerns, Election Day in Meridian was still an exciting occasion. Most people who travelled in to vote – some from fifteen or even twenty miles away – made a day of it. Men brought their families with them, to visit with friends and to patronize the stores, and to join in the merriment. Many brought picnics or treated themselves to a meal at the station eating-house. By the tracks a brass band was playing, and later in the day there would be dancing in the square. Groups of men gathered at shop windows and on the corners of the boardwalks, debating politics and sharing county gossip. The drinking establishments did a brisk business, of course, but the other businesses were equally overrun. The dry goods shops were crowded with women; the milliner's and the dressmaker's filled with the curious and the purposeful alike. In the hardware store and the lumber yards, men took time to stop and dicker over the prices for those things they needed to prepare their homes and farms for winter. The poorer folk, who could seldom spare the time from their little homesteads or their trapping lines to come to town, clustered near the tracks to watch the spectacle of the trains coming and going. There was noise and good cheer everywhere, and the occasional staccato of an argument or the crash of a sparring match when opinions grew too heated for their defenders to bear.

Into this jovial chaos rode Cullen Bohannon, silent and straight in the saddle. He had chosen to take Pike, knowing that the town would be abuzz with activity and that he would be obliged to leave his steed unattended while he saw to his business. Pike's patience was an asset in a crowd. He did not try to prance or show off for the women gathered in gossiping clutches on front lawns and porches. He did not resist the reins when Cullen slowed him to a trot as they reached the crowded streets near the depot. When they reached the intersection at the head of the main street, they were obliged to stop for a rickety cart driven by a sallow man in a ragged coat. His wife, beside him on the board, was scrupulously neat but shabby in her calico dress and slatted bonnet. Four skinny children were piled in the back, sitting on heaps of straw and looking with enormous, eager eyes at the sights around them. Bonnie would have chafed at the delay, but Pike merely stood with the same indolent dignity as his master and waited for the lean mule team to pull their burden on.

Cullen had decided to transact his other business before heading to the courthouse to exercise his franchise, and so he guided Pike down the busy street to the telegraph office. There was no vacancy at any of the hitching posts, but this was no real concern. Cullen had spent a good deal of time and energy teaching his Morgans to be ground-tied, and it was at times like this that the effort paid off. He stopped Pike at the corner of the boardwalk where it curved around to run parallel to the tracks. There was not a train due for another half-hour, by Cullen's watch, but he was truthfully not much concerned if he was mistaken. Pike did not startle easily, if he startled at all, and no train would drive him off.

Cullen dismounted and cast the reins down into the dark dust at the edge of the boards, then took the feedbag off the back of the saddle and buckled it on for Pike. He stayed for a minute, rubbing the horse behind the ears to get a feel for his mood and to be certain he was calm despite the crowds. Truthfully, Cullen himself found it a little overwhelming. It had been a long time since he had walked among so many people, and after weeks spent isolated on the plantation the noise and bustle was a great deal to process. Pike, however, seemed perfectly serene, and was nibbling happily at the mixture of grains in the nosebag.

"You wait here, all right?" Cullen said quietly, giving the velvety brow one last fond swipe of his hand. "I won't hardly be a minute."

The front of the telegraph office was crowded: men leaning against the walls and debating in eager voices the merits of the candidates vying for president. It was all that anyone seemed interested in talking about, as if there were not half a dozen other offices, great and small, on which they had to vote today. There were a few women, too, some clutching the hands of small children and others digging in reticules or pocketbooks for coin to collect a letter or purchase a periodical of interest. Cullen nudged his way through the aimless throng to the counter, behind which Mr. Boam stood brandishing his spectacles in one hand and thumping enthusiastically on the countertop with the other.

"Breckenridge, I tell you! He's the man! He's got to win: even Yankee Democrats don't want that bungler Douglas! It don't reflect well on anyone, the mess he's made of things in the Senate! I—"

"I need this sent," Cullen said, raising his voice to be heard as he tugged the sealed envelope from the breast pocket of his greatcoat and wagged it in front of the postmaster. Somehow despite the necessities that took Bethel out of the house and the worries heaped on Mary's shoulders, the two women had contrived to get his overcoat aired and brushed for its first wearing of the year. It still had a faint scent of mothballs, but it was scarcely detectable even at close quarters. The coat was a handsome one, commissioned in more prosperous times to fit his body with trim elegance. It was furnished with a demi-cape and large jet buttons, and in it Cullen knew he possessed a certain dramatic presence. Beneath it he wore his best day clothes, and his good hat was tilted comfortably on his head. The tobacco stains were fading from his hands, and thorough scrubbing had removed the mud of the yam field from everywhere but under his cuticles.

Boam, cut off in the midst of his speech, frowned and slipped on his eyeglasses as he took the slim packet from Cullen and examined the address. Mary had sent two missives for her brother: a long letter with detailed tidings, and a draft for a telegram. She had instructed him to send both at Jeremiah's expense, and although he wanted to uphold gallantry while happily spiting his brother-in-law's many years of discourtesy he knew his wife was right.

"Send it postage owing," he instructed, watching as the older man marked the corner of the envelope and stowed it in the sack of outgoing mail. "I got anything waiting besides newspapers?"

"Mr. Bohannon, Mr. Bohannon," Boam muttered as he turned and found the correct pigeonhole in his wall of waiting mail. He pulled out a fistful of yellowing newsprint and shuffled through it, plucking out two sealed letters: one in an envelope and doubtless from New York, the other simply folded in on itself and so surely from Bangor. "Postage paid on both," he said, handing them over.

Cullen's upper lip stretched ruefully over his teeth as he took them. It was beneath his dignity to send a letter at the recipient's expense even when Jeremiah Tate did the same, but now that he was paying his own postage it was downright humiliating. But his vest pocket stretched under the inadequate weight of the last coins he had in the world, and he could not spare even a penny for pride. "Thanks," he said. "You been out to vote yet?"

"First thing in the morning!" Boam said cheerfully. "You?"

"Naw, on my way now," said Cullen. "Guess I can expect a bit of a wait?"

"Guess you can," the postmaster agreed. "Seems like every red-blooded man in Mississippi is turning out to vote. Nobody wants to miss his chance to have his say: after months of arguing it's time to settle things. You'll be voting for Breckenridge, won't you?"

"I'm more interested in voting for McElroy," Cullen said, much more loudly than necessary. Several of the men beside him fell silent, turning to look with curious eyes.

"McElroy?" said Boam. "For Sheriff? Do you know him personally, then? Seems like a lot of folks don't, but he's in here every Tuesday, regular as rain. Good man."

"So I hear," said Cullen. "I also hear his opponent ain't much for consulting folks before abusing their property. I like me a sheriff who knows a thing or two about common politeness."

"McElroy's your man, then," Boam agreed. "He's polite, all right. And he's young. Got the energy to tackle a tough job."

Cullen, who had expecting an argument, nodded. "Just you be sure and tell everyone who comes in here," he said. "Never mind Breckenridge: McElroy's the one who can use your support today."

Boam grinned and shrugged. "Breckenridge is more interesting," he said. "President's a more important job than Sheriff any day."

"Sure," said Cullen. "Except on the day you want a little justice for you and your family. What's the President going to do for you then?"

Boam laughed. "Sure, you got me there!" he said. "Anything else for you today, Mr. Bohannon?"

Cullen jerked his chin. "I need to send a telegram," he said, more quietly now.

"Go on back," Boam said, flipping up the gate in the counter and standing back to allow Cullen to pass. He brought it down again and turned back to the men who had been listening to his opinions on the presidential race. "Any of you know Kennon McElroy?" he asked.

Cullen moved down the narrow avenue at the back of the room to where two doors led off, one before him and one to his right. In the latter, the small printing press was thumping and clattering as the operator's assistant ran off copy after copy of a hastily typeset broadsheet. Feeling Cullen's eyes upon him, the young man looked up and grinned. His downy chin was smudged with ink from the rollers, and his rubber sleeves were spattered with dark splotches.

"Want a copy?" he roared over the din of his machine. "News out of Jackson: Senator Davis did him a spot of fire-eating yesterday!"

On the days leading up to any election, public figures frequently offered statements or speeches to the populace. Most of these were asinine endorsements of party favorites or personal friends, and only rarely were they even vaguely interesting. But Senator Davis was not one to practice cronyism, and he was one of the few politicians whose views Cullen genuinely respected. Since his Northern marriage he had found himself drawn to the moderates, and Senator Davis had always preached compromise and practiced the same courtesy in higher office that Cullen had just professed to want in a sheriff. If he had made a statement on the eve of the election, it was doubtless worth reading. Certainly Cullen had done little enough to educate himself on the candidates for federal office. Barksdale was standing for Congress again, and he knew a little about the split in the Democratic Party and about Bell's Constitutional Unionists, but he was scarcely an informed voter this year. He had had neither the time nor the resources to study up.

"How much?" he called, his throat croaking a little. He coughed shallowly to clear it and slid the edge of his greatcoat to his hip so that he could bring his handkerchief out of the pocket of his topcoat.

"Penny a sheet," the printer said. Cullen was just about to shake his head and decline when the youth pointed at a lone paper lying near the stacks of fresh copy. "You can have that one for nothing if you want it: first run. I left out an 'f' in his name."

Cullen put one well-polished riding boot over the threshold and reached for the sheet. "Thanks," he said.

"Sure. Just don't pass it around too much!" the boy instructed. "You're the first one to get it: don't want everyone thinking they ain't got to buy one!"

With a nod of assent and a wry little shrug, Cullen withdrew, continuing on to the doorway that led into the telegraph room. The operator sat at his heavy oak desk, listening intently to the clicking of the machine as he transcribed the coded letters with a flying pencil. He glanced up at the intruder, and shook his head. The message rattled on and the hand kept writing furiously. The point of the pencil was dull enough to double the original thickness of the line now, and in a single fluid motion the operator flung it away and plucked up a sharp one from the jar before him, missing only one letter in the interval it took to make the exchange.

Cullen understood then. It was not an ordinary message, but the transmission of some other speech. The line might be tied up for ten or twenty minutes yet, the operator writing furiously all the time. He sighed impatiently. He had other business to tend to, and he could always come back to send Mary's telegram. He hadn't looked at the scrap of paper she had given him, but he assumed it was news of Gabe's illness. He questioned the wisdom of passing such unhappy tidings on when they had no idea whether the child would recover, but Jeremiah was her brother and it was her business what she told him. Still, an hour or two wouldn't make much difference and would save him the frustration of squandering time waiting in a doorway. He turned around and strode off, ducking under the counter gate instead of lifting it, and slipping between elbows and hoopskirts to the door.

Pike was waiting patiently, having eaten about a third of the contents of his feedbag. Cullen removed it and mounted again, although the drugstore was only just up the street. He wanted his horse kept close in the absence of anywhere to tether him. Pike could be trusted to stand, but the unexpected could never be ruled out. Cullen didn't know how he might react to a collision, or a gunshot, or some other improbable event.

The pharmacy, at least, was quiet. There were two ladies examining the label on a packet of patented liver pills, but otherwise the shop was deserted. The druggist came to the counter as Cullen approached, smiling affably and tilting his whole head so he might look at his customer without his real eye deviating too far from the glass one.

"How can I help you today?" he asked.

"I need a bottle of your soothing syrup," Cullen said. From the pocket of his overcoat he brought the jar of liniment, now empty of even the last scrapings. "And some of this."

The druggist examined the unintelligible Latin words upon the grease-spotted label and nodded. "One of Doctor Whitehead's favorites," he said. "Got a touch of bronchitis?"

"It's my son," said Cullen, a little puzzled as to why the man should assume him to be ill. "Whooping cough. You got anything else to suggest for it?"

"Mmm. How old?" the pharmacist asked.

"Almost four." Cullen was trying to study the craggy face for some sign of what the druggist thought of Gabe's chances, or at least of whooping cough in general, but he could detect no chance in expression. Certainly the eyes told him nothing: the right one was practiced in impassivity, and the other one merely a blank wall made to look like a window into the mind.

"How high is the fever?"

"Moderate, Doc said." Cullen raised a palm in warning. "If you're going to suggest we purge him, forget it. We tried. It ain't worth it."

"Four is a hard age for purging," the man agreed. "You might try elderflower cordial; sometimes that helps. It ain't exactly proper medicine, but then again it don't exactly wear a young body down the same way."

"Where do I get that?" Cullen asked. He was familiar with elderberry wine, but this didn't sound like the same thing. Elders weren't in flower in November, of course: it wasn't likely to be something Bethel could just mix up at home.

"I sell it," said the druggist. "Wouldn't in the normal way of things, except like I said I've found it can ease a fever. If purging ain't helped, at least you can try."

He went to a shelf near the left wall and took down a dark quart bottle. It was labelled handsomely, the legend _Flora's Elderflower Cordial_ surrounded by pink-tinted blossoms and an elaborate curlicue. It looked much more like a bottle of ladies' refreshment than medicine.

"Is it gonna have any unwanted effects?" Cullen asked dubiously. "My boy had a hard time with the purgative, and I don't want to give him anything that's going to make him feel worse than he does already. This whooping cough is miserable business."

"Yes, it is," said the druggist. He offered a small smile. "Has he come through the crisis already, then?"

Cullen shook his head. "Don't think so," he said, his voice going hoarse again.

"You'd know." The older man sighed and shook his head. "Take it and try it," he advised. "Worst come to worst it ain't goin' hurt him none. Makes a nice treat over a bit of ice, too."

There would be no ice in Cullen's household unless the creek froze, but he did not say that. Instead he nodded at the empty jar of liniment. "How long to mix that up?" he asked.

"That I got ready," said the druggist. "The soothing syrup I make fresh so it don't ferment. That won't take but ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe a little longer if other folks come in. Ain't many thinking about sickness on Election Day."

"No," Cullen agreed; "only folks that got to. What's all this going to cost me?"

"The liniment's seventy-five cents for a quarter pound," the man said. "How much soothing syrup you want?"

"How much does it take to bring a boy through whooping cough?" Cullen asked. "We been dosing him every night at bedtime, and once in a while during the day if it's especially bad."

"You'll want at least a half-pint," advised the pharmacist. "Unless you intend to come back for more in a couple weeks. Cough usually drags on a month and a half or more. Then again, you might want to take just a small bottle now, and fetch more when he's through the crisis if you need it."

Cullen's throat closed. "You mean if he don't die," he said.

The right eye was suddenly gentle, and the lid over its glass neighbor crinkled in an approximation of the same emotion. "That's right, son," the man said softly.

"Give me the half-pint," Cullen said defiantly, squaring his shoulders and widening his stance a little without even realizing it. "My boy's goin' come through this. He'll need it."

A knowing twitch of the lips was the only sign of pity the druggist offered. He inclined his head. "A half-pint it is," he said. "That's three dollars, and two for the cordial. Five seventy-five."

Still belligerent against the idea of admitting his fear that Gabe might yet succumb to the disease that was tormenting him, Cullen thrust finger and thumb into his left watch-pocket and brought out the tarnished one-dollar pieces. He slapped them down on the counter, all six of them, and watched as the pharmacist scooped them up and put them in his money-box. He withdrew a quarter, newly-minted and gleaming, and dropped it into Cullen's palm. He smiled.

"Thank you," he said. "If you'd care to wait, you're welcome. If not, come back at your leisure. Would you like to take these with you now?" He set a pot of liniment next to the bottle of cordial.

Cullen shook his head. "Keep 'em: I'll be back," he said. "I got other business to see to, and I got my civic duty to do."

With the unmistakable look of one grateful to seize upon a less painful topic of conversation, the druggist opened his mouth to talk politics, but at that moment the ladies piped up with a question about the liver pills and he excused himself to attend them. Cullen took the opportunity to step out into the bright, cool day again. He swung up into the saddle, distractedly fighting off the constant gnawing dread that had haunted him all week. And it _had_ only been a week, he realized with some astonishment as he rode down the narrow cross-street towards the courthouse, since his desperate midnight ride for Doc Whitehead. Of course Gabe had not really been well for days before that, but they had all dismissed it as nothing more than an autumn cold. He cursed that foolishness now. Was there anything they might have done to help him, if only they had known sooner?

These bleak thoughts filled him with an anxious longing to be back on the homeward road, flying along at Pike's top gallop which was just as swift as Bonnie's – if not so perpetually in need of restraint. He could almost feel his boots ringing against the veranda steps as he bounded into the house and ran through to the kitchen where Mary would be sitting in the heat of the stove, their son in her lap. He wanted to gather Gabe up and hold him close, fell his small arms twining about the back of his neck, reassure himself that his child was alive, was breathing, was suffering as little as possible.

He very nearly led Pike right instead of left when he came to the next street. He could always just tell Mary he had cast his vote, couldn't he? But of course he could not. Even if he might have been able to bring himself to lie to her, whom he loved best of all for her honesty and forthright nature, he wouldn't be able to live with himself afterwards. Huffing in quiet resignation that scarcely stirred the freshly-trimmed hairs of his beard, he trotted on to towards the courthouse.

Here was the very heart of the activity that had so animated the town. The road before the courthouse would have been unnavigable to a steed less limber than Pike, so crowded was it with carriages, saddle-horses, working wagons and rangy mules. Children by the dozen ran up and down the boardwalks, chasing hoops or one another, or merely expelling the excess energy that comes from good health and simple excitement. At any other time, Gabe and the young Ainsleys might have been among them. On the green beside the dignified brick building, ladies sat on shaded benches, or on picnic blankets with their burgeoning skirts spread wide around them. Here and there a baby squalled, either delighted or overwhelmed by the noise. A bevy of belles, bright as butterflies in their muslin and tarlatan, were gathered in the corner between the steps and the courthouse wall, their treasured complexions guarded with silk parasols. Hands in silk gloves and dainty lace mittens hid laughing mouths or waved to familiar beaux as they ascended into the building to vote. As Cullen dismounted, casting Pike's reins on the ground between a curtained carriage and a shabby old hack, one of these young men came out again. He was greeted eagerly by the young ladies, and hopped the stone bannister to land among them with a gallant bow. The girls fell at once to questioning him in the sweet, admiring and thoroughly empty-headed way their mothers had taught them, wanting to know _how _he had voted and whether it was _everything _he had imagined it might be! The youth, apparently newly twenty-one, met their fluttering interrogation with courteous answers and a gratified flush.

Cullen strode up the stone steps and into the dark, vaulted entryway, doffing his hat and tossing his head to settle his hair. Mary had not thought to trim it, and likely would not have had the time to take from tending Gabe in any case. Still it was neatly brushed and oiled, and with his whiskers trim and tidy he looked respectable enough.

In the anteroom he found the men of the county: wealthy planters and professionals in finely tailored garments, well-to-do storekeepers, and farmers whose own struggles made Cullen's seem small by comparison, aged trappers clad for the occasion in threadbare suits they had worn to their weddings twenty or thirty years ago, and hungry-eyed poor whites in clothes just one step above rags. All were thrust together by the occasion, and today all were equal. The vote of the richest man counted neither more nor less than the vote of the poorest. It was the ideal of liberty and egalitarianism for which their forbearers had fought, ensconced in the sacred rite of suffrage.

Many of these men had already voted, and were simply gathered to enjoy a good smoke and to talk politics with friends and strangers alike. Others were idling, enjoying their liesure before discharging their duty. The scent of the pipes and cigars filled the room and left a bluish haze in the air, and Cullen was suddenly seized by an irascible longing to snatch one from the nearest pair of chortling lips. Instead he slipped a little further into the room, putting his back to one of the pillars, and slid his hand inside his topcoat. He came out with a match and the worn leather case that held his thin homemade cigars. Hurriedly he struck a flame against the pillar and lit the tip, puffing deep and swiftly to fill his mouth and sinuses with the welcoming smoke. The low, throbbing headache that he had put down to exhaustion and the strain of trying to sleep once more upright in his son's little bed retreated a little. He closed his eyes and took another long drag, absentmindedly replacing the case in his inner pocket.

"Mr. Bohannon! How good to see you!" The cheerful voice proved an inadequate harbinger for the firm hand that cuffed Cullen's arm and then moved to grip his shoulder. Blinking off the fog of sheer hedonism, Cullen opened his eyes and found his field of vision filled by the grinning face of Theodore Whitehead, Doc's eldest son.

"Pleasure," he grunted, trying to arrange his tired mind into the lines of amiable conversation. "Come home to have your say, I see?"

"Wouldn't miss it," Theo confirmed enthusiastically. "Jesse come back, too, even though he ain't old enough to vote yet. Election Day's an occasion you don't want to miss."

"I'd have thought they'd tear it up some at the College," Cullen said. "You could have made arrangements to register there."

"Well sure," said Theo; "but it ain't the same. I can tear it up with them boys any time I please: ain't so often I get a chance to run with the homefolks. Just about everyone who's been away come back this week. We'll be meeting at the _Black Bull_ at nine o'clock, if you'd care to join us. The other fellas'd all be glad to see you."

"I can't, son," Cullen said. "Maybe your father ain't mentioned it, but my boy's took sick."

"He did say something, yeah," Theo said, frowning. "I wouldn't've thought it'd keep you from kicking up your heels a bit."

He was young and unattached: he had no concept of what it was to be wholly responsible for the welfare of another person, to love someone with that unimaginably deep and almost painful love a parent felt towards his child. Cullen smiled a little wistfully, trying to recall if he had ever been that youthful and uncomprehending. He had: he knew it. He just couldn't quite remember how it had felt.

"You'll understand when you got little'uns of your own," he said. "Ain't nothing in the world more important."

Theo nodded in agreement, but it was obvious that he did not truly understand. "Listen, what do you think about all this?" he asked. "You really think the Yankees might force a President on us that we don't want? You think Douglas might win?"

"He might," Cullen said around the cigar, taking in another draft of warm smoke. The tobacco was a little dry, not quite stale but certainly imperfect. It was the flavor of last year's failure. He wondered what this year's would taste like. "Seems to me that Bell and Breckenridge are going to split the vote down here."

Theo rolled his tongue like he wanted to expectorate, but the spittoons laid out for the occasion were all inaccessible amid the crop of polished shoes, scuffed work-boots, and the odd bare foot. He swallowed with a grimace instead. "Damn 'em: why can't they just let us alone to do as we please?"

"Everybody in the country's got a right to do as he please today, son," said Cullen, plucking the slender shaft from his lips and rolling it thoughtfully between finger and thumb. "We all got one vote, and we got a right to use it how we like." He pushed himself up off the pillar with a tired grunt. "And I got to go and use mine. You have fun tonight, but don't do nothing you'll regret in the morning, all right? Take that as advice from an expert."

He clapped Theo on the elbow and moved off through the crush of bodies, turning his shoulders and sidestepping smoothly as he picked his way towards the door that led to the clerks' room.

It was the same chamber in which Cullen had waited to confess he did not have money on his person to pay a thirty-five dollar fine, but it was transformed today. The walls were draped with bunting in red, white and blue, and the flag that usually stood behind the judge's bench in the main courtroom was tacked up on the wall in its star-spangled glory. The copies of the portraits of President Buchannan and Governor Pettus had also been brought out, but the print of the Vice-President was absent. This was an attempt by the Mayor and his adjutants to avoid any criticism for trying to influence voters, for of course Vice-President Breckenridge was one of the candidates for his master's office. The effort was made absurd, however, by the presence of the partisan hucksters in the election room.

Cullen had taken no notice of the men outside, standing at street corners or in the doorways of the shops to cry out the merits of their candidates and pass out the party tickets. They had been drumming up feeling in the town and through the county for weeks without attracting his attention. But in this small chamber they were impossible to ignore. There were eight of them, each flitting from man to man like manic moths, pressing slips of printed paper into hands both eager and unwilling and spouting the merits of their candidates. As Cullen slipped into the room and found a place at the back of the curling queue that ended at the ballot-box, one of them descended upon him.

"Democratic ticket!" he sang out. "National Democratic ticket: Douglas for President, Johnson his running-mate! The sound choice for a sound nation!"

Cullen smiled thinly and shook his head. "No, thank you," he said, the words coming out swift and clipped. Then he raised his eyebrows. "You getting many takers?"

"Some, some!" the man said, apparently undaunted. He strode back up the line, crying out his wares like a street vendor; "Douglas for President! Your national Democratic ticket!"

The representative for Breckenridge was next to approach, close on the heels of his rival. He too Cullen sent away politely. The man was obviously having better luck further up the line: many men were holding the pale blue papers bearing the name of the Southern choice for the Democratic nomination. Some, of course, would take all the tickets and make their selection at the table in an attempt at some anonymity. That was pointless, of course: electoral representatives from all the parties were standing behind the polling officer's desk to watch how each man voted, and anyone with a clear view of the box could see as well. Each party's ticket was a different color, and boldly printed with the party name. The Southern Democratic ballot even had Lady Liberty adorning its corner.

The polling officer called out the name and place of residence of the voter at the front of the line, and paused to give the man time to verify it. A representative of the Mississippi Democratic Party approached with his fistful of ballots, and this time Cullen did take one. Governor Pettus was not up for re-election, but several of the state legislators were. Their names appeared on the paper along with the districts they represented: the same ticket was being used across the state. Cullen was perfectly satisfied with the incumbent, and in truth had not given any thought whatsoever to his re-election or his replacement. He couldn't even recall who the other candidates were, but it hardly mattered. State governance was not at issue: Federal power was. That and the all-important matter of striking his one small and perhaps ineffectual blow against Sheriff Brannan.

A young man in a neat but inexpensive gabardine suit approached. He had a confident smile on his face, but the heap of papers in his hand quivered as he spoke. "Good morning, sir," he said pleasantly. "Would you like a local ticket? I'm Kennon McElroy, running for Sheriff. Mr. William Ives is standing for School Board."

"Just the man I was looking for," Cullen said. "Cullen Bohannon: pleased to make your acquaintance. Gimme one of them tickets. I'd take two, but they won't let me put 'em both in."

McElroy laughed. "Now that's mighty kind of you, Mr. Bohannon," he said. Then his brow furrowed. "You're _the_ Mr. Bohannon, ain't you?"

"So far as I know, there ain't but one," said Cullen, determined to be civil however the conversation turned next.

"You had some trouble a while back," the man said thoughtfully. His brows furrowed smoothly, and Cullen felt a burst of discouragement. He had assumed McElroy's appearance of youth to be the result of his clean-shaven face, but it wasn't. He was at least ten years younger than Cullen himself. Youth did not inspire confidence in a candidate for public office. "Something about a runaway slave?"

"I was charged with letting one of my people go at large," Cullen said levelly. "She weren't no runaway."

"Well, anyway, I heard they had you done up beforehand," said McElroy. "Guess that'd be why you're interested in voting for me."

Cullen's eyes narrowed. "Where'd you hear that?" he asked. "Joe Dayton?"

"It's just what I heard." McElroy shrugged. He peeled off a ballot and held it out. "Whatever the reason, I'm grateful for your vote."

"Ain't had many takers, then?" Cullen asked.

"Not as many as I'd like," the other man admitted. "I just feel this county could do with a fresh set of eyes when it comes to keeping the peace, you know? I ain't got much experience, but I'm mighty determined."

"Determination counts for more than experience," Cullen said. He took the ticket. "Much obliged."

McElroy moved on, and Cullen piled the two ballots together. Something in his pocket crunched as he moved his arm, and he remembered belatedly the dispatch he had picked up in the telegraph office: a statement made by Senator Davis yesterday. He pulled it out, smoothing the rumpled broadsheet. He was still divided in his mind. Breckenridge had administrative experience and could not be held responsible for Buchannan's indecisive bungling. He was strong on states' rights, which Cullen supported, but he was a hotheaded Kentuckian and he was riding the rail between North and South. There was also his acceptance of the Southern nomination to consider. Could man so willingly led to stand against the duly-nominated candidate of his own party be trusted to show any more loyalty or fidelity as President?

Then there was Bell, who talked good sense but seemed both quiet and perhaps indecisive. He was from Tennessee, which though hardly ideal was certainly preferable over Kentucky, and he was the candidate for the nascent Constitutional Unionists – which would not play in his favor in a country so firmly divided between Republicans and Democrats. He was also, from what Cullen had gathered from overheard debates and the few conversations on the topic he had occasion to participate in since the nominations, far from the forerunner in Lauderdale County. So a vote for Bell might carry more sway than a vote for the popular Breckenridge. It was a conundrum, all right, and perhaps the Senator had said something that might help Cullen to make up his mind.

The rival huckster for the State House candidates came by, and Cullen waved his white ticket dismissively. He was studying the densely-printed page. It was not a speech after all, but an account of statements given to the press. Newspaper men always flocked around politicians of interest, and Jefferson Davis's refusal to accept the nomination for presidential candidate had drawn their attention. Not for the first time Cullen was torn between respecting the senator's choice to decline to embark on such an arduous course, and regretting that he was not standing. Cullen's own vote would have been an easy one then.

He scanned the lines of journalistic claptrap for the remarks from Davis himself, and his cigar tilted precariously from slackened lips. These were not the words of a moderate, of a man dedicated to compromise and mutual respect; to peace. These were the words of an outraged and righteously indignant man whose very honor had been impugned. They were words of passion, of bold and fearless defiance of oppression. They were words that filled Cullen's chest with a strange and urgent fire and made his tired backbone grow stiff and straight with pride in himself, in his state, in the generations of courageous men who had gone before him standing tall for their freedom and fighting for their rights. Decisively he folded the broadsheet again, its brave lines imprinted upon his mind.

"_I gloried in Mississippi's star! But before I would see it dishonored I would tear it from its place, to be set on the perilous ridge of battle as a sign around which her bravest and best shall meet the harvest home of death."_

Was it popular opinion that had led the Vice-President to break from the party that had brought him to his present office, or was it this? This desire for self-determination, for the liberty ensconced in the Declaration of Independence and made manifest in the Constitution. There was a provision in that hallowed document signed by the men who had built the Union now so fiercely debated, that men had both the right and responsibility to create for themselves a new government when the time came for the old one to fail. Did that not apply equally to the parties that built that government? And did it not behoove every man who loved his home and the state of his birth to speak out, however small his individual voice, for the rights of that state? Compromise was well enough while true compromise endured, but when it came to mean slavish deferral to the alien authority of the North, was there any point in moderation?

"You!" Cullen called, crooking his finger at the representative of the southern Democratic ticket. The man turned sharply on his heel and came trotting. "Give me one of those: Breckenridge for President."


	57. Great Duress

**Chapter Fifty-Seven: Great Duress**

By the time he reached the head of the line, Cullen was restless and footsore. His neck, stiff and painful after nights of snatching his scanty sleep sitting up in Gabe's bed, was locking into a series of miserable knots, and he could feel his posture deteriorating. He found his thoughts straying longingly to bed, and his head was beginning to ache again. The heat of so many bodies in a confined space was beginning to become oppressive. Cullen shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing down at the ballots in his hand. The man in front of him had just finished giving his name, and one of the polling officers consulted the list of registered voters and read it back to him. Then he sidestepped to the right and deposited his tickets in the box before the second officer. Representatives of the national and state parties stood behind, watching. One of them had a small notebook bound with pasteboard, on which he noted something with a stub of pencil. The elderly voter shuffled on, and it was Cullen's turn.

He gave his name and place of residence, and nodded solemnly as they were proclaimed back to him loudly enough to be heard in the next room. He was too young to recall the days of _viva voce_, when it would have been his turn now to announce his choice for each office with equal volume and clarity for the benefit of a recording clerk. Instead his only obligation was to slip the small sheets of paper into the ballot box to be counted up with the others when the polls closed. He did so with no ceremony whatsoever, and retreated through the throng to the door. The chamber was now so crowded that the line was utterly indistinguishable from the interested hangers-back who waited to see how their friends – or enemies – were voting. The party hawkers were having difficulty navigating, and lifted their sheaves of ballots over their heads to keep them from being crushed.

For a brief, claustrophobic moment it seemed like Cullen might flounder in the sea of his fellow men, but then his shoulder struck the doorjamb and he was able to lever himself out into the vaulted vestibule. Pausing only to smile polite greetings to acquaintances who called to him he slipped out into the cool sunshine and drew two deep, cleansing breaths as his eyes adjusted to the change.

Pike was waiting where he had been left, and nickered a quiet greeting as Cullen drew near. He gathered the reins and led his obedient Morgan down towards the green, where there was a broad stone trough by the well. Pike bowed contentedly to drink, and Cullen helped himself to a dipperful of water from the pail on the well's stone rim. His throat was troubling him, and the cold water brought welcome relief. As burdensome as the greatcoat had been in the courthouse, he was glad of it now. There was an unmistakable nip in the air, and a shiver ran up his spine.

He turned to find that Pike was no longer alone at the trough: a handsome Thoroughbred was drinking, his rider letting the reins hang loose. As Cullen turned the man reached forward to pat the horse's withers with one gloved hand.

"I wondered whether I'd see you," Boyd Ainsley said, nodding his greeting to Cullen. "I was worried you might come tearing over on Sunday as soon as Doc told you there was sickness in the house."

"I considered it." Cullen rounded the trough and took a fistful of corn from the feedbag, holding it for Pike and stroking his neck as he ate. "Doc said best not."

Boyd nodded. "Your boy's got it too? I'm sorry to hear it."

Cullen squinted unnecessarily, distracting himself from anxious thoughts to look at his friend. Boyd, too, was dressed in his finest day clothes – which were far finer and more up-to-date than Cullen's, and flattered his unfashionably narrow shoulders and thin physique as only the best tailoring could. He had his hat tipped back on his head, the better to shelter his ears, and his ordinarily pallid face showed no signs of unusual strain.

"Any of the others come down with it, or is it only Charity?" he asked.

A small, regretful smile tugged at Boyd's lips. "Charlie's got the cough, and Daisy's is getting worse," he said. "Verbena's worried about Baby: she's been sneezing too, and that's how it started with the others. The only one who ain't shown signs yet is Leon: he's still healthy as a horse. Mammy ain't slept in three days, and all the nursemaids got themselves in a state. It's a relief to be out of the house."

He swung down out of the saddle and looked around. "Anywhere to hitch 'em?" he asked. "I was thinking maybe I'd ride down to Barrett's and then walk back. I'll be taking dinner there, if you'd care to join me."

Cullen shook his head. "I got to get home," he said quietly. "I done my duty as a man; now I want to see how my boy's been. He's miserable with it; can't sleep at all unless I'm holding him."

"Unless _you're_ holding him?" Boyd said, incredulous consternation in his voice. "You mean you been up with him at night? Lord, no wonder you look so haggard."

Cullen's chin tilted upward a little, almost defiantly. "I ain't haggard," he scoffed.

"Hell you ain't," said Boyd. "You look like your nose been broke. Ain't Bethel able to look after a child no more?"

"Sure she is," said Cullen; "but Gabe's too big now to lie comfortable on her chest. Besides, I can't stay abed when he's coughing: might as well be in there with him."

Boyd whistled softly. "Mammy wouldn't stand for menfolks in the nursery at night," he said. "It was just about all Verbena could do to convince her _she_ should stay. Ain't fitting for a lady, you see, but it's downright _scandalous_ for men to be doing women's work." He grinned. "Can't say I'm complaining. They want to sit the sick watch, I say let 'em. Charity's bearing up bravely: that's my girl! Charlie ain't taking so well to it."

"My boy's brave," Cullen said, pride in his voice. "Scarcely even complains. Just spits out the phlegm and lies back again." He could almost feel the weight of the curly head on his collarbone now, and the urge to flee homeward gripped him again. He had discharged his obligation to the nation, and all he had to do was finish with his errands.

"Mammy says it's best I keep my distance," Boyd said unnecessarily. He was looking down at his fingernails now, clearly uncomfortable. "I ain't had it myself, and she's got it into her head I might catch it from the children. My chest, you know. Doc said there ain't much cause to worry for the big ones, but we got to keep a close eye on Daisy and the baby. Leon too, if he gets it. He… he got a better chance than they do, Doc said, but not like Charity and Charlie."

Cullen ducked under Pike's head, and then dropped the reins to pass under that of the other horse. Boyd was still studying his hands, and Cullen stood awkwardly beside him. "He said the same thing to us," he ventured, a little hoarsely. "The younger children is, the worse it can be. But Doc also said we got to keep hope; worst don't always come."

"Does to you," Boyd said with a hollow, bitter laugh. "Seems just 'bout everything that happens, you get the worst of it."

"Well, then, there won't be no bad luck left to come your way," said Cullen. He gripped his friend's arm bracingly and forced from his lips the one piece of advice he wished so wretchedly he could take for himself. "Don't do no good to fret: all it does is eat you up inside. Do what you can do for them, and try and quit your worrying."

Boyd's face was strained as he raised his eyes to meet Cullen's. Silent understanding passed between them: the dread known only to fathers who see their children imperiled. They had shared all the milestones of boyhood, the adventures of their bachelor years, and in some measure even the challenges of young landowners. Now they were sharing this as well.

"It's hard," said Boyd, his lips scarcely moving. "I can give those children anything in the world that money can buy, but I can't buy a pair of lungs that don't rattle."

Something Doc had said to him on that terrible first night came back to Cullen. "No," he said; "but you gave 'em a good home and nourishing food: you saw to it they growed up strong and healthy. If any children in the county got a good chance of coming through, it's got to be yours."

A thin smile tugged at Boyd's lips, and the faintest glimmer of hope showed in his eyes. "That's so," he said. Then he glanced from side to side and leaned in a little nearer. "Cullen, if there's anything you need, you only got to say. I know it's just 'bout the worst time of year for something like this to happen to your boy. If there's anything…"

"Thanks." The word came out more clipped than Cullen wanted it to. Suddenly he was seized with the urge to sneeze. He clamped his back molars together and inhaled slowly, fighting it. "There ain't nothing at present, but I'm obliged for the offer."

"All right," said Boyd, nodding. "All right. You been in to vote yet?" Cullen, still trying to keep control of himself, nodded tersely. Boyd looked disappointed. "Just got to find me somewhere to tether this devil: he'll bolt otherwise."

"I'll hold him," Cullen exhaled, swallowing against the inexorably rising tickle. He reached for the reins.

"You sure?" said Boyd. "That's mighty kind. If you do find somewhere to tie him, you go right on ahead. I don't want to keep you from home."

Cullen nodded to show he understood and took the lines. Boyd looked around and then hurried off, his long strides carrying him towards the courthouse and up the steps. Hurriedly, hampered somewhat by the leather straps in his fist, Cullen dug out his handkerchief and relaxed his throat. The torturous sensation faded at once, and the sneeze did not come. With a frown and a low snort of irritation, he bent under the Thoroughbred's head again and took Pike's reins as well. He led them both away from the trough, and found a space in the all-but-impassible street. He leaned against Pike's shoulder and sighed. There was no question of leaving Boyd's stallion unattended, whatever his owner had said. He would have to remain here until the man was finished voting, and given the crowd at the polls that might take an hour or more.

Cullen shifted the lines to his left hand and took out his watch. Clumsily he wound it, making a cursory check of the time. It was a quarter past twelve. Mary would be preparing dinner, while the others were hard at work in the yams. Bethel would be needing to bring in a fresh load of wood for the tobacco fires. The dew in the long grass would be dry. Elijah had gone down to check the cornfield on Sunday, and he had reported that the stalks felled by the hail were so thoroughly rotted that the ploughs would be able to till them under like mulch. That was good news: laying in the winter wheat was the next priority once the sweet potatoes were in.

His stomach rumbled, and Cullen fiddled with the two sets of lines so that he could reach his saddle bag. Bethel had insisted upon sending food with him. This morning it had seemed like an unnecessary bother for both of them, but he was glad of it now. He found the packet, wrapped lovingly in a clean napkin, and set it on the seat of his saddle. The Thoroughbred shifted curiously, but Pike remained still. There were two slices of bread, buttered generously and stuck together, a boiled egg, and a baked apple. Cullen took the egg first, rapping it against the saddle horn and flicking off shards of shell with his thumb. He was damned sick of eggs: eggs at every meal, cooked in a variety of ways but always eggs, a constant reminder of his failure to provide meat for his family.

He had brought his rifle, strapped in its sheath to the right side of Pike's saddle, but he didn't suppose he would have any opportunity to fire it. He had come by road, hoping to expedite the journey as much as he could, and he planned to go back the same way. Lauderdale County had its wilderness, but it was now well enough developed that game was scarce, particularly close to the town or the railroad tracks. If he could have spared a day to ride north, he would have expected more luck, but that was out of the question.

Cullen choked down the egg and grabbed at his handkerchief again as the warning tickle rose in his sinuses. This time there was no need to hold back for the sake of good manners, and he sneezed violently, wiping his nose with the square of linen. He coughed shallowly, too, clearing his throat. The air was choked with dust from the hundreds of restless hooves. He could feel the grit in his teeth now, and it dulled the pleasure of biting into Bethel's good bread. She had sliced it more thinly than was her wont, and his stomach stirred uneasily. Was it just a coincidence, or was the flour running low? He knew that Bethel would not lie to him, but she might so easily stretch the truth to spare him more worries.

A hand closed upon the Thoroughbred's reins and Cullen looked up, prepared to offer an explanation or a challenge as the occasion required it. The assailant was neither a would-be horse-thief nor a curious neighbor, but Boyd himself. He grinned at Cullen's expression.

"It's going to take a while," he said. "Don't look like there's a man in the county stayed home today. I'll tie him at Barrett's: he'll be more comfortable, and you can get on."

The polite protestation that it was no trouble at all did not even rise to Cullen's lips. It scarcely flitted through his mind. "All right, then," he said, releasing his hold and hastily bundling up his simple meal. He thrust it into the saddlebag again, and swung into the stirrup as Boyd did the same. "I'll ride along: the druggist is making me up some soothing syrup."

"Works wonders, don't it?" Boyd asked. "Charity's been drinking it down like tonic water. Seems to help more'n the purgative."

"We stopped purging Gabe," Cullen said as they picked their way between the carts and buggies to the far end of the street. "It weren't doing a thing but tormenting him."

Boyd clicked his tongue as they reached the corner, and the two horses lifted their hooves in a graceful trot. A pair of small boys on the boardwalk looked up from a game of marbles to admire the handsome steeds. "What'd Doc say about that?"

"Didn't like it," Cullen said; "but we're trying other things for the fever instead. Keeping his spirits up is the most important thing; surely Doc said the same to you?"

"Sure," said Boyd. "Wish I knew what to do for Charlie. He's miserable already, and it ain't near as bad as his sister's cough yet. I was thinking of bringing back presents: a picture-puzzle or something he can play with in bed. Doc said they don't need to be tucked up all day, but Mammy's insisting."

Cullen nodded. It was the sort of thing Bethel might have insisted upon herself, if there had been any spare hand to do the kitchen work so that Mary could stay up in the nursery with Gabe. He seemed to remember his own childhood sicknesses had all been accompanied by long periods of bedrest. "Not a puzzle," he suggested. "My boy got a set of tin soldiers from his grandparents: plays with 'em for hours at a time. It makes him use his imagination. Townsend must have something like that."

They were turning onto the main street now, and instead of making for Barrett's Gentlemen's Club Boyd turned his horse towards the dry goods store. Cullen, who had half-forgotten his own errand there, rode along.

They managed to find a space at one of the hitching posts for the Thoroughbred, and Boyd looked on wonderingly as Cullen cast down the reins and bade Pike stay. Together they stepped into the shop. Townsend was behind the counter, measuring out woolens for a woman with two small girls at her side, clutching the edge of the counter to peer up at the prettily printed cloth. Boyd slipped past a pair of men looking at the razors behind the glass, and Cullen moved to the shelf that held the store soap. He picked up a small four-ounce bar of the sort he usually bought, and then moved to join his friend.

Boyd was looking at the shelf of playthings: puzzles in brightly-painted boxes, tops with stripes or spots or swirls, Jacob's ladders, cups and balls, and skillfully whittled farm animals. There were dolls of every description: wax dolls and china dolls, and even factory-made rag dolls. Hoops hung from pegs near the ceiling, and there were batons with ribbons threaded through the tip. A tiny selection of children's books leaned dustily against the end of one shelf, beside a little tin cannon. There were small tin wagons and locomotives as well, and, propped up with the lid open to display its contents, a set of tin soldiers.

"Right there," said Cullen, pointing. "Gabe loves his. You can make it a present to both boys, too: one can be red and the other blue."

"Leon will be red," Boyd chuckled. "He always seems to get the skinny end."

For a moment Cullen found himself wondering what it would be like to have two boys in the house, laughing and living and playing together. He banished the thought almost at once, repentant. He didn't wish for another child, not really. Not now. If only the Lord would spare Gabe from this sickness, Cullen wouldn't mind if he and Mary never had another baby! If only his boy lived through this, he could bear any other sorrow or hardship on Earth.

Mr. Townsend came over, smiling broadly. "Mr. Ainsley! Mr. Bohannon! How can I help you two gentlemen? Looking for something for the young'uns, I see?"

"Them soldiers," said Boyd. "I'll take 'em. And what you got for a girl, nine years old?"

After some deliberating he chose a book for Charity, and a pretty wax doll with pale curls for Daisy. Cullen was of no use in picking gifts for girls: the only girl he knew well was Lottie, and she was illiterate and much too old for dolls. Boyd paid for his purchases, and Townsend wrapped them in brown paper while Cullen set down the bar of soap. From his pocket he took the few small coins he had left, and the shiny new quarter he had received in change at the drug store. He set it on the counter, and then moved to slip the rest back where it belonged. At the last moment he kept back a half-dime as well.

"I'll take this," he said when the shopkeeper came to him; "and five cents' worth of lemon drops in two parcels."

Townsend looked at the coins and his brow furrowed questioningly. Then he glanced at Boyd and seemed to understand. "Five cents' worth," he agreed, picking up the sugar tongs. Cullen watched as the man put the round yellow sweets into the small bags, and then tucked them into his pocket with care. As he stepped outside again he tried to close his mind against the cruel thought that this might be his last opportunity to bring home candy for his son.

_*discidium*_

Gabe was lying with his whole body on his pillow, arms and legs curled in like those of a tiny baby. His tearstained cheek lay in a puddle of sunlight, and Mary reached to close the nursery curtain. After the last spate of coughing, he had begged her through his sobs to take him up to bed. Although the dinner dishes had not been cleared away, nor the hamper of food packed for the afternoon, Mary had not had the heart to refuse him. He had climbed into this improbable position, and had fallen asleep while her back was turned to light the fire in the little heating stove. His night had been broken again and again with coughing despite Cullen's soothing presence and strong arms to keep Gabe upright. The fever was no lower, and the cough was worse.

The nursery was cool, and the draft from the broken window in the bedroom crept in from the corridor. Mary closed the door and then scurried back to the bed. He was still sleeping, weary little face peaceful. She could not help but dread the next round of coughing. It would come soon enough: they had not had half an hour all day without a fit, and now he was lying down. The silence of the empty house was oppressive. Mary wished that Lottie wasn't needed in the yams: the girl's cheerful chatter was just what she needed. But of course Lottie was better off in the field. She had not had whooping cough herself, and might so easily fall ill. Mary did not know how they would manage if anyone else did. She and Bethel were safe, but any of the others might catch it, and then what?

The muffled sound of hooves on the drive brought her back to the window, peeking through the curtains. Her heart, racing at the sound, beat with relief instead of wariness when she saw Pike's familiar form with Cullen in the saddle. He was not riding straight and proud as he should have, but bowed over the reins with his shoulders stooped and his head hanging wearily. He passed out of her sight along the drive, riding for the stables.

He would be down there some time, removing the tack and rubbing Pike down before leaving the Morgan to his rest. Mary found herself hovering once more over the bed like an anxious hummingbird. She was spending all her strength in fruitless worry, when good sense told her that she ought to try to rest herself while her child was sleeping. She moved to sit down in the armchair, and sprang back to the narrow little bed in an instant when Gabe sat bolt upright, choking on the first awful cough.

She had known to expect it, and still she felt the cold wave of despair breaking over her. Still she raged silently against the cruelty of this sickness that took a thriving, merry child and reduced him to this wretchedness. As she murmured consolations for her son, she could think of none to offer herself, and every _whoop_ tore another bloody welt in her heart. Gabe was bringing up sputum between coughs now, and she held a handkerchief for him so that he could push it out with his tongue. It was still thick and milky, blessedly free from blood, but at times it seemed he was drowning in it.

"There, dearest, spit it out," Mary soothed, stroking his hair with her free hand. "Spit it all out."

Another wheeze brought the ghastly blue color to his lips, and with the next it began to show on his cheeks, hideous beneath the bright blossoms of fever. As the cough clattered on without relief, Mary felt her own terror mounting. Surely he had never before had such a long and violent fit, had he? She had promised Cullen, promised him that nothing would happen today. Had she lied?

But Gabe's small shoulders heaved and he spat once more, feebly, before dragging in a throaty gasp. It was followed by another that shuddered deep in his chest, and then with a tiny whimper. His face flushed immediately dark, crimson with exertion, and his watering eyes were red. Trembling hands reached for her, and Mary cast aside the soiled handkerchief to draw him into her lap.

"M-M-Mama," he stuttered brokenly, unable to give voice to his misery.

She caressed his quaking little body, rocking to and fro. "I'm here, lovey. I'm here."

There was nothing more she could say; nothing more she could do.

Gabe nodded his head against her, then shook it. "I can't lay down no more," he said sorrowfully.

"That's all right," Mary said. "I'll hold you. We can sit in the chair, and I'll hold you."

She was trying to muster the resolve to stand, to pick him up and risk another attack as she moved him, when she heard the click of Cullen's riding boots in the corridor. The door opened with a long, slow creak, and he came in. Before Mary could even think of turning to look at him he was beside her, hurriedly setting two bottles on the bedside table. His left hand moved to cup her shoulder, while the right settled on the crown of Gabe's head. Instinctively she leaned against him, craving his strength. His greatcoat was warmed with the sunshine, and he smelled clean and vital: open air and horseflesh, saddle leather and a whiff of fresh cigar smoke. Mary closed her eyes.

"How's my boy?" Cullen asked.

Gabe squirmed to look up, tilting his head against his father's palm. "Pappy," he murmured tiredly. The eager enthusiasm with which he usually uttered the beloved diminutive was nowhere to be found. "Why ain't you workin'?"

"I just come back from town: it's Election Day," Cullen said. "I brung you some new medicine."

Gabe shuddered. "No," he protested in a tiny voice.

"It ain't like the other stuff," said Cullen. "For one thing, it's sweet. The druggist says it might help your fever, and it ain't goin' make you make a mess."

Gabe gave him a dubious look. "Promise?" he said.

"I promise," said Cullen. He sighed and turned his eyes on Mary. The gentle concern hardened into something like irritation, and she raised her head from the comforting bastion of his side. "I want a word with you."

She nodded. "You read it."

"Hell, yes, I read it." His voice was still low, but very cold. "What, you thought maybe I'd just hand it over? If you'd wanted that, you should have sealed it."

"I didn't want to keep it from you," said Mary. She hugged Gabe closer, all too aware of how the hold upon her shoulder had tightened beyond the bounds of consolation. "I had to do it, Cullen. I had to try."

Gabe's eyelashes, still glittering wetly, drooped and fluttered. Mary focused on them, not wanting to meet the flinty eyes fixed upon her. She knew what she would see in them. Anger. Betrayal. Shame.

"Why?" he asked, forcing out the single syllable in a harsh, full breath.

Mary felt miserable. All morning she had been wishing she had not simply handed him the paper with the draft of her telegram. It would have been better to quarrel at dawn than to spend all these hours wondering how the confrontation would unfold. "Because we haven't any money. None at all. What you spent today… it might have gone for other debts before this. Jeremiah offered. It was a kind offer: he's trying to take care of me. He's my older brother. He's always tried to take care of me."

"It ain't his place to take care of you."

There was a hollowness to the words, an eerie emptiness as if Cullen was too worn-down, too weary and despairing to feel anything at all. Mary dared at last to look up, unable to resist. His eyes were hooded, the purpled shadows in their sockets iridescent as velvet. The angles of his face stood out starkly, and his lips were pressed together.

"He was only trying to help," said Mary, her own voice now as tiny and tremulous as Gabe's.

The hand jerked up off her shoulder, and she stiffened. She had done it at last: she had pushed him away. But his palm remained on their son's head, while the hand that had left her reached into the left pocket of his vest. He brought the fingers out pinched, and held them to her. Reflexively she raised her palm, and a few tarnished pennies rained into it, chased by a slender dime and a half-cent piece. She looked at it blankly.

"That's all we got left," said Cullen starkly. "Except the five dollars at Madsen's, and I can't touch that. If you can make out to your brother how he's giving you a present, I'd be grateful."

He broke away from her at last and moved over to the stove, holding his hands out to it. His shoulders sagged low, and his hair fell forward to obscure his profile. Twisting to follow him with her eyes, Mary felt a pang of remorse. She should have cut it for him last night, should not have allowed him to go into town looking overgrown and untended. Unloved. Her heart was bursting now with such awe and adoration that she could hardly breathe.

"You sent it," she whispered.

"I sent it," he said, misery in his voice and shame in his every contour. "My boy's sick, and my credit's no good. What happens next time he needs some medicine? We got no choice."

Mary slid Gabe off her lap, careful not to jostle him. He looked up at her questioningly, but did not speak as she stood and went to her husband. She slipped her arm around his waist and stretched to rest her chin upon his shoulder. He was so bent with weariness and worry that she scarcely needed to exert herself to reach. With her right arm she reached to embrace him.

"Thank you," she murmured. "I should have known you'd provide for us, whatever you had to do."

He turned, catching hold of her elbow and frowning at her perplexedly. "You call this providing?" he scoffed.

"I do," said Mary solemnly, meeting his eyes worshipfully. "Letting me ask Jeremiah to help… that's the hardest thing I could have asked of you. The hardest thing you could have done. I know that. I'm grateful. A good man will work himself to the bone to feed his family, but only a great man can swallow his pride for them."

Cullen's head shuddered a little, jerking from side to side. "I don't feel like a great man," he whispered, his voice taut with inexpressible emotion. His eyes were the soft, mournful gray of turtledove down, and they searched her face imploringly.

"But you are," Mary breathed, and she kissed him.

Gabe had scooted up to the head of the bed, and was studying the larger of the two bottles curiously. He was too well-trained and too well-behaved to touch it, but he clearly wanted to. "Dis my new med'cine, Pappy?" he asked. "It look pretty."

A strained approximation of a smile touched Cullen's lips. "That's it, son. Elderflower cordial," he said for Mary's benefit. "Druggist said it might help, and it ain't goin' hurt none. I thought we should try it. Got the liniment, too, and the soap." He dug these articles out of his overcoat pockets and set them down. Then he reached into his frock coat and brought out a little paper packet. "And something for our brave little man. Don't you eat 'em all at once."

Gabe gave a tiny cry of delight that was as heartening to Mary as his lusty crows of triumph would have been a week ago. He seized the bag eagerly and fumbled to unroll it. "T'ank you, Pappy!" he said happily. "T'ank you, t'ank you!"

Mary squeezed Cullen's waist lovingly. "You've thought of everything," she said.

"P'raps I shouldn't have spared the money," said Cullen; "but I couldn't resist."

"I'm glad," said Mary, cherishing the moment of simple childish cheer as Gabe popped a lemon drop into his mouth and puckered his lips to suck it. "I'm so very glad."

_*discidium*_

It was long after midnight and Cullen's exhaustion left his body limp and his throat raw, but sleep eluded him. Gabe was slumbering peacefully again, the last hideous coughing fit forgotten in the bower of slumber. On her bed on the floor Bethel snored faintly. The dim light of the lantern, smoldering away their precious kerosene little by little so that it could be swiftly turned bright when the next paroxysm struck, illuminated the shadowy shape at the black woman's back. Mary had not returned to the main bedroom this time, but had simply crawled under the blankets with Bethel. The bedroom was cold, she had said, and she wanted to stay near her child. It was a sign of the old woman's exhaustion that she had not protested this impropriety, nor tried to surrender her pallet entirely. Cullen wondered wearily how sorely this ordeal was sapping Bethel's strength. She had been a pillar of fortitude all his life, but she was no longer young. He knew how hard all this was on his own body and spirit. Surely she was not immune to such incursions.

His wife's gentle words of praise and a hard afternoon crouching among the yams had blunted the edge of his humiliation, but he could still not quite believe that he had sunk so far as to take largesse from his brother-in-law. It galled him more than any other indignity he had faced this year. He knew he had no choice; knew furthermore that no one of his acquaintance was likely to learn of his shame. Mary had worded the telegram very carefully: only someone who had read the letter that Tate had sent her would know what it meant. When the draft for twenty dollars was wired to the bank in Meridian, it would bear her name and look like a gift from a fond older brother. But Cullen knew, and Jeremiah knew, and when next they met the debt would hang between them, brandished like a whip over Cullen whether Tate mentioned it or not. He closed his eyes and drank in the scent of his sleeping son. He had had no choice. He had done it for Gabe.

He had to rest, to try to sleep. Yet again the others were covering for him, watching the tobacco fires when he ought to be out there. Cullen ought to have felt some remorse for shirking this duty, but he did not. He was needed here, to sit propped against the headboard so that Gabe might sleep upon him. Mary and Bethel could hold him like this in an armchair, their elbows braced against it, but they were both too narrow in the chest for the child to rest comfortably, and he was too large now for them to support him for long. This was something that only his father could do for him; one small relief that only Cullen could offer his son. It was a labor more physically taxing than tending the fires, and far more exhausting than even the middle shift. There had not been even an hour between fits tonight.

The creak of the staircase yanked Cullen out of the first nod of drowsiness. When the faint rapping came upon the nursery door, he was already alert for it. "Come in," he hissed, shifting his hand to cup lightly over Gabe's exposed ear lest the sound of his voice should waken him. He did not feel so warm now as he had that afternoon, but perhaps that was only idle wishfulness.

The hinges squealed and the shadowy figure flinched. "It's all right," Cullen whispered. "Come in."

It was Meg: he could see that by her size even before she stepped into the faint orb of light. Her hands trembled as she smoothed her skirts with the right. The left was outstretched, holding something between finger and thumb. She should have been heading out to the kiln now to sit the last watch. Cullen's anxiety stirred. His first thought was of fire: the persistent danger against which they kept their ceaseless vigil. But she would not creep quietly, timidly, if there were a fire. She would run, would call out, would muster them all to fend off the catastrophe. No, if she came cautious on tiptoe it was because she needed his advice and did not wish to rouse the household.

"What is it, Meg?" he asked.

She moved nearer, skirting warily around the mattress on the floor. He could see her eyes now, wide and stricken, and her face numb with hurt and disbelief. She extended her left hand, and he saw that she held a leaf of clover. The hoary coating upon it had melted a little with the heat of her fingers and the warmth of the room, fine beads of dew forming, but it had been thick enough to survive the journey and was even now clearly visible. Cullen's sore throat went dry, and he struggled fruitlessly to swallow in order to speak. In his mind's eye he could see the rows of untouched hills, topped with yellowing foliage and concealing fully a third of the indispensable crop of sweet potatoes, yet unharvested and so vulnerable to Nature's implacable spite. The golden bounty of the earth that was their insurance against starvation.

"Mist' Cullen," said Meg, her voice breaking. "Mist' Cullen, the frost done come."


	58. Saving the Yams

**Chapter Fifty-Eight: Saving the Yams**

While those she cherished were still and peaceful, Bethel slept on. If the tremulous footsteps and the whispered consultation penetrated her dreams, she was not aware of it. But the instant the bed ropes creaked and Mister Cullen moved, rousing a sleepy whimper from the child in his arms, she was awake. Even before Meg spoke again, she was sitting up and scrubbing the sleep from her smarting eyes.

"Wha' we goin' do, Mist' Cullen?" the younger slave was asking. She skittered back a step as Bethel got her shoulders up off of the mattress and flung aside the blankets. "Oh, Bethel, I didn' mean to wake you!"

Hushing his son, Mister Cullen kicked off the bedclothes and twisted his lower body, his shoulder falling hard against the wall beside the bed as he did so. Mister Gabe flinched and whimpered again, nuzzling his cheek against his father's nightshirt. Bethel disentangled herself from the covers and struggled to stand, her body stiff and still half asleep although her mind was sharp. Meg stooped and took hold of her arm, offering the leverage she needed to rise.

"Wha's all this?" she breathed, a little hoarse from the abrupt awakening.

"Frost," said Mister Cullen. He looked helplessly down at the boy, and then at his feet where they dangled off the side of the bed. He brought the left one up onto the edge of the tick and used it to lever himself away from the wall, still trying his utmost to keep his son still. "I got to get out there."

"What you goin' do 'bout frost?" Bethel demanded, only just remembering to keep her voice at a whisper. That child was a clever one, and no mistake, but sometimes he got the notion that he could move the world. It didn't do him any good to try.

"Can't do a damned thing about it," Mister Cullen growled; "but I sure as hell ain't just going to sit here. We can try and get in the rest of the crop, can't we?"

"In the dark?" said Meg, expressing Bethel's own skepticism. "Massa, there ain' nuthin' we can do in the dark."

"Jus' settle back down 'fore you wake that chile," Bethel scolded gently, reaching to straighten the sheets so that he could slide back under them with ease. "Firs' thing tomorrow you can get out there and bring in what you can."

Mister Cullen looked at her, belligerence rising in his eyes. Then he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with the hand not occupied in supporting Mister Gabe's curled body. He fanned the three fingers not needed for the gesture, and peered under them at Meg. "The minute they start to freeze they start to rot, don't they?" he asked.

Meg nodded. "Frost don' do yams no good t'all."

"But if we get 'em up quick, they'll still be good," he went on slowly.

"Yassir," said Meg. "We got us a day, maybe two."

"Two days," he murmured. His hand fell heavy to his side and then curled up to brace the child's leg. "Took us a week to bring in what we have so far."

"Yassir," Meg agreed; "but we wasn't all of us workin' it 'til Sat'day."

Bethel frowned, wondering what was going on behind the slate-gray eyes that glittered in the faint glow of the lamp. She could not read his expression, but abruptly his lips pressed together beneath the neatly trimmed whiskers and he nodded grimly. "Then there ain't no time to waste," he said.

He grunted softly as he got one arm under Mister Gabe's bottom and the other behind him, lifting the deadweight of the slumbering child off his chest but not quite off his lap. "Here, Bethel, take him," he said.

"What you goin' do?" Bethel asked warily. She could feel the cold determination coming off of him in waves, tempered but only strengthened by dread.

"Just take him!" Mister Cullen insisted, his voice rising out of its whisper. The child stirred and shivered, severed from the warm wall of his father's chest.

Bethel bent and gathered Mister Gabe in her arms, settling his head on her shoulder and letting his legs fall straight against her thigh. She cradled his bottom with one arm and pressed his back with the other. He slept on.

Mister Cullen pushed off the bed and got to his feet, straightening stiffly. "Go and get the lanterns from the barn and the toolshed," he said to Meg. "Matches, too. Wake Nate and tell him to get dressed. I'll meet you both down in the field. Bethel…" He hesitated, looking her up and down and letting his gaze linger for a moment on his son's fever-damp curls. His mouth twitched regretfully. "Bethel, you'll have to relieve Elijah in the barn. We'll work more efficiently in pairs. Bundle up warm."

"You's goin' pick them yams in the dark?" Bethel said, understanding and consternation dawning together. "Chile, that don' make one lick of sense."

"We'll work by lamplight," he explained briskly, bending to reach for the pillows. His own he flung down to the foot of the bed, and Mister Gabe's he plumped hastily before smacking it with one palm. "Put him down: maybe he won't wake."

Bethel did not obey. This was the wildest notion he had ever had: working a field by lamplight in the dead of night, when the frost was deepening and the air was chilled and poisonous. "You get back int' bed this minute," she said. "You can' do no farm work by lamplight. You needs you' sleep, an' so do ev'ybody else."

"We need the yams more," Mister Cullen said. "All we got to see is the one hill we're working, don't we, Meg? Could you turn a hoe with a lamp right in the furrow?"

Meg cast a frightened look at Bethel, no doubt reluctant to voice dissent with her opinion, but her first duty was to her master. She nodded. "Reckon I could," she said. "We's goin' have to move the lantern ev'y time."

"I can do that," said Mister Cullen. "I'll shift it along and work by feel. That's all there is to pulling them up anyhow: you can't see nothing for the mud. Nate can do the same for Elijah."

Meg shook her head. "Elijah's eyes," she said. "He can' hardly see nuthin' in the dark: lights jus' blind him worse."

Mister Cullen grimaced. "Then he'll have to pick, and Nate can hoe," he said. "Go on, now: run and tell 'em. Bethel, put him down."

Before his determination there was nothing she could say. The sweet potato crop, put in routinely enough in the spring, had more importance now than any of them could have foreseen. With the losses in the tobacco there was no guarantee that the money from its sale would stretch to buy sufficient provisions for the year. With the yams at least they would not starve, but they needed to lay by every single one of them to have that assurance. As it was they would soon be eating them in place of bread, and might have to do so again long before next harvest. The crop had to be saved, and Bethel knew it. As she had a thousand times before she wished wretchedly that there was someone else to do this awful work, anyone at all but her dear, brave boy. But of course there was no one.

She bent, easing the child in her arms towards a supine position. Although she supported his head with her hand, he startled as he drew near to level, flinging out his arms as though to brace from falling. He gave an alarmed little cry, eyes flying wide open. Hurriedly Bethel eased him down, but he was trying to sit up now. When his bottom hit the mattress he managed it, gripping her arm with both hands and looking up at her anxiously.

"Bet'l?" he said, his voice shockingly loud after the chorus of whispers.

On the straw tick, Missus Mary stirred, rolling onto her back and pushing herself up on her elbows. "What is it? What's happened?" she mumbled drowsily.

Mister Cullen bent to offer his arms, drawing her to her feet before her eyes could blink themselves into wakefulness. "Get into bed with Gabe," he said. "I'm going out to the field."

She looked around like a dazed lamb, found the window, and shook her head. "It isn't anywhere near dawn yet," she said.

"Mama?" piped up Mister Gabe. "Pappy?"

"It's all right, son," Mister Cullen said. "Bethel and me, we got to get to work. Mama's goin' stay right here with you." He steered Missus Mary to the bed and Bethel stepped back, her foot crunching the straw as her heel landed on the edge of the mattress. The lady sat, looking up at her husband in mute bewilderment. "The frost's coming in," he explained. "We're out of time: got to bring in what's left of the yams _now_."

"But…" The protest died on Missus Mary's lips as she saw the glint in his eyes. Hypnotically she nodded. "Your clothes are laid out," she said. Her hands were on his arms, gripping below the crooks of his elbows while he cupped hers. With limbs and eyes locked they looked more like one person than two. "All but your coat. Please, promise you'll wear one if you're going out in the cold."

His upper lip stretched down over his teeth, but he bobbed his head. "Course I will," he promised. He bent and kissed her cheek fleetingly, then withdrew from her grasp. "Go on, Meg," he instructed. She curtseyed hastily and fled the room. "Bethel…"

"I's goin'," she sighed, shaking her head. "I think this here jus' madness, but I's goin'."

Mister Cullen nodded and hurried out of the room, bare feet slapping the floorboards. Missus Mary watched him go, and then turned her gaze on Bethel, still befuddled. "How does he mean to…"

"They's goin' work by lamplight," Bethel sighed, retrieving Mister Cullen's pillow from the foot of the bed and hefting the other one up. "Is you goin' try and lie down, or is you goin' sit up with him?"

"I can't lie down no more," Mister Gabe said. He was plucking at his lower lip and looking from one woman to the other over and over again. "I's goin' cough."

"We'll sit up," said Missus Mary, scooting into the corner between headboard and wall and settling her son's pillow firmly in the small of her back. She took the other cushion from Bethel and used it to prop up her arm, then patted her lap. "Come here, dearest; let's cuddle."

"Yes ma'am," Mister Gabe said stoutly, climbing over his mother's legs and burrowing contentedly against her. Bethel drew up the blankets, smoothing them and tucking the edges as comfortably as she could. It was obvious that Missus Mary had no hope of sleeping in that position: if she relaxed the little boy's torso would slide right off of hers. But she smiled sweetly and thanked Bethel, brave and determined as ever, and Bethel made her quiet retreat.

_*discidium*_

The tatty old jacket that served for workaday wear in wintertime was more of a hindrance than a comfort, and Cullen dispatched with it after only a few hills. The extra thickness of the sleeves rolled up to his elbows put pressure on the vessels of his arms and turned them swiftly numb and purple, and he could not work with wet wool clinging to his wrists. When he shucked the weathered garment and set back to work in shirtsleeves, back suddenly coated in gooseflesh from the bitter air, his fingers tingled and burned with returning sensation. The earth, muddy still beneath the top crust of a few clear days, was warmer than the air, and the yams still unblemished despite their frozen tops. It was a fiercely cold night that nipped at ears and noses and sent chilly fingers clawing for his scalp when the wind stirred his overgrown hair. Meg had done well to warn him at once: it was a hard frost setting in, and deepening every minute.

By the glow of the barn lantern Meg cracked open the next hill, twisting the hoe to break it as wide as she dared. Cullen shuffled along like a crab, squatting low in the dirt, and reached to the limit of his arm to set the lamp beside the next hill. Then he plunged his hands into the dirt, searching as swiftly as his unpracticed hands could. He brought out the yams, heavy with good growth, with both fists, brushing them as clean as he could before setting them carefully in the basket by his boot. Then he scuttled sideways again, reaching for the lantern with his right hand and dragging the basket with his left, and began again.

In the next row Nate and Lottie were working. It had not been Cullen's wish to rouse the child, and he had given no order to that effect, but when he had come out to the field he had found her at her mother's side, holding the hoes and grinning cheerfully. She seemed to think this a grand adventure: doing day work at night. She laughed as she brought out an especially large root, turning it in her hands and admiring it in the flickering light before settling it with its fellows.

"See that one, Nate?" she asked. "I'll jus' bet that there's the bigges' one we's found yet!"

"It sure be a monster," Nate agreed good-naturedly. He was always cheerful with Lottie, and seemed to possess an unlimited capacity for listening to her chatter that neither her mother nor Elijah could match. Cullen was glad, for in his present state of sleep-deprived anxiety he was not much company for the child.

Lottie's presence had allowed Cullen to excuse the old man from the grueling work of crouching to forage, and he was in the tobacco barn instead. This meant that Bethel could go back to the house to start on an early breakfast for those already embarked on what promised to be a long and wretched day's work. Cullen wondered anxiously whether all the commotion had brought on another coughing fit for Gabe, and how Mary was faring with him. It seemed too much to hope that his wife and child might actually be able to get a few hours' sleep.

"Turn up that wick a little, Lottie," he said. "It's burning low."

"Yassir, Mist' Cullen," Lottie said, squatting to adjust the peg on the side of the lantern. The flame flared brightly, illuminating the dying foliage with its rime of white. The crust of frost seemed thicker on each successive plant, but that was only because it was deepening by the minute. When the leaves froze and perished, the fruit began to rot; a process that was gradual but inexorable. Meg had guessed they might have two days, but Elijah's estimate had proved less optimistic. He seemed to think that anything they did not bring up today might as well be accounted as lost, particularly if there was frost tomorrow night too. Certainly any late gleanings would have to be cured separate from the rest, he had warned. That way if they did begin to spoil at least they would not take good yams with them.

The thought of toiling like this only to bring up produce that would rot anyhow made Cullen want to roar with frustration. It was exactly the same situation they had faced with the hail-damaged tobacco, but without the certainty. He did not know what his capacity for futility was, but he felt quite sure he was nearing its limit.

Still on he worked, shivering deep into his bones and trying to keep his teeth from chattering. His arms first seared with cold, then itched. Then slowly the skin began to go numb and the muscles beneath moved with jerky reluctance. The sky was showing the first gray streaks of dawn when in the distance a broad rectangle of light appeared between the bright kitchen windows and Bethel shouted to them to come and eat. She had laid on a hot breakfast, as hearty as she could manage without meat, and she had stoked the stove so that the iron itself almost seemed to glow. Hunched low over their plates to soak in its warmth, the laborers hastily bolted down scrambled eggs and grits, hominy porridge with warm cream, and mugs of coffee cut with chicory and sweetened liberally with sorghum. There was no time for conversation; no time even to peel off their boots. They left muddy footprints on the clean kitchen floor as they hurried back out into the field.

There was a thick mist over the land, and the trees were white with frost. The vines of the black beans and the dry peas drooped low, the last of their harvest weighted down by the dainty crystals of ice. In the dim but steadily growing light, Cullen's breath billowed from his lips like smoke from the maw of a mythical beast. They did not need the lanterns any longer, and after a while Elijah came out to join them. He was toting a hoe, and he set to work with it in the same row as Nate. Bethel had come out to bring him breakfast and to relieve him, he said, but none of the others recalled seeing the old woman leave the house. They were all intent upon their work, upon breaking the hills and unearthing the harvest as quickly as they could. Chilled hands flew and the hoes rocked steadily, careful as ever but hasty. Somewhere above the clouds the sun was climbing slowly, but it brought no warmth to the air. Meg departed briefly at daybreak to milk the cows, and when she returned Nate went to feed the mules and the horses. The other chores could wait.

Then the snow started to fall. At least it looked like snow when it drifted down daintily from the heavens, but as soon as it struck the ground, or the fence, a hand or a shoulder or a bowed head it melted to a bitterly cold rain that pelted their skin and soaked into their garments and churned the earth into mud again. On they worked, and on. Time crawled into the forenoon.

Cullen looked from face to face, gray-hued with weariness already, and saw the dark eyes deadened with cold, and he knew they could not keep on like this. Even Lottie was silent now, moving no less nimbly but with desperation in the rhythm of her limbs instead of youthful energy. She was not darting to and fro out of eagerness or even worry, but because she was struggling to stay warm.

Cullen stood up, his knees quaking as he rose out of his crouch. His mud-caked hands swung dead against his thighs. He wiped the right one on his pants and used it to push the hair out of his eyes. It was wet, and the ends crisp where they had frozen.

"This is no good," he said, his voice heavy amid the driving rain. "We's all going to freeze before we get this in."

Meg, whose chilled fingers kept flexing against the handle of her hoe, looked up at him. "We cain't jus' quit, Mist' Cullen," she said, half telling and half begging. "We needs them yams."

He nodded at her and exhaled heavily. He could not even breathe through his nose anymore, so clogged was it with mucus from the cold. His throat burned as though it alone in his body was untouched by the chill. "Lottie, get on up to the tobacco barn," he said. "You watch the fires, and get warm again. Dry out a little if you can. Tell Bethel she should check and see if she's needed in the house, then take a look at the garden. I'll send your ma on in an hour to take your place."

The girl nodded. "Yassir, thankee, Mist' Bohannon," she said, lapsing into the habit of childhood. She ran off without further preamble, springing over the unharvested rows as she went.

Cullen sighed and crouched again, plunging his hands back into the earth. "We'll take it in turns," he said. "An hour to sit and get warm, then back to work." He stretched and flexed cold-thickened fingers, and then moved to the next hill. The others, silently following his example, turned their attention back on the muddy field. Nate bent to take Lottie's place.

_*discidium*_

Gabe was sitting in Bethel's chair, stocking feet hanging straight off the edge of the seat into the stove's warmth. He was twisted at the waist so that he could cross both arms on the right armrest and prop his chin upon them. He was watching with drowsy eyes while Mama sat at the table with her knitting. The lamp was turned down low to save kerosene, and so Mama could not work on the mending she had been struggling to finish all afternoon. But she said she could knit even in the dark, and her needles clicked together ever so quickly, now and then catching the dim light and sparkling. She was making a sock for Pappy, and the tiny stitches flew from one needle to the next as she turned the circle of work on its four slender pins. The fifth one kept moving as she worked, and watching her fingers fly made Gabe very sleepy.

He had been sleepy all day; sleepy and unable to sleep. He could doze for a little while in his mother's arms, but sooner or later he would slip, or the cough would start again and wake him. Gabe was so tired of coughing. It seemed that all he did was cough and cough, and every time it hurt worse than before. His throat hurt and his head hurt and his tummy hurt. Most of all his ribs hurt, aching even when he was still and burning with sharp pains when the coughs came. His fingers hurt from clinging to Mama's dress or the knees of his own little pants in the throes of the cough, and his neck hurt from keeping his heavy head on his shoulders all day. He sniffled a little, and Mama looked up at him.

"Do you want to try to lie down, dearest?" she asked softly.

"No'm," mumbled Gabe. Lying down was one thing he knew he could not do. If he tried to lie down he would cough, and cough, and he wouldn't be able to stop. He was almost as afraid of lying down as he was of the cough itself. He nibbled his lower lip and tried not to cry. He was tired! He wanted his pappy to come in and take him up to bed. He knew he could sleep in Pappy's arms: they were strong and warm and comforting, and they didn't tremble like Mama's did after he laid on her too long. It was hard for Mama and Bethel to hold him, and anyway they had work to do. Bethel was upstairs changing the sheets on his bed, because he had been sick and lost his supper during the last spate of coughing. He hadn't made a mess in his pants since that first awful time, though, and he was glad of that.

Mama stretched her neck to look out the kitchen window. She had done that again and again since she had brought Gabe downstairs to sit by the warm cookstove in his nightshirt and warm little stockings. The first time Gabe had asked what she could see in the darkness, and she had picked him up to show him. It was a light, far off beyond the dooryard. Mama said that light was where Pappy and Nate were working, still digging in the cold mud to save the yams. Gabe didn't understand why the yams needed saving: there wasn't a dragon out there, or a monster that wanted to eat them. There were no Indians or redcoats who wanted to steal them. But he hadn't asked Mama. He was too tired to ask questions. All he wanted to do was cuddle up against his pappy's chest and go to sleep and never, ever cough again.

He felt a tickle in his throat and he tried to swallow it. He couldn't. It just kept on tickling, teasing him and tormenting him and trying to make him cough. He didn't want to cough. If he started he knew he wouldn't be able to stop. But somehow he just couldn't help starting, even though the first one hurt his ribs so badly that he screamed and by the second one he was crying like a baby instead of a brave little man. Mama was holding him, comforting him. Her knitting was on the floor and her arms were around him, but he couldn't stop coughing. He couldn't stop, not until the cough was finished with him, and when it was for a long time he couldn't do anything but curl in Mama's lap and hold tight to her, weeping noiselessly.

When the tears stopped he realized that Bethel was there, too, standing over him and his mama where they sat nested together in her chair. Now he knew it had been her hand, gentle and capable and dark, that had held the handkerchief for him to spit up into. He had to spit again and again now, because the yucky slick stuff kept coming up his throat when he coughed and it would choke him if it was still in his mouth when the chance came to whoop in a tiny, strained breath. He could still taste it, sour and sickly-sweet, and he didn't want to. Bethel wiped his cheeks with another handkerchief, a clean one, and gave him the dipper of water to drink. Gabe sipped very slowly, trying not to wake up that bad old cough again. He was starting to think of it like a monster inside of him, waiting to jump out and hurt him again. He wanted the monster to sleep as long as it could.

Sleep! _He_ wanted to sleep! Maybe he could sleep, just a little, if Mama held him close and sat in Bethel's chair where she could rest her arms so they didn't get tired. But Mama's arms _were_ tired: she'd been working hard all day, and dropping her work to comfort him, and then picking it up again. The biscuits she had baked for dinner had burned on the bottoms, because she had to leave them in the oven while he coughed. Everybody had eaten them anyway because they couldn't waste food, and Gabe had dutifully eaten his, knowing it was his fault they had burned. Well, his fault and the bad old cough. He thought maybe it was mostly the bad old cough's fault. He hoped so. Pappy would know, if Pappy ever came inside.

"They's still workin'?" Bethel was saying. She shook her head and _tsked_ her tongue when Mama nodded. "Got to be pretty near midnight."

"Nearly half past," said Mama, one finger drifting from Gabe's upper arm to point at the table, where Pappy's watch lay open beside the salt cellar. "Surely they can't be accomplishing much in the dark."

"Mus' be 'ccomplishin' enough to keep 'em out there," said Bethel, going to the window and shading her eyes so that she could see beyond her rippled reflection in the glass.

Gabe let his head rest against Mama's shoulder, his eyelids halting a little lower every time he blinked. His mouth felt stuffed with cotton, and the slice of the room he could see out of his left eye was starting to blur into shadows. He wondered if the lamp was going out, but thought it was just him fading off to sleep.

"You oughts to get upstairs, honey, an' try an' sleep a little," Bethel sighed presently. "Bed's all made up an' clean."

"No!" Gabe cried, shaking himself and exerting the tremendous effort required to sit up straight. His sides twinged with sharp little pains from his sore ribs, and his eyes were open wide again. "No! I's goin' cough."

Mama petted his hair. "Darling, I don't think we can stop you from coughing," she said. She sounded very sad, and her eyes seemed awfully bright. "We could try another dose of soothing syrup, couldn't we, Bethel?"

"That we could, Missus," Bethel assented, fetching the spoon and bottle from the dish dresser.

"An' my udder med'cine?" Gabe said hopefully, no longer quite so sleepy. He liked his new medicine. It tasted like sugar and sunshine and lemon drops. Pappy had brought him lemon drops from town, but Gabe had eaten them all. That was all right: the new medicine was almost as good.

Mama tipped her head to one side to study his face, and her crooked forefinger brushed against the apple of his cheek. "You aren't as flushed, and you do seem cooler, lovey. I think the new medicine might be helping."

"It he'pin'," Gabe agreed eagerly. "It he'pin' a lot!"

Bethel had the spoonful of dark syrup at the ready, and Gabe opened his mouth obediently to take it. The concoction was bitter and thick with grit, and Gabe wrinkled his nose as he swallowed. "What 'bout dat udder med'cine?" he asked as soon as he could speak again.

Bethel chuckled and rapped his chin fondly. "You jus' wants sumthin' sweet," she reproved. But she went and filled his little tin cup halfway with the caramel-colored liquid anyway.

Gabe drank contentedly, smacking his lips as he drained away the last of the cordial. He held the empty cup out to Bethel with both hands, and she brought it back to him full of water. He drank that, too, but slowly and carefully. Water had woken the cough before this.

Now he began to feel sleepy in earnest, and he nestled in his mother's arms, trying to sit up straight so he didn't tire her. Mama's eyes kept drifting closed too, but she didn't suggest that they go back up to bed. Bethel went to the stove and stirred the pot of thick pea soup that was waiting for Pappy to come in and eat it. Then she disappeared from the room, coming back after a while with the big quilt off of Mama and Pappy's bed. Mama leaned forward and Bethel slipped it behind her, wrapping it snugly around her shoulders and then lapping the two sides over Gabe. He felt safe and warm in the soft cocoon, bundled up with his mama, and he plucked at one of the buttons on her basque. She was still wearing her daytime clothes, and this was Gabe's favorite of her work dresses. It was checked in smoky green and white, with squares of milkier green between them, and it had a thick dust ruffle at the bottom that whispered when Mama walked, but it was the buttons he liked best. They were carved with a tiny sailing ship in the middle of each one, and when he rubbed his thumb over them he could feel the raised lines of the mast and the sails and the scooped little bottom. Gabe had never seen a real sailing ship before: only pictures and toys. But Pappy had told him about the ships in New Orleans and Charleston, ships that carried away cotton and tobacco and rice and brought back cloth and tools and coffee and sewing needles and things. Someday, when he was bigger, Pappy would take him to New Orleans to sell the tobacco, and he could see the tall ships for himself.

Gabe didn't know how long he sat there, cozy in Mama's lap, but suddenly he realized that he could hear a deep voice muttering something, and Bethel arguing firmly. There was a _thump_ and a sound of something being dragged along the floor, and then a series of low, hollow bangs and grunts.

"A little nearer the stove," Mama said, and although her hushed voice was deliberately calm and pleasant her heart was hammering under Gabe's cheek. He couldn't see anything but the conch-shell curl of the blanket and a small scrap of clapboard wall, and he didn't seem able to sit up or even to move his head. It was almost like a dream, these noises and Bethel's murmured scolding, but the pounding of Mama's heart was real.

Then he heard another voice, quavering hoarsely but instantly familiar. "I'm sorry: I've ruined it. H-had to put the damned thing back on."

Gabe swallowed his mouthful of warm, sleepy spittle and tried to move his hand. That was Pappy's voice. Pappy was home! Pappy had come in from the yams and he was home again! But he was tired and he was so comfortable, and he thought maybe if he moved he would only start to cough again.

"Never you min' that, Mist' Cullen. It'll wash," Bethel said. "Jus' you set down there where it warm, an' get some feelin' back in them hands. You too." Her voice was not so tender but no less kind. "Ev'ybody else long since gone to their beds: you's goin' eat up here an' get on to yours."

"Please sit down and get warm, Nate," Mama said gently. "It doesn't matter, not tonight."

"Yass'm, tha-ankee ma'am," Nate muttered in his low, deep voice. The floorboards creaked under footfalls that made no sound but a damp squelch. The kitchen bench bucked and rattled as someone sat heavily upon it, and then groaned beneath a second sitter.

"It jus' got the li'lest taste of boilin' bacon, but it hot an' there plenty of pepper," Bethel was saying. The dull ring of her wooden spoon against the copper boiling pot punctuated her words. "Fresh garlic, too. All my days I never thinked to put garlic in pea soup, but Missus Mary done it, an' it taste jus' fine."

Looking up at his mother without moving his petrified head, Gabe saw her flush. She had added the garlic because she couldn't remember what Bethel had said to put in, and Gabe knew she was embarrassed that she had not made the soup as the old woman would have. But Bethel was right: it had tasted just fine, and it was hot. Gabe's stomach rumbled. Supper seemed like a long time ago, and the warmth of the soup in his tummy had eased the ache in his ribs. Again he tried to muster the willpower to sit up and speak.

"Did you finish them all?" asked Mama, as though she scarcely dared to hope.

Pappy's voice still shook, and his teeth were clicking. "Thre-ee rows lef'," he mumbled thickly. "Done the best we could. We can't… I can't… can't do no more tonight. Don't matter if the ground freezes: can't d-do no more tonight."

"Of course not," said Mama soothingly. "Of course you can't. You've done more than anyone else would have tried. Bethel, what about a fresh pot of coffee?"

"Cain't do it, Missus," Bethel said sadly. "That in there the las' coffee we's got. It strong enough I could prob'ly mix in more water so it stretch farther, but there ain't no more for a fresh pot."

"Don't matter so long as it's hot," breathed Pappy. There was a scrape of a spoon against a bowl, clumsy and chattering. "Meg saved that crop, rousing me when she did. It's going to freeze again tonight, and hard."

"Meg a good woman," Nate said. There was a noise as he stood, and the squeal of wet leather as he put on his boots. "I gots to go let her get some sleep. Be good an' warm in the dryin' shed, at least."

"Take this with you, an' eat ev'y scrap," said Bethel. "Elijah goin' take the las' shift?"

There was no audible reply, but only a pause. Then Nate said; "Missus? How the li'l massa be?"

Mama's hand moved to stroke the side of Gabe's head. "The cough is worse today, but the fever seems to have come down a little," she said. "He's holding up well, Nate: thank you."

"Hmm." The latch on the back door lifted. "So you know, ma'am, we's all been prayin' he be spared. Reckon them angels don' need that li'l fella half so bad as us down here."

"That's enough of that!" Pappy said sharply. "Get on and tell Meg she done good work today. You all did."

"Yassir, Mist' Cullen," Nate said. "You done good work, too."

Pappy grunted, and the spoon scraped again. The lid of the pot clattered as the door swung closed.

"Oh, Cullen, he was only trying to be kind," Mama said sadly. "I know you're worn out, but you might try—"

"Damn right I'm worn out," Pappy huffed. He sighed heavily, and his feet in their wet socks scuffed the floor. "One thing after another. Just one damned thing after another."

"Eat that biscuit, honey," Bethel said in just the same voice she used when trying to coax Gabe to do something he felt too tired and sick to attempt. "I done saved the bes' one for you."

"I'm sorry," Mama said hollowly. "They were just starting to brown, ever so nicely. Then Gabe started coughing…"

"Is it true?" said Pappy. "What you said to Nate? The fever ain't so bad today?"

"Something is helping," said Mama. "The cool baths or the cordial, I don't know which. But the cough is worse. This is the longest he's been quiet all day, and it hasn't been an hour and a quarter yet."

"Why ain't the two of you in bed?" asked Pappy dully.

Gabe finally found the wherewithal to move. He sat up, turning in Mama's lap to peel down the wall of quilt shading him from the room. "I's waitin' for you!" he said eagerly, smiling for his father.

His smile faded when he saw him. Pappy was sitting hunched on the bench, which was pulled so close to the stove that the muddy knees of his pants almost touched the iron. His back was rounded so his elbows rested in his lap, and he was balancing a bowl of Mama's pea soup on his knee. He had the biscuit in the other hand, a tiny nibble taken from its side. His hands were dirty and his sleeves were stained with dark muck. His clothes were all wet and clinging to him, and he was shaking with cold even though he was so close to the stove and eating the good, hot soup. His face was very pale, and the rings around his eyes very dark, and his lips had a funny purple color that made them show up alarmingly amid his mud-matted whiskers. His eyebrows were arced high in surprise, and his red-rimmed eyes wide and hurting.

"Pappy?" Gabe said unsteadily. "Pappy… is you sick, too?"

Pappy snuffled and straightened his back a little, but only a little. There was a trickle of wetness coming from one nostril. He shook his head stiffly, as if it hurt to move it. "Naw, son, I ain't sick," he said. The words caught in his throat, and he cleared them with a little cough. "So you was waiting up for me too, huh?"

"Pappy isn't going to sleep in your bed tonight, Gabe," Mama said gently. "Pappy needs to lie down and try to get some proper rest."

Gabe felt a chasm of desolation open up in his chest. He wanted to sleep with his pappy: it was the only way the cough would stay away. His lower lip trembled. Did Mama mean that Pappy didn't get proper rest in Gabe's bed?

"Don't be silly, Mama," said Pappy. "Ain't a cozier spot in the house than Gabe's bed. Our room's goin' be cold as a crypt tonight. I got to do something about that window before anybody sleeps in there again. Course I'll sleep in your bed, son," he declared with a shadow of a smile on his lips. "If you don't mind me smelling like dirt and yams."

"I likes yams," said Gabe. "Did you save dem, Pappy?"

The smile steadied a little, and a small glimmer of something that might have been pride showed in his tired eyes. "I think we did, son. Most of 'em anyway. Pretty near worked ourselves into the ground doing it, but we got 'em."

Gabe grinned and clapped his hands, and Mama laughed. Bethel's eyes were bright, and Pappy's bowed back drew up a little farther still. He took a generous bite of his biscuit and then set it on the bench to reach for his spoon. For a moment they were all happy; tired and worn out, sick and sore and sleepless, but happy. And then Gabe's breath hitched in his throat and the bad old cough woke up again.


	59. Sickness in the House

_Note: Vigorous onomatopoeia warning. Vigorous. Don't say I didn't warn you. It may even qualify as an Onomatopoeia Alert!_

**Chapter Fifty-Nine: Sickness in the House**

While the rain persisted there was no point in attempting to plow up the cornfields, but there were countless other small chores to be seen to while they waited for a break in the weather. Nate and Mister Cullen brought up wagonloads of timber from the creek bottom to lay up at the house and between the cabins. They checked the roof of the barn for loose shingles and repaired the west gate of the paddock. They honed and oiled the plows, and razed the rest of the tobacco plants. Ma scrubbed out and whitewashed the cowshed, and she and Elijah replaced the thatching on the pigs' hut. Lottie helped Bethel to clear out the last of the beans and peas, and to put in winter turnips in the garden. The last three rows of yams had been brought up at dawn on Thursday, but by Friday evening were already starting to grow mushy with rot. Ma and Lottie sliced them up and fed them to the hogs. The little shoats that had been so small and sweet in springtime were big, bristly animals now: fat and healthy and always hungry. In a few weeks it would be butchering time, and Lottie's mouth watered at the thought of having meat again. Nate's rabbit-traps hadn't been much use since the weather turned, though he said the jackrabbits would come out again as soon as they realized summer was really gone. But rabbit wasn't pork, and there were no two ways about that.

It was still daylight on Saturday afternoon when Mister Cullen gave word that everyone could go and rest. Elijah wandered off down to the creek bottom to look for chinkapins. Nate went straight back to Elijah's cabin to sleep: in wintertime the two men bunked together to save on fuel. It was Ma's turn in the tobacco barn, for now that the crop was in Lottie didn't have to be up there all day. The grown folks took shifts, too, and would until the curing was done. This suited Lottie fine. She was tired of that work, essential though she knew it to be, and she was glad of the relief. Even digging yams in the freezing rain was a good change, at least for a while, though she hoped they never had another long, horrible day like Wednesday had been. Mister Cullen had sent her and Ma and Elijah off when it got too dark to see, but he and Nate had worked on to save as much of the crop as they possibly could. Ma had told Lottie it was only right: they were the only two strong, young men on the place, and they could work harder and longer than anyone else. But Lottie had felt guilty eating her hot, savory supper and sitting close to the stove wrapped in a warm blanket with her feet in steaming water while Nate and the master were still shivering in the mud.

Watching them on Thursday morning had been worse. Nate hadn't had but three hours' sleep, and with little Mister Gabe sick and up in the night Lottie didn't think Mister Cullen had even got that. They had both stumbled through their work dead-eyed and sluggish, and Nate had actually dozed off over his dinner. When Mister Cullen went up to the house to speak to the doctor, Lottie hadn't expected him to come back. She had thought that even if Doctor Whitehead didn't insist he stay indoors, Bethel surely would. But out he came, and went straight back to chopping wood. Elijah had said it was a wonder neither of them had taken off a foot with a stray axe, tired as they were that day.

Nate was his old self again after two nights sitting an end watch with his sleep time uninterrupted, but Mister Cullen still looked worn down. Lottie had walked up to the house with him, eager to spend her leisure time with Mister Gabe. The master had walked slowly, without the usual spring in his step, and he had stopped ten paces from the back door to blow his nose and clear his throat with three shallow little coughs. Lottie had watched this solemnly, and when he realized it he had parted his lips in what was almost a rueful little smile. "It's just the cold," he had said. "Don't tell Bethel."

Lottie would not have had the chance. It was Bethel who did all the telling, scolding Mister Cullen for taking off his coat and sending him upstairs to put on dry clothes. Lottie had been sweeping up the henhouse, and she was nice and dry, but Bethel had carefully supervised the washing of her hands and arms, and had even taken the brush to Lottie's nails herself before she let her go up to see Mister Gabe. And Lottie had gone with strict instructions to send Missus Mary down to enjoy a nice, long bath while there was someone else in the house to watch the little boy.

Now Lottie was sitting cross-legged on the rag rug, playing tin soldiers with Mister Gabe. She was in charge of the army of redcoats, and Mister Gabe commanded what he called "de blue'uns". Lottie didn't know much about soldiering, but she was experienced in taking direction from her young playmate and obliged him in everything. At Mister Gabe's insistence the two armies were arranged in horseshoe fashion, facing one another to form a lopsided oval with red on one half and blue on the other. The cannoneers were placed in the center, so close to one another that the powder boy of one piece looked straight down the barrel of the other's cannon. Behind each of them stood one of the generals, splendid little figures atop beautifully painted horses. Lottie had the blue general, and Mister Gabe the red. This was because the blue soldier's horse was painted black, while the red one had the same glossy bay coat as Pike and Bonnie, even down to the classic Morgan markings. Mister Gabe liked that horse best.

The tiny artillery wagons were at the rear, Lottie's by her knee and Mister Gabe's beside his little copper-toed shoe. Lottie tilted the model so it looked like the dray horses were rearing, and made an impressively realistic nicker that made Mister Gabe laugh. His pale little face lit up with his smile, and Lottie's chest felt warm with happiness.

"Dat jus' right, 'Ottie," he said. "Does you know how a mug-sket sound?"

"What a mug-sket be?" asked Lottie. Mister Gabe didn't always talk as much as she did, and never as quickly, but he knew some words she didn't. It was because Mister Cullen and Missus Mary read to him out of the books in the parlor, and told him stories about faraway places and long-ago times. Lottie heard these tales too, sometimes, but she wasn't always in the house and didn't pick things up as fast as Mister Gabe did. And then again sometimes, as small children do, he just made words up. It was always best just to ask what he meant: he never minded having to tell her.

"You know, a mug-sket," said Gabe, pointing at the long gun held at the ready by one kneeling blue soldier. "Like a gun, but for shootin' redcoats."

"Oh!" said Lottie. "_Bang, bang_! Is that how a mug-sket sound?"

Mister Gabe frowned. "Don' know," he said. He got to his feet and strode determinedly to the door, poking his head out into the corridor and looking in the direction of the disused front bedroom. "Pappy?" he shouted. "How a mug-sket sound?"

"Like a rifle, son," Mister Cullen called. There was a light tap of a hammer and the sound of old wood squeaking. He was taking one of the windowpanes to replace the broken one in the master bedroom. When there was money for new glass, he could fix the guest window too.

The child wrinkled his nose in annoyance. "An' how a _rifle_ sound, den?" he demanded.

From the other room came a loud, nasal _kerplifft_ followed by a hasty cough. "Like that," said Mister Cullen.

"I see," said his son solemnly. "T'ank you, Pappy."

"No trouble at all," muttered Mister Cullen, only just audible as Mister Gabe closed the door and came stumping back.

"Can you make dat sound, 'Ottie?" he asked. "It sound like _pffft_!"

Instead of the ratcheting little explosion of air his father had made, Mister Gabe's attempt came out in a wet sort of hiss that sent a fine spray of spittle over the soldiers and Lottie's hands and cheeks. She brushed her face with her fingertips, grinning. "I can try," she said. She took a deep breath. "_Kaplitt_!"

Gabe squealed with laughter and clapped his hands. "Dat _jus'_ right, 'Ottie!" he said. Then he reached up to pat her cheek. "You's a good player."

"Thankee sir," said Lottie. She picked up one of the little gunmen and made him dance just above the rug. "_Kaplitt_!" she repeated.

"_Pffft_!" Mister Gabe shook one of his own. "_Pffft_! I got you, 'Ottie: he gots to fall down."

Lottie tipped the soldier over, and he landed with a little clank of tin. Mister Gabe looked at him thoughtfully, dainty little brows knit together. Then he picked up another of his men, this one holding a rippling flag painted with the stars and stripes.

"Dis de doct'r," he announced, waddling him into the oval by his tin base. "He goin' make him better." He deepened his voice and drawled; "Here, you take dis 'ucky med'cine, an' you drink it down. It goin' make you well, but you's goin' make a mess! I means a mess in his pants, 'Ottie," he added in his ordinary timbre. "Dat what de 'ucky med'cine do."

"Oh." Lottie didn't know quite what to say to this, but it seemed a safe enough sound to make. Mister Gabe certainly seemed satisfied. He stood up the fallen redcoat, and when she did not immediately pick it up, held it out to her. "Now you make _him_ say 'T'ank you, doct'r. I's goin' take dat med'cine.'"

"Thank you, doct'r. I's goin' take that med'cine," Lottie parroted dutifully.

Gabe nodded in satisfaction, and returned the doctor to his place in the line. He considered the tableau with care, and then picked up another soldier. This one was a little private, the smallest in the wee tin regiment, and he had his musket over his shoulder. Gabe set him on the floor at the edge of the rug, and then picked up the red general on his proud bay steed. He laid the little soldier down, and sent the general galloping from the direction of the bed towards him.

"What he doin'?" asked Lottie, cognizant that she had been cut from the game.

"He comin' home from de town," said Gabe. "He gone to pick us a Pres'dent, an' when he come home he goin' bring good med'cine an' lemon drops an' lin'ment. Dis one be sick." He pointed at the small private. "He can't sleep 'til his pappy come home. His pappy goin' hold him an' scare dat bad cough 'way."

Lottie didn't know what to say to this, either. She felt suddenly sad. Poor little Mister Gabe: he wasn't well. He still seemed so much his usual cheerful, sweet self, but he was tired and he felt ill and run-down. She wanted to give him a big, tight hug like she sometimes did when he fell and scraped his knee, or got scared of the sea monster that he thought lived in the well. But the soldiers were in the way, and anyhow she didn't want to hurt him. Bethel had admonished her to be _gentle_ and play _quietly_ and remember the poor child was _sick_.

"My pappy try to do dat," Gabe said very quietly, looking down at the soldier. "I guess maybe he jus' can't do it so long."

Lottie reached to put her hand on his back, thumb on his shoulder and palm firm and soothing. "He scares it a way for a li'l while, don' he?" she asked. "That a good thing."

"Yass'm," said Gabe, bobbing his head. "Dat a good t'ing. My pappy, he a brave man. He ain't 'fraid of no bad ol' cough. I ain't neider. So much."

"Sure you ain't!" Lottie agreed. "You's goin' beat that cough an' get well again. Here now, what you say these soldiers go an' hunt them a bear?"

He looked up at her eagerly: this variation on the game had not occurred to him. "Wid deir mug-skets!" he said eagerly. "Dey's goin' shoot a _hunnerd_ bears!"

"Yes!" said Lottie. "And they can have a big bear barbecue: lots and lots of meat for everybody! How much meat you think there be in a hunnerd bears?"

"_Di-i-i-is _much!" sang Mister Gabe, flinging his arms to their widest span with such vigor that the small tin general went flying out of his hand and landed in the washbasin in the corner of the room. The little boy gasped in surprise, laughing eyes widening as he followed the trajectory of his toy. Then suddenly the merriment vanished and his hands flew hurriedly back to clutch his round little tummy. "Ooooh…" he moaned. Then he began to cough.

The sound was so harsh and so very loud that it made Lottie jump. It sounded much worse than the first time, when she had been sitting with him while he lay in bed. But this time she knew he was not going to die before her very eyes, and she knew too what the adults had done before. Steadily, swallowing her fright, she put one hand on Mister Gabe's arm and the other on his side. His eyes fixed on her face, enormous and anxious as he shook with the cough. There was a gurgling sound in his throat, and he twisted, reaching for something. Lottie looked. There was a handkerchief on the table by the bed, one corner hanging down. Gabe's plump fingers opened and closed as he stared at it. There was a high, horrible _whoop_ as he tried to breathe, then a painful clicking squelch in his mouth. He coughed again, still reaching. It was just like when he had been a baby, before he knew how to use words to tell her what he wanted.

"This?" Lottie gasped, stretching her much longer arm and plucking up the cloth. "Do you want this?"

He tried to nod, but only managed to bob his head once. Still she understood and she brought the handkerchief near so that his little fists could close upon it. He raised it towards his lips while simultaneously bowing forward to meet it, and spat. A thick glob of pearly white slime came out of his mouth into the cloth as he coughed, retching and choking and trying so very, very hard to breathe.

"You's goin' be fine," Lottie said as she had heard Bethel and the mistress and the master do. "I's here; right here. You's goin' be fine. Cough, Mist' Gabe. Cough, honey. You's goin' be fine."

He coughed again, and again. His whole body shook with them and fat tears were running down his cheeks. Lottie got her foot under her, intending to run for help, but Mister Gabe caught hold of her skirt and tugged. Around the harsh, strained ring of his mouth his whole face implored her not to leave him, to stay and comfort him. From the master's bedroom came the sound of a foot stamping hard upon the floor. Below she could hear anxious voices and the _bang _of a door flung suddenly wide.

"I's here. I's stayin'," Lottie breathed. She had to be brave. Help would be here in a minute: grown-up help. She couldn't let the little boy see she was frightened. He was relying upon her to be brave for him. "You's a brave boy, Mist' Gabe," she pledged. "Jus' like that li'l soldier. Ain' you brave?"

He brought up another stringy mass of mucus, catching it in the handkerchief as he coughed and coughed and wheezed and coughed again. The door swung open and Bethel swooped in, sinking to her knees and picking the child up onto her lap. Lottie released her hold on his arm, but kept her eyes locked on his. She tried to smile. "There, you see?" she said. "We's here. We's both here, Bethel an' me. You's goin' be jus' fine."

Bare feet slapped the floor and Missus Mary was there too, wet hair hanging in a dripping curtain as she stroked her child's face. Gabe spit again, and this time his mama was there to fold the handkerchief over the quivering mass and offer a clean corner to spit in. She wiped the corners of his mouth and cooed gently to him, and he looked at her and seemed to forget all about Lottie. Then his eyes closed suddenly and he took a big, anxious lungful of air – bigger than the ones Lottie took when she surfaced from the creek after trying to hold her breath as long as she could. He let out a thin little cry and flopped against Bethel's breast, panting desperately.

"Lottie, thank you!" Missus Mary exhaled, sitting back upon her bare heels and raking her loose tresses away from her face. "You were very brave."

"Mist' Gabe be braver," said Lottie, catching the child's eye again and this time really managing to smile for him. "He brave jus' like his li'l soldier."

"An' Pappy," huffed Mister Gabe. "I's brave like Pappy. _Mama_!" He sat up sharply, scandalized. "Mama, why's you nekkid?"

Missus Mary looked down and hastily tugged up the towel in which she was swathed to cover her bosom more decently. She had clearly sprang right out of the tub at the sound of her son's distress, and had come running just as she was. A high flush rose to her cheeks as she stood up, clutching the bottom corner. The cloth didn't even reach her knees, and Mister Gabe was goggling in astonishment.

"I sees your legs!" he announced.

Bethel recovered her tongue before Lottie or Missus Mary could even try. "Chile, go an' fetch your dressin' gown, then get on back in that water 'fore you catch your death," she instructed. "Runnin' 'round with wet hair. Does you wan' take a chill an' be laid up in bed youself?"

"No, of course not," Missus Mary murmured distractedly. She was still tugging at the towel as if to make it stretch to cover her more thoroughly. Lottie clambered to her feet and snatched the counterpane off of Bethel's neatly-made mattress. She shook it out and held it for her mistress.

"Is everything all right?" Mister Cullen's voice came around the corner a moment before his body. "I was holding the derned glass and couldn't let go until the lattice was – well!"

He stopped, gaping mutely at his wife. Missus Mary snatched one corner of the blanket, her other hand still gripping the towel in place, and twirled to wrap herself in it. It bunched around her shoulders like a robe of state and she tugged it to cover her legs, squaring her shoulders and holding her head high. She thrust her chin out regally as though daring him to comment. Eyes wide and brows tilted innocently, he held up his hands and gave a tiny shake of his head. "Everything all right?" he asked again, a little hoarsely.

"Yes," said Missus Mary. "Lottie was here; she took care of him beautifully. She even knew to give him the handkerchief."

"Missus?" Lottie ventured. Ma had taught her always to be honest and truthful. She could not take credit for something that was not her doing. "I didn'. Mist' Gabe, he the one that knew. He sort of reached for it, an' I… I jus' grab it for him."

"You're a good girl," the mistress said fondly, pivoting on one bare foot to smile at her. "Thank you for helping him."

"Is you goin' go, 'Ottie?" Mister Gabe asked disappointedly. "Is you goin' back to de tobacco barn?"

"Nawsir," Lottie said, curtseying hurriedly to her mistress and then crouching down before the child where he sat in Bethel's lap. "If you wants me to, I's goin' stay an' play 'til suppertime."

"Yes, please," said Mister Gabe.

"It all right, ain't it, Massa?" Lottie asked, looking up at Mister Cullen. "He can play with me?"

"Sure he can, Lottie," Mister Cullen said. There was a smile on his tired face as he looked at her, and it changed its angle when he turned back to his wife. "You best go and finish that bath," he murmured. "There's soap in your hair."

Missus Mary's hand moved as though to feel it, but the blanket began to slip and she clutched at it swiftly. She took a step towards the door and Mister Cullen turned sideways, reaching to wrap his hand around her waist to guide her. The look in his eyes was almost playful, but somehow not quite.

"Oh, no you don'!" Bethel exclaimed, hefting Mister Gabe off her lap and scrambling to her feet. She swooped between them and stood stoutly beside Missus Mary, one hand on each of her shoulders. "_I's_ goin' help her rinse that hair, an' _you's _goin' finish with that winder. Go on, now. An' pray the good Lord teach you what daylight be for!"

She hustled Missus Mary away, but not before the lady cast a laughing backward glance at her husband. Mister Cullen watched her go, then swooped down to pick up the towel that had fallen beneath the blanket. He looked at it incredulously, shaking his head and whistling softly. Then he glanced hastily sidelong at the children and shrugged sheepishly. "You two have fun, now," he said. "Catch a few redcoats for me."

"We's huntin' bears," Mister Gabe announced as though the entire incident had never come to pass. "A _hunnerd_ bears!"

"That so?" asked Mister Cullen.

"Dat so!" said Gabe proudly.

Lottie grinned and went to recover the red general from the washbasin.

_*discidium*_

Sunday was at last, after a fashion, a day of rest. At least Cullen was able to leave the farm work alone once the stock were seen to, and to remain where he most wanted to be. But for the people in the house there was little true rest to be had. Gabe's cough was worse than ever, coming more frequently and lingering so long that it was a rare episode that did not leave him blue for want of air. He seemed to have moved beyond weepiness into a desolate silence that took him after each fit, huddled against whichever of his caregivers happened to be nearest when it passed. In the brief intervals between the passing of this contemplative misery and the onset of the next coughing jag, he had little interest in anything. Mary read to him for a while, and Cullen tried to entice him to play with his horses or his soldiers or his ball which he liked to spin in his tin cup. Bethel, for her part, seemed to think it her duty to tempt him with dainties: his stomach hurt, he said, and he ate little at breakfast or dinner.

Cullen moved the heavy worktable and the bench, and dragged the récamier in from the parlor to occupy a corner of the kitchen. If Bethel resented this intrusion of the space that had been her domain time out of mind, or feared its presence would be a hindrance in a room now severely overcrowded, she said nothing. The dainty old couch gave Mary somewhere comfortable to sit while Gabe sat beside her leaning over her lap to look dutifully at the engravings in _Tanglewood Tales_, and when naptime came Cullen propped his back with the bolster and put his feet up on the cushions so that Gabe could settle comfortably on his chest and sleep. It spared them the trouble and the fuel required to keep the heater in the nursery burning that day.

Gabe awoke in a flurry of coughing, of course, and less than forty minutes after slipping into an almost drunken slumber. Practiced now in the art of riding out the storm, Cullen helped him to sit up and turned him in his lap so that Gabe could see his eyes. This he did with his hands under the child's arms, and when he tried to withdraw them to assume the consoling pose on shoulder and back, one small hand clamped down on each sinewed wrist. Eyes made wide by the force of the cough, Gabe looked up at Cullen and shook his head frantically.

"I ain't going nowhere, son," Cullen said, almost oblivious to Mary standing over him and Bethel hovering at one remove. "Just gonna pat your back."

He tried to draw his right hand away, and the fierce grip only tightened. Gabe tugged upon his arm, and then pressed his palm flat against the back of Cullen's hand. He was lost for a moment in the bucking motion that came with each whoop, and then slapped his hand against his father's again. His right hand then did the same with Cullen's left.

He was clearly trying to communicate something, but Cullen did not know what. "You want me to hold you?" he asked. "I's holding you."

Gabe shook his head, and then nodded, and shook his head again. With all the strength in his little arms he pushed down upon Cullen's hands as though trying to make them squeeze his spasming ribs. "Tighter?" Cullen asked. "Hold you tighter?"

"Y-yes!" Gabe wheezed, wasting precious breath between two sundering coughs.

"Cullen, you mustn't! He won't be able to breathe," Mary protested. She had assumed the duty of patting their son's back, alternately percussing gently between his shoulder blades and moving her hands in consoling circles.

"He can't breathe now," said Cullen. "Let him have what he wants."

Gradually but firmly he increased the strength of his hold on his son, thumbs settled to each side of the small breastbone while fingers and palms exerted a steadily mounting pressure against Gabe's ribs. Cullen could feel each twitch and ripple of the muscles in his boy's chest now, and every cough made itself felt up into his arms. But the bright, tortured sheen in Gabe's eyes eased a little, and after one particularly shrill whoop he managed a spastic nod. Cullen turned up the corners of his mouth in the tired old pantomime of a smile that seemed just about all he could muster these days.

"That's better, ain't it?" he said soothingly. He had no idea why it was better, or even how it possibly could be, but from Gabe's expression it was obvious that it was. "Right, then. I gotcha. It's all goin' be over in a minute."

In truth it took longer, or at least certainly felt longer, but at last Gabe was able to choke in his first full lung of air. He slumped like a rag doll against his father's hands and Cullen drew him closer, turning him so the little spine was curved against his chest and stomach. He wrapped his right arm around Gabe's shoulder and splayed his left hand across his ribs, maintaining the steady weight against them. Gabe planted both small hands over Cullen's, pressing firmly.

"Don't hurt so bad, Pappy," he gasped, curly head lolling back in an attempt to look up at the man.

Cullen's pulse skipped, but he did not want to force the child to explain himself. "That's right, son; I know," he murmured gently.

Mary was fussing with the quilt, working it out from beneath Gabe's bottom and spreading it smoothly over the two trouser-clad laps. She brushed unruly curls away from her child's eyes, her own tender and mournful. "We'll have to give you both a trim soon," she said. "You're as shaggy as a pair of sheep."

Ordinarily such a pronouncement would have made Gabe laugh, or at least attempt to bleat like a lamb, but he did not even stir. His stomach rose and fell with each breath, small ribs spreading under Cullen's hand. Bethel brought water, and the child drank cautiously. "May I have some of my nice med'cine?" he asked, his voice raw and raspy with coughing.

Cullen managed a thin little chuckle. "You like that stuff, don't you?" he said. He lifted his index finger and brought it down again on the child's chest. "Now what do you mean, it don't hurt so bad?"

"When you hol' me like dat," said Gabe. "De coughin' don' hurt so bad."

All at once it seemed like Cullen could remember every chest cold or bought of bronchitis he had ever suffered in his life. After a few days of bad coughing, the muscles that bound the ribs grew fatigued and weak, too taxed from violent misuse to support the rigors of the next cough. He closed his eyes painfully, cursing himself for not having thought of it sooner. Of course Gabe had to be suffering: his fits were so much more ferocious, more frequent and prolonged than anything Cullen had experienced himself. Surely it had to be agony, trying to cough against those strained muscles.

"I'm sorry, son," he said hoarsely. "I didn't think. I'll always hold you like that, I promise. Mama will too, and Bethel." He glanced questioningly at the two women, who nodded anxiously. He could see the same reasoning process behind their eyes. "Their hands is smaller, but maybe it'll still help."

"It goin' he'p," Gabe vowed fervently, more out of hope than true conviction. "It goin' he'p lots."

"What about a little taste of that cordial, Bethel?" Cullen asked.

"Should we send for the doctor?" said Mary softly. Her eyes kept travelling up and down her son's torso. "If he's in pain…"

"Doc's coming out tomorrow," said Cullen. "Ain't likely much he can do, and I don't intend to trouble him any more than we got to. He ain't crying, and if bracing him helps we can do that ourselves."

"We could bandage them ribs, Mist' Cullen," said Bethel, returning with the little tin cup one-third full of elderflower cordial. "Wrap him up like they's broke. If holdin' him tight help, that might, too."

"What d'you think, son?" Cullen asked. "Should Bethel wrap you up like a mummy?"

"What a mummy?" Gabe queried with the first note of genuine curiosity he had exhibited all day.

Mary cleared her throat and shot Cullen a reproving little look.

"You'll have to ask Charlie's pappy sometime," said Cullen, backing away from a topic that was apparently unacceptable to his wife.

"When's I goin' see Charlie again?" Gabe said. "An' Leon. I's missin' dem."

"When you're well again, dearest," sighed Mary, pressing her lips together so they would not quiver. Cullen could read the fear in her eyes: it was entirely possible that one or the other of the boys might not survive to play together again. That secret terror had been driven from the forefront of his mind by hard work and the curious capacity of the human mind to adapt to the unthinkable, but it came flooding back now.

"Drink your medicine, son," Cullen mumbled. "Then maybe we can see about bandaging them ribs."

Gabe drank with relish, but slowly. He knew better than to swallow with haste. He was becoming heartbreakingly conscious of every little act or motion that preceded a coughing jag. When he was finished Mary took the cup, but did not immediately move to put it away. She was studying the child's face somberly.

"Does he look flushed, Cullen?" she asked.

Cullen craned his neck into the sharp ache that had been a perpetual affliction since he began to snatch his sleep sitting up in the child's bed. Gabe obligingly turned his own head to look towards his pappy. His face was indeed ruddy with exertion, across the brow and over the cheeks. Beneath the blotches he was wan with exhaustion. "He always looks red right after a fit," he said uncertainly.

Mary gave a tiny little nod and went to rinse the cup. Unsettled now, Cullen pressed the back of his hand to Gabe's forehead and cheek. "You feel warm, son?"

"Nope," said Gabe, plucking at the blanket in his lap. "Jus' right."

But of course "just right" wasn't right, when he was wearing his woolen topcoat and his warm vest, sitting under a blanket with his back against his father's front in the full heat of the cookstove. Cullen caught Mary's eye and she came sailing back to check for herself. She nodded her agreement. The fever was back.

_*discidium*_

Nate slept most of Sunday afternoon away, and so he was wide awake when he returned to Elijah's cabin after helping to settle the mules and horses for the night. He climbed into the upper bunk and stretched out regardless, hands clasped behind his head as he stared into the gathering dark under the roof. He was unsettled in mind and spirit, now that his body was no longer quivering on the brink of utter enervation, and instead of settling to sleep as he should have done he lay thinking.

The plantation was in serious trouble. Nobody said it, but everyone knew it. The desperation with which they had all worked to save the yams was proof enough of that. There wasn't enough money laid up in tobacco crates in the barn to settle the debts of this year and meet the expenses of next, not unless Mister Cullen worked some kind of a miracle in New Orleans. They had plenty of preserves and green food, and now sweet potatoes, but there was no meat and no cornmeal, less flour every day and Meg had confided in him that she thought Bethel was cutting back on the hominy, too. The hogs could be slaughtered once December rolled around and the cool weather set in reliably, and that was something. But hogs didn't pay for seed or clothes or boots, or satisfy tradesmen's debts or meet the taxes. Nate knew what happened when the money ran out. Slaves got sold; that's what happened.

His people were just about the only real asset Mister Cullen had, apart from the Morgans. The mules were sturdy and strong, but they were getting on in years. The land had value, but the master had proved he was too stubborn to sell off what he didn't need. The worst part of that was Nate couldn't even blame him anymore. The thought of that brute over at Hartwood owning Bohannon land turned his stomach.

Nate had been over to the neighboring plantation several times since his first visit after Mister Cullen's arrest. He wouldn't allow Meg to go, and she was anxious for news of her Peter. Peter himself certainly couldn't come to see her: it was more than his life was worth to sneak off Sutcliffe's land now. So it was Nate who took the risk of climbing the low fence by night to bring little presents from Meg – a kerchief cut from an old cotton shawl, a bundle of dried apples from the cellar, a little jar of Missus Mary's pea soup – and carry back tidings.

It was the business of carrying tidings that made Nate most uneasy. He didn't like to lie to Meg, or even to equivocate a little or stretch the truth. But he didn't have the heart to tell her how things really were for her man. Peter was not the same after his whipping. Something had been torn in his back, and he couldn't stand upright anymore. The broad, muscular shoulders that Nate had once envied were stooped and twisted now, the right one a good two inches lower than the left. He worked with difficulty and could no longer carry heavy loads, which didn't stop the overseers from trying to make him. He had had several thrashings in the last weeks, though none of them nearly as severe as the first one. He was shriveling up too, losing flesh and strength on half-rations. He was a target for the malice of his master: just about the worst thing that could befall a male slave.

Still his concern was always for his wife and child. He begged Nate time and again to tell them he was well, and pressed him for every little detail about their daily lives. He worried how Meg was recovering from her own whipping and the awful shaming she had suffered. Nate was able to tell him truthfully that her back was healed up and she was working without pain again. What he didn't say was that the laughter was gone from her eyes. She still had all the courage and determination and loving dedication that made her a beautiful and wonderful woman, but the playful, merry Meg was gone. Nate didn't know whether this was partly due to worry – certainly he didn't feel very merry himself these days – but he knew that at least some of it could be attributed to her awful ordeal.

He had worried Meg might ask him to slip over the fence tonight, but she hadn't. He had gone on Thursday, exhausted though he had been, to bring some of the soup. Poor old Peter had been so grateful. The slaves weren't fed well at Hartwood, and half-rations were a bitter cross to bear for a man still doing the work of a full hand despite his brutalized body. Peter had shaken his head at the tale of the fevered push to save the yams. "You' massa ain't got no sense," he had grumbled. "Ought've had them roots up ten days ago! We-all did over here. Say one thing for Mist' Sutcliffe. He might be an ol' yellowjacket, but he know how a plantation ought be run."

Nate had bristled at the injustice of having Mister Cullen compared in any unfavorable light to his monstrous neighbor, but he had to acknowledge the truth in Peter's words. A sensible man, or a man who knew anything at all about farming, never would have let the precious harvest languish so long in the earth. It was courting disaster, and disaster had very nearly struck. If it hadn't been for the tobacco fires rousing them from their beds in the middle of the night, and Meg's good sense in pausing to check as she went out for her shift, they might have lost ten or twelve bushels instead of three little rows. Elijah had warned him, warned all of them to expect the first frost before the tenth of November. Nate hadn't really listened, believing such things to be the master's business and none of his. But the master hadn't listened, either.

He didn't know what Mister Cullen could have done differently. If they had worked the sweet potatoes earlier and with more vigor, it would have been at the cost of the tobacco, and the tobacco was the most important crop they had. The stalks he and the master had mowed down on Friday afternoon had already been black and shriveling, their few ragged leaves completely despoiled. There would be no penny-a-pound cigarette fill for Mister Cullen to beg the dockmen to buy, but anything worth selling to the tobacco merchants had been brought in safely. Every night when he went to help with the stock, Nate took a moment to peek into the vacant stalls where the tobacco crates were stacked. There were a hundred and twenty-one of them now, just over twelve hogsheads' worth of various qualities. Some of the best leaves from the bottom field would still fetch top price. Nate just didn't think it would be enough of the crop to keep them afloat another year.

Still he found comfort in those neatly-marked boxes. In them he saw cornmeal and hominy and salt, sorghum and coffee, flour for the white folks and maybe a barrel of salt fish. He hadn't quite given up hope of new boots, for his own were worn right through the soles now and patched with scraps of old harness-leather that rubbed him raw with blisters and let the water in. And Meg needed a new dress for Sunday wear, and both pairs of Elijah's trousers were patched in the seat. When the tobacco was sold at least some of these deficits would surely be put right. When the tobacco was sold.

Nate didn't let him think of the things that might still go wrong. The remainder of the crop was still in the drying shed, still vulnerable to fire. Their perpetual attendance did not insure them perfectly against that calamity: a spark in dry tobacco might spread too fast for the swiftest action to halt. Even when the leaves were safely packed they still had to be hauled into Meridian. A broken axle or a runaway mule might overturn the buckboard and ruin a whole load: crates broken open and fragile leaves crushed in the mud of a ditch. And once the harvest was in town, it needed to be loaded on a train, and then another train, so that Mister Cullen could take it to New Orleans to sell. Nate didn't much trust railway niggers to treat the precious cargo with the care it warranted. And supposing by some miracle they did, with Mister Cullen's sharp eye and sharper tongue to guide them? Trains went off the rails all the time: somebody was always telling stories of a smash-up that had cost lives and cargo. Then in New Orleans there were the myriad dangers that attended the mysterious world of business. Nate didn't know all the ways that a negotiation could go wrong, but he knew that they did. The bargaining had gone badly last year, compounding the losses of the poor crop. And there had been that other year, the first bad year, when injudicious business dealings on the part of old Mister Bohannon had cost the plantation almost everything.

Nate closed his eyes, heart fluttering under the weight of worries that were not a slave's to bear. He didn't know how Mister Cullen stood it, carrying this load day after day and night after night. Added to it was the fear for his little boy, the sweet little boy who was so much like Mister Cullen himself had been in those long-ago days when he and Nate had played together in the dooryard without a care in the world. Nate didn't need to read the fear in his old friend's eyes to know that if that child died he would take something irreplaceable from his father's soul; some vital piece without which the whole might never again function as it ought.

The artificial resentment that Nate had harbored so unfairly over the last two decades was all gone now. Mister Cullen was a good man, and he did the best he could in a world that seemed bent against him. The wrongs of that world were not his fault, any more than the cruel machinations of the weather. Maybe he might have done differently in the matter of the yams, and maybe he might have done differently in the matter of the slaves, but for the life of him Nate couldn't see how. And if he didn't know himself, he couldn't expect Mister Cullen to know, either. It wasn't just.

The door of the cabin opened with a _bang_, and Nate was blinded by the glare of a kerosene flame. He shaded his eyes with the back of his hand, rolling up onto his elbow to squint at the invader. It wasn't Elijah, who was in the tobacco barn. It certainly wasn't Meg, who would never raise such a racket. And it couldn't be Lottie: the light was too high off the ground. As his vision cleared he heard Bethel's voice, harsh and hurried and tense with something as near to panic as Nate had ever heard from her capable mouth.

"Get up, you young fool!" she cried. "Get up an' put your clothes on! Hurry now: you gots to ride!"

"Ride?" Nate said, stupid with confusion and the fog of his worried wanderings. "Ride where?"

"Meridian, boy!" snapped Bethel. She was across the room now, pulling his pants and shirt down off their pegs. She flung them up into his lap. "Get dressed an' saddle up that ornery mare: she the fastes'. You gots to fetch the doctor right this minute. Mist' Gabe, he took him a turn. Can't hardly get a breath 'tween one fit an' the next'un. Come on, you lazy black goat: get down out of there!"

But Nate was already dragging his trousers over his hips, his head barking against the eave of the roof where it hung low over the upper bunk. His heart was in his throat now, and he felt a chill that did not come swirling through the open door. If that boy died, it would be the ruin of them all.


	60. The Crisis

_Note: I apologize for the delay in posting. This chapter was difficult to write._

**Chapter Sixty: The Crisis**

The Bohannon nursery, so charming in its simplicity at ordinary times, had transformed in the course of a few short hours into a nest of chaos. Used dishes, spoons sticky with residue of soothing syrup, and soiled handkerchiefs cluttered the little table and the top of the bureau. On the floor were rags and towels, wet and rumpled and hastily discarded. The tin bathtub had been brought up from the kitchen, and stood half-full near the washstand in a puddle of dirty water. The chimney of the lamp was black with soot, the curtains hung carelessly half-open, and small cast-off clothes had been flung over the back of the armchair and the foot of the bedstead. The bed itself was a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets and bunched blankets, one corner of the tick stripped bare where the bottom sheet had been dragged aside by an incautious leg.

The center of this nebula of anxious disorder was the child languishing in his father's lap in the wake of a spate of coughing so violent that it had seemed his little lungs would burst forth in a bloody froth from his lips. Cullen was sitting awkwardly in the middle of the disarrayed bed, one foot tucked up behind the opposite knee to form a sort of cradle in which his son could sit. His right arm bore the greater part of the boy's weight, crooked behind neck and shoulder and bracing his flank. His left hand was splayed wide over the small ribcage, trying vainly to exert the gentle pressure that eased the ache of the strained chest muscles. Beneath the sweat-soaked nightshirt Gabe's ribs were bandaged snugly, the strips of linen smelling strongly of camphor. His bare legs spilled over the edge of his father's lap, sturdy little feet now limp and bereft of strength.

Mary was pouring out a cupful of water with hands that shook with exhaustion as much as with fear. It was drawing on to midnight now, and she had not slept since the last brief surcease between coughing fits at dawn. All day she and Cullen had tried to comfort and entertain their listless little boy, but by suppertime his fever had been raging and the coughs coming more frequently. An hour ago, three fits previous, there had come a series of coughs so violent and prolonged that the ghastly blue hue had spread not only over Gabe's face but to his fingers and toes. It was then that they had been forced to admit at last that the crisis against which they had been warned was upon them, and Bethel had gone to rouse Nate.

Gabe was pale now, ashen beneath the bright roses of fever high on his cheeks. His head lolled against his father's elbow, cracked lips parted so that he could draw his shallow, timid breaths through them. Now and then the air rattled in his throat and his tongue rose in a terse little clicking motion. Then Cullen would hold the handkerchief to his chin and Gabe would exert the enormous effort to lift his head and spit out the mucus that was tormenting him. Each expectoration delayed a little longer the inevitable moment when the cough would return.

"Here, lovey, take a little sip," Mary said softly, drawing near and slipping her left hand behind Gabe's head to help him sit up a little higher. She held the rolled rim of the tin cup to his lips. He drank obediently, but only a mouthful. Then he turned his face away, nuzzling against the front of Cullen's Sunday shirt. Some off the water spilled out of the cup and splashed cold upon Gabe's front. He whimpered like a newborn pup.

"Oh, darling, I'm sorry!" cried Mary, flinging the mug down upon the bedside table and snatching up a hand-towel to blot at the wet place. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Hush," sighed Cullen as Gabe's bleary eyes widened a little at his mother's distress. "It's just a little water: won't hurt him none. Ain't that so, son? Didn't hurt you, did it?"

"I wants to _sleep_, Pappy," the little boy mumbled plaintively, trying to burrow nearer to his father as though they were not already pressed snugly together.

"Go on and sleep, then," said Cullen gently. "I'm right here. Mama and me, we'll watch over you. It's all right to sleep."

Gabe gave a miniscule shake of his head, damp curls rustling. "I's too hot," he moaned.

Cullen looked up at Mary, his pinched face stony but his eyes raw with helpless agony. "Where's Bethel with that water?" he asked.

"I could go and see…" Mary said reluctantly, glancing towards the door but making no attempt to move. The truth was that she was terrified even to step out into the hallway, as though any change in the environment might bring on a fresh wave of coughing. She had come to dread that cough as she had never dreaded anything in her life. To watch, useless and ineffectual, as an unseen force tried to tear her child asunder was torture.

"Naw, sit down and rest a minute," Cullen huffed wearily, shifting his shoulder a little to ease the ache of long immobility. He rocked a little, drawing his son with him. "That's my little man," he murmured. "Bethel will be back soon, and we'll give you a nice cold sponging. How'd that be?"

Gabe made a low, indistinct noise and swallowed painfully. The sheen of perspiration on his brow shimmered as the lamp-flame bobbed and guttered. The kerosene was low in the bowl, but Mary was not about to leave the room just to fetch more. She gathered her skirts with one hand and sat beside her husband, bolstering his tired arm with her side and turning in to rest her palm on Gabe's stomach. It remained almost still even when he drew in a breath: he was breathing high in his lungs. This too frightened her, and made her wonder anxiously when the doctor might come. Nate must have reached Meridian long ago: twenty minutes or more. He was not the rider that Cullen was, and could not control Bonnie at a gallop, but Doctor Whitehead had told her explicitly not to let Cullen ride out. He had to be with Gabe now. They both had to be with him because…

The creak of the nursery door broke that awful thought, and Bethel came in. She had a pail of water in each hand, fresh up from the well and as cold as they had the means to make it. She set them down heavily on the floor, short of the rag rug, and closed the door to keep in the heat. It seemed so senseless, cooling the child with chilled water while the room itself was so fiercely warm, but none of them dared to violate the doctor's prior instructions now. No one, not even Cullen, was brave enough to shoulder the burden of perhaps making the wrong decision at this critical juncture.

"See, dearest? Bethel's back," said Mary softly, still trying to engage her little boy. It was so unlike him, this lethargy. It opened in her a deep well of terror into which she could not gaze too deeply.

Gabe blinked sluggishly and found his nurse with his eyes, not even moving his head. "Bet'l," he said. "I's hot."

"I knows it, lamb," Bethel cooed. "I brung you some fresh water: we's goin' wash you down again."

Cullen hoisted Gabe into a fully upright position and shifted his right arm at last. He stretched it briefly, almost without pausing in the arc of motion that brought his hand in to steady Gabe's back. Clumsily he tried to tug the nightshirt up around his waist, and Mary hastened to help. The buttons at the neck were already agape, and they made quick and tender work of easy limp little arms out of the sleeves. Gabe's head flopped forward as they pulled the garment over it, chin thumping against his chest. He took in a rattling breath, deeper than the others, and for a dreadful moment all three adults were still as they waited for the cough.

It did not come this time. Mary flung aside the nightshirt, wet with perspiration. Cullen turned Gabe in his lap so that he could lean against the other arm for a while. Bethel bent in to untie the bandage, uncoiling it deftly. When the child was naked she took a cloth and dipped it into one of the buckets, squeezing off the excess and folding it expertly. She lifted Gabe's right arm and pressed the wet rag to the smooth skin beneath. Gabe gave a little cry, shuddering against the chill, and then sighed. His strained little face slackened with relief. Despite the shock of contact, the cold water felt good on his fever-parched skin.

Bethel worked with practiced efficiency, and Cullen shifted Gabe in his arms without needing to be told how to position him. They had done this several times already tonight, for the fever was raging higher than ever before and the reprieve never lasted long. Finished with the boy's body, Bethel took a fresh rag and tenderly bathed his face. Gabe's lips puckered briefly, drawn towards the water, and Mary dipped the tin cup into the other bucket to offer him a cold drink.

"T'ank you, Mama. T'ank you, Bet'l," Gabe mumbled reflexively as he sipped at the fluid. When he was finished, Mary eased his head back into the support of Cullen's arm and chest and went to fetch a clean nightshirt from the clothespress.

"Should we try another dose of cordial?" she asked uncertainly, glancing at the tall glass bottle on the table by the bed.

"Don't seem to be doin' no good no more," said Bethel. "Ain't nuthin' helpin' much now."

"Doc'll be here soon," Cullen said, a quiet resolve in his voice as though he could will it to be true. "He'll know what oughta be done."

Mary fumbled with the small muslin garment, rucking up the hem as she drew near the bed again. Gabe's eyes were closed, the fingers of his right hand clenching and unclenching around a fistful of Cullen's sleeve. Mary's hands fell to her sides, taking the nightshirt with her. She didn't have the heart to sit him up again and perhaps bring on the cough, just to dress him in something that would be fouled with sweat and spills soon enough.

Observing her stance and the look in her eye, Cullen reached awkwardly behind him, careful not to move his torso lest he should disturb the child. He dragged a corner of the top sheet around his hip and smoothed it over Gabe's lap to provide some illusion of modesty. He tucked it under the child's thigh and then resumed his gentle rubbing of the ravaged ribs. "Dressing can wait," he said. "He's hot as it is."

The strength went out of Mary's legs and she sank down in the old armchair. For a blessed moment of respite she did not have to be brave and tireless: Gabe was not watching. He seemed well on his way to sleeping a little, and she was glad. She worried about the want of sleep. Growing children needed their rest, and Gabe had not had more than an hour or two of uninterrupted slumber all week. Mary knew how awful she felt herself, bereft of proper repose. She could only imagine how much worse it must be for her son, ill and rundown as he was.

Bethel was gathering the scattered rags and towels into a heap behind the door, pausing to mop up the worst of the puddle by the tub. She looked around at the rest of the clutter in this ordinarily tidy and well-kept room, and her thin shoulders slumped. She was ashamed of the mess, especially with the doctor expected at any time, but she was too tired to do anything about it. Looking at her, Mary wanted nothing more than to tell the aging slave that it was all right if she sat down to rest a while, but she did not know how.

"Bethel, could you help me?" Cullen asked. Immediately the old lady's body was erect again, alert to the intimation that she was needed. "His ribs. Could you come and put your hand on the other side? I can't press 'em all at once."

Bethel nodded and moved to the bed, bending forward to reach. "Poor li'l lamb," she murmured. "My poor li'l lamb."

"Not like that," said Cullen, as though contradicting Bethel or criticising her nursing were natural instead of almost blasphemous. He turned, hitching his leg a little higher on the bed so that he was angled towards the footboard. "Sit down and try it with your other hand… there. There, that's better, ain't it, son?"

Gabe did not answer, but the furrow between his eyebrows smoothed a little as Bethel's right hand settled between his flank and Cullen's stomach. The two adults were sitting with their shoulders pressed together, Cullen's right and Bethel's left, so that they almost seemed to prop one another up. The feather tick sank marginally lower as Bethel let the last of her weight off of her weary feet. But for the ungainly angle of her elbow she looked almost comfortable – as comfortable as any of them, at least. Mary's chest constricted in a moment of almost painful adoration. She hadn't known how to make Bethel sit down, but Cullen had managed it not only without raising a protest but without even letting the old woman realize what he really wanted.

It was inevitable, of course, that the brief peace would not last long. Mary had been bracing herself against the next round of whooping, but it was not the cough that shattered the hush this time. They had not sat for ten minutes when Gabe stiffened in his father's arms, biting back a tiny yelp of misery, and began to shiver.

"Cold, Pappy!" he moaned. "I's c-c-cold!"

Hurriedly Bethel was on her feet again, tugging one of the blankets free from the bottom of the mattress. Mary hastened towards her child as he twisted in his father's lap, getting up on his knees as though he wanted to climb up onto Cullen's shoulders. Strong, calloused hands rasped against the velvety baby-soft skin of Gabe's back as Cullen tried to adjust his hold. Gabe was quaking with chills, his pearly teeth clacking in his mouth.

"Here, chile, here," breathed Bethel, draping the blanket over his shoulders and tucking it 'round him. Cullen drew it closed across Gabe's chest and hugged his son against him. With a concerted heave of legs and arms he stood up, rounding the foot of the bed to draw near the cast-iron heater. Mary snatched up the nightshirt again, vainly wishing she had put it on Gabe after all. Bethel slipped between husband and wife to grab the poker, and opened the door to the little oven so that she could stir up the fire.

"It's all right," Cullen whispered, jiggling the child as he stood so near the heater that faint tendrils of steam began to rise off of his damp sleeve. "You'll be warm again in a minute. It'll pass, son. It'll pass."

Gabe tried to speak but managed only an inarticulate little moan, shrunken in his father's arms and dwarfed by the shell of the blanket. Again Mary felt suffocated by her helplessness. Tears smarted in her eyes, and her throat threatened to close entirely. She stared down at the nightshirt, thumb snagging on the deep growth tuck she had put in when she had made it. She was taken with another wave of icy panic as she wondered whether she would ever need to let it out at all.

Gabe whimpered as Cullen stiffened, chin suddenly thrust up instead of tucked low to watch his son's face. His eyes pivoted to the window with its fissure of darkness between the imperfectly drawn drapes. "Horses," he said.

Bethel dropped the poker in the firebox with a clatter. "I bes' go an' show him up," she said, briskly businesslike. "Missus Mary, jus' you see if you can get that chile to let you dress 'im, that's a good girl."

A tiny laugh, more hysterical than mirthful, spilled from Mary's lips as the older woman slipped past her again and hastened from the room. Cullen pulled down the edge of the blanket with two fingers, exposing Gabe's tearstained cheek to the light. "Whadda you say?" he asked gently. "Will you let Mama put your nightshirt on?"

"Yassir," Gabe whispered. He was still shaking, and he curled an arm tightly around his father's neck as Cullen tugged the blanket down around his waist. "I's cold. I's so _cold_."

Cullen inched even closer to the little stove, and Mary slipped the nightshirt over Gabe's head. She guided his hand to the sleeve, and he straightened his arm obediently. When his hand burst forth from the cuff he used it to maintain his hold on Cullen's neck. His father shifted his bottom from one arm to the other, and Mary stepped around to navigate the other hand. She tugged the bunched hem as low as she could, and then drew up the blanket again. She tucked it snugly around the quivering little shoulders, and pressed her palm consolingly against the small of her son's back as he burrowed close against Cullen again.

"Good boy," Cullen murmured, shifting his weight from foot to foot as though Gabe were once more an infant waking with colic in the night. "That's better, ain't it?"

"B-better," Gabe agreed faintly. Then he let out a choking half-sob and thrust both palms against Cullen's chest, pushing violently back from him. Cullen had to scramble to maintain a secure hold as Gabe struggled against his arms. Beneath the trailing corner of the blanket, bare feet kicked ferociously against the man's thighs. "Lemme go! Lemme go! You's hot! You's too hot! _I's _too hot! Lemme _go!_"

Hastily Cullen yanked the blanket off of Gabe's shoulders and tried to peel it away from his hips without dropping him. Gabe's efforts to push himself away grew more fervent, and his scrabbling hand thrust against Cullen's jaw, one sharp little nail scraping deep enough to raise a bead of blood on the man's cheek.

"Gabe!" Mary cried, horrified by this display of violence and quite overcome with astonishment at the suddenness of the change that had overtaken her child. Gabe was in the throes of a tantrum now, wriggling like an eel and bellowing indignantly at his father.

Cullen nudged Mary aside, taking one long stride to the bed. He hoisted Gabe over the footboard, setting him down on the mattress and releasing his hold. Immediately Gabe was kicking off the blanket, scooting backwards away from it. Angry tears burned in his eyes as he thumped his heel again and again into the tick. "I's hot, I's _hot!_" he wailed, scrubbing at his eyes with his fists.

Then it happened. His breath, coming in thick pants of miserable frustration, hitched suddenly with the shrill note of a poorly-played fife. His ribs bucked under the soft fabric of his nightshirt. His tongue struck the roof of his mouth with an audible _click_. And he began to cough.

It was Mary who went to him. Cullen, having only just been commanded to put the boy down, stood stock still at the foot of the bed. He was staring mutely, paralyzed with numb misery as Mary climbed up on the mattress. Her heavy skirts hampered her, but she merely dragged them resolutely along with no care for the creaking stitches that held the pleats to the band. She slid up behind Gabe, bracing his back with her body and wrapping her arm around him. She cradled him but did not squeeze, still fearful of making matters worse. She kissed the crown of his head and then tilted so her cheek might press against his hair. The bucking and bobbing of his head percussed deep into the bones of her face and made her teeth ache, but when she tried to move away Gabe craned his straining neck after the contact.

At last Cullen regained command of his body and came swiftly to offer a handkerchief as Gabe's coughs began to burble in the spittle. The whoops came hard and fast, for the child was already breathless in the wake of his wrathful outburst, and when the door flew open the bluish tinge was already appearing on his lips.

Doctor Whitehead flung his bag upon the foot of the bed and moved at once to sit by Mary's knees, leaning low to look at the child. If Gabe recognized him – or indeed could even focus his eyes as the paroxysms tore through him – he gave no sign. He was far too intent upon trying to get air. The doctor reached with a firm, gentle hand to brace the side of the child's jaw, thumb tracing the cords standing out in the plump little neck. He glanced down at the hands driven deep in the feather mattress, and then lifted the hem of the nightshirt to feel for Gabe's pulse in the large femoral vessel in his right leg.

"A basin, Bethel," he said, casting the request swiftly over his shoulder before turning his attention back upon his patient. "Go ahead, son: cough it all up."

Gabe was trying; that was obvious. His face was the florid red of a ripe tomato, inflamed with the strain of the coughs and darkening to purple as the fit wore on. His backbone arched and buckled again and again. His tongue pressed against his teeth as he choked and heaved and wheezed. Every whoop drew his cheeks into deep divots and sent him jolting against his mother. Bethel gave the china washbasin to Doctor Whitehead, who held it at the ready as Gabe spat again into the handkerchief. His splayed hand flew up to slap at his stomach, and suddenly Cullen was beside Mary after all, sliding in to plant his palms on his son's ribs.

"I got you," he said. "You'll be all right; that's my brave boy."

When the last cough fluttered out of strained lips, Gabe's breath hitched. Immediately Doctor Whitehead reached for the basin, though it took another few seconds before Mary realized why it was wanted. Gabe gave a little shudder and a faint whimper of misery, and then leaned forward and began to vomit into the bowl. There was little to bring up, for he had eaten almost nothing since dinnertime: bile and water, a few sluggish strands of dark fluid clearly identifiable as soothing syrup, and the same phlegm that he coughed out in such great quantities. Mary held his head, brushing his hair back from his face and murmuring quiet words of consolation that seemed to have lost all meaning. Beside her she was dimly aware of Cullen grimacing and looking away over his right shoulder as he fought off sympathetic nausea.

Doctor Whitehead divided his attention between the child's face and the contents of the bowl. When it was over and Gabe wilted back in Mary's arms, the doctor withdrew a pace and swirled the basin, sniffing thoughtfully. Bethel came forward with a damp cloth and the tin cup of water. Mary used the first to wipe the sweat from Gabe's face and the foulness from his lips, and then took the cup. Doctor Whitehead then handed the Negro nurse the basin.

"You may go and get rid of that," he said gently. "There's nothing in the vomit to raise concerns: only what I would expect to see. His appetite has been poor?"

"For the last two days," Mary agreed. "Even yesterday he wasn't eating heartily, but… but he wasn't like this."

"He was fine," Cullen said dully. "I mean, he was sick, but he was fine. Playing happily. Laughing. Almost like his old self."

"I know," said Doc, nodding. He came back to the bed and leaned down towards the child. "You've taken a little turn since I saw you yesterday, haven't you, son?"

"I's hot," Gabe moaned, tossing his head fretfully against Mary's basque. "I's hot an' I's tired."

"Yes, I can see that." The older man dug in his bag and brought out his stethoscope. Cullen drew back a step to allow better access, and Mary worked one-handed to raise the nightshirt. "I'm just going to have a little listen, son," said the doctor. "Just to see what them lungs is doing."

Gabe did not seem to hear him, or did not think the effort of commenting worthwhile. Since Doctor Whitehead had stopped asking him to take in and hold deep breaths while he used the device, there had been no coughing precipitated by the stethoscope. Gabe was no longer frightened of that, at least. But when the cup was placed against his ribs the skin rippled a little, and both small hands flew to seize it. Plucking it with ease from the unsuspecting physician, Gabe pressed the ebony disk to his temple.

"What's this, now?" Doc asked, chuckling a little. The sound of laughter in a room that had been choked with misery for countless hours was strange to Mary's ear. "You want me to try and listen to your brain?"

This was the sort of suggestion that should have roused Gabe's interest. Mary could almost hear him blurting out an eager question: _Do my brain make a noise, Doct'r?_ Instead he only breathed out a low sigh and mumbled; "It feel good."

"It's cold," Cullen translated, his voice rasping from high in his throat. He cleared it with a quiet, rattling cough. "It feels good on his head 'cause it's cold."

Doctor Whitehead looked around, picked up one of the rags hanging over the footboard, and dipped it in the pail on the floor. He wrung it out and folded it into a long pad, then used his index finger to slip between Gabe's left hand and the stethoscope. The right still clutched the cup, the silk-covered spring trailing to coil on his thigh, but Doc quickly slipped the cold cloth into Gabe's left hand.

"There, I'll bet that's cooler," he said. "You can put it across your whole forehead, and it won't leave a mark. Keep that cup pressed hard like that, and you'll get yourself a big red bull's-eye on your head."

He took hold of the stethoscope and drew it gently away from the child. Gabe raised his head enough to look at the cloth, studiously spreading it between his hands. Then he plopped it down over his brow, patting the wet fabric so it made a sharp slapping sound. "Oooh…" he sighed.

"That's better, ain't it?" Doc asked, holding the needle-shaped earpiece in place as he settled the cup once more. He listened on the right, and then on the left, and Mary rolled Gabe in towards her so that the doctor could listen at his back as well. His face was gravely professional, but his eyes grew anxious as he worked. When he straightened again, coiling the stethoscope with the neat efficiency of long habit, he pressed his lips together.

"There's a lot of crackling," he said, looking from Mary to Cullen. "I don't like the feel of that fever, either. I think it would be best I don't stir too far tonight."

Mary nodded, but Cullen frowned. "What if other folks need you?"

"Ellie knows where I can be found," said Doctor Whitehead; "and I took the liberty of sending your man up the drive to leave word at West Willows in case one of their little ones needs me. I hope you don't mind: I didn't want Boyd to send someone all the way into Meridian just to come straight back here."

"It's fine," said Cullen distractedly. He was looking at Gabe again, and he swallowed painfully. "Doc… how bad is it going to get?"

"There's no telling, I'm afraid," he murmured, shaking his head sadly. "It's just best we all keep near and do what we can to help him."

Mary forced herself to stop seeking for answers in the kindly face above her. The terrifying truth was that Doctor Whitehead did not know any better than she how the night would go, or how long this ordeal would last, or how it would end. The door creaked as Bethel came back into the room, and Gabe shifted uncomfortably in her arms.

"Let me take him," said Cullen, sitting down on the bed and ramming the crumpled pillow into the small of his back. "Maybe he can sleep a little."

Gabe whimpered piteously. "I's too hot," he protested. "I's… I's… ooh, no…"

The words dissolved in a harsh, brief choking noise that broke at once into a series of sharp coughs. A shrill, wheezing sound something like a wail rang between the first and the second as Gabe struggled to sit up straight. Mary could help him do that, at least, but there was nothing that she could do to ease the torment itself. She braced her child as best she could, losing her own balance and sliding backward so that she had to arch her back to keep from slipping. Then all at once there was a wall of warmth behind her, strong and secure – an unlooked-for and almost unimaginable consolation in the moment of despair. She felt Cullen's jawbone against her cheek, and his arms with their ropes of hard, lean muscle slipped around under her own. She had her son nested against her and her husband behind her, and he spread his hands over Gabe's ribs to bolster the strained muscles. Together they held their child, riding the waves of the fit like two sailors struggling to keep courage in a storm. Bethel was near at hand and yet remote, held at one remove by the ancient laws of Southern propriety that might be laid aside in private but never before a guest. And Doctor Whitehead took out his stethoscope again, snaking it under the little nightshirt to listen as Gabe coughed.

Courageous even in his misery and the despairing resignation to the cough, Gabe tried so hard to clear his lungs. He struggled to spit in the tiny respite between spasms, and he fought valiantly for every inadequate whooping breath. When the fit died away at last he leaned forward against his father's hands and his mother's cradling arm and choked up the last thick plug of mucus into the handkerchief Mary held.

"'Ucky," he grumbled dourly. Then for a moment he was still in Mary's arms before bursting into noisy tears.

"Oh, dearest, Gabe darling," Mary sighed, turning him towards her again and rocking him. Cullen had withdrawn his hands when the coughing ceased, and now the bed ropes rippled as he stood up. Mary could feel his presence close by her shoulder, but she was lost in a vain attempt to soothe her feverish child. Hot tears coursed down Gabe's flushed cheeks and he flailed feebly in her arms, rubbing at his eyes and weeping with the wretchedness of a little boy pushed to the very boundry of exhaustion, aching and frightened and miserable beyond the measure of his child's vocabulary to express. He was begging for comfort, for some surcease of this nightmare, for his mama and his pappy to do something, anything, to help him… and there was nothing they could do but hold him.

Cullen reached and picked up the handkerchief where it lay abandoned on a fold of Mary's skirt. He nudged one crease with the side of his thumb, and an almost obscenely brilliant splotch of color showed against the white linen. It drew Mary's eye, and her heart froze in her chest.

"Doc?" Cullen hissed, hardly able to form the words. "Look at this here."

Doctor Whitehead turned from digging in his bag, his eyes moving first to Cullen's face and then in the direction of his numb stare. Feathered eyebrows knitted and the lines of care in his aging face deepened. "It might be from a ruptured vessel in his throat," he whispered. He pivoted anxious eyes on the child. "Or from his sinuses. Miss Mary? Is his nose bleeding?"

"No." Mary's lips moved, but little sound issued forth. She was still rocking to and fro against the feather tick, soothing Gabe's sobs to quiet guttering whimpers, but she was staring at the handkerchief with its little slick of blood upon the globe of milky phlegm. "Is he… is it…"

Doctor Whitehead reached for the cloth, but Cullen's fingers seemed locked. He would not release it. Instead the physician merely extended his index finger and smeared the mingled secretions with it. The mucus rolled cohesively and the blood fragmented over it. Doc's shoulders slumped in relief. "It ain't mixed in," he said. "Most likely just a ruptured vessel."

"Most likely?" said Mary. "Then he _could _be bleeding in his lungs?"

"It's possible," the doctor admitted reluctantly; "but we mustn't think the worst, Miss Mary. It ain't much blood, wherever it come from." He reached to grip Gabe's hand where it was crooked up near his breastbone. "You're a brave boy, son. You just keep on fighting, you hear?"

Cullen's hand closed in a wrathful fist, crumpling the handkerchief in his palm as his arm fell to his side. His hand flew up to shade his eyes, his whole body fraught with tension. "You'll excuse me, Mary, but I got to… I's just goin'… I… I can't."

The words tore themselves from his throat in strangled, stilted syllables. For a moment Mary's eyes locked with his, lost in the swirling tumult of rage and fear and sorrow and impotence. Then Cullen cast down his gaze shamefacedly, tearing away from her with a sharp twist of his shoulder. He strode for the door, brushing past Bethel with enough force to turn her, and flung it open. As he disappeared into the cold draft of the corridor he drew it closed behind him, not quite slamming but certainly with enough force to raise a decent _bang_. Gabe flinched at the noise, snuffling unhappily, but seemed to be drifting on the border of sleep once more.

Bewildered and helpless and now very much alone, Mary looked at Bethel's startled face and then at Doc's. No one knew what to say.

_*discidium*_

He found the decanter with the first swipe of his hand, but had to grope until his fingers found a tumbler. It was the dark of the moon, and the parlor had the deep gloom of a subterranean cavern or the depths of the ocean – the darkness of death, Cullen thought, and he tore the stopper off the whiskey so that its oaken fragrance dispelled the haunting scent of lilies and peach blossoms. Peach blossoms again… why? He sloshed the liquor into the glass, splashing a little over the rim to chill the back of his shaking hand. Sharply, savagely he quaffed, thrusting his head back despite the bolts of pain from his stiff neck and almost tossing the whiskey down his throat. It skidded over the phlegm that kept trickling down from his sinuses, and he had to shut his mind to the thought of the blood. He had cast away the handkerchief at the bottom of the stairs, flinging it into some sightless corner in a spasm of revulsion before scrubbing his palm on the leg of his pants. They were good trousers, not work trousers, but he didn't give a damn. He just needed to know he didn't have his son's blood on his hand.

The warmth of the alcohol dispelled something of the chill of the empty room. After the muggy sickroom heat of the nursery, the disused parlor was positively cold, and the sweat-dampened patches under Cullen's arms and between his shoulder blades – and down the front of his shirt where Gabe had lain so long – sucked the fire from his blood. He began to shiver shallowly, but whether from cold or sheer enervation he did not know. He drained the glass and set it down heavily, clutching the edge of the small sideboard while his knees trembled.

He should not have tried to run; he knew that. His place was upstairs, with his wife and his child. He was supposed to be the strong one, the fearless one, the one who held everybody else together in the face of adversity. He was the man of the house. But the sight of that blood, and the awful moment when he had been convinced it was the sure death-knell of his child, had been too much for him. He had had to get out of there, to breathe air that wasn't tainted with the smells of sickness, to flee to somewhere he could, just for a moment, stop pretending that he was not afraid.

All day he had watched with mounting dread as Gabe's fever had climbed. Every coughing fit had stirred him with terror, and each had seemed worse than the one before. This last had surely been the worst of all, hadn't it? Even without the blood? How much more could one small body take? And now Gabe was struggling to breathe even between the coughs, panting and wheezing while the phlegm gurgled in his chest. His skin was so hot to the touch; hot and dry even when he was shivering and sobbing that he was cold. And when he wept like that, wept as he had not wept since babyhood, it tore at Cullen's heart and left him strangled in the noose of his own helplessness.

He felt the eyes staring out of the dark before he heard any hint of the other man's approach. Cullen stiffened, wondering how long he had been standing here with his fingernails digging into the old well-oiled wood. He could still taste the whiskey on his dry lips as he stiffened, staring forward into the blackness as though by doing so he could steel his resolve and cling to his dignity.

"I thought I'd find you down here, son," Doc Whitehead said quietly.

"Must have some bloodhound in you," Cullen sneered, more bitterly than he meant to. "We got eight whole rooms in this here house, not countin' the pantry."

"Yes, but you ain't the sort to soothe your sorrows with a slice of pie," said the other man. His shoes shuffled against the edge of the rug, and there was a clatter of glass as he groped in the dark. Next came the phosphorous scrape of a match, and the faint orange glow danced upon the wall before Cullen's vacant eyes. The light first flared and then settled, strong and golden, as Doc lit the lamp. Cullen heard him drawing close and stiffened reflexively before a firm grip settled on his shoulder.

"Just about ready to go back upstairs, Cullen?" asked Doc.

He shook his head infinitesimally. "I can't," he choked, his voice and body taut with the effort of retaining control. "I can't go back up there. I can't."

"It's all right to take a minute or two," Doctor Whitehead said. He came up beside Cullen, maintaining his hold with one hand while the other picked up the tumbler. He sniffed experimentally. "Fine stuff," he remarked conversationally. "Expensive."

"Gift from Mary's father," huffed Cullen. Somehow it was easier just to talk about the whiskey. "He knows his spirits; always respected the fact I do too. There was things we didn't agree on, but whiskey weren't one of them."

"Mind if I have a little nip?" asked Doc, holding out the glass expectantly. "There's a chill on the air tonight: likely we'll have frost again."

Cullen picked up the decanter, gripping its neck with more force than was strictly necessary. It took every ounce of focus and all of his willpower to keep his hand steady as he poured, but he managed it. Doc raised the glass in salute and took a robust mouthful. He swallowed, baring his teeth with a satisfied hiss.

"Mighty fine," he said. He looked at the golden fluid in the glass, three-quarters of an inch of sheer luxury, then put it in Cullen's hand and patted his fingers. "You go ahead and finish it up. I don't like to have more than a taste when I'm seeing a patient."

Cullen bolted back the whiskey with determination but no relish. Still it steadied him, body and mind, and made his next breath easier to take in. Unfortunately the next one caught in his throat and he coughed, turning hurriedly away from the doctor as though he could actually hide the fact. The cough came out in three deep, dry barks, and he inhaled through his congested nose and then coughed again. Doc hummed knowingly, but said nothing.

"Why'd you come after me?" Cullen asked when the silence grew oppressive. "You should be upstairs with my boy. He's the one who needs you."

"There's never only one person who needs me," said the older man. "That's the thing about being a country sawbones: there's always more sick folks than hours in a day. I was out to see Mrs. Lloyd this afternoon. She's been having headaches. I think she might be anemic; I hope she is, anyhow. Anemia I can treat."

"Unlike whooping cough?" said Cullen.

"Unlike a brain tumor, son," Doc murmured. "You might not remember, but that's what her mother died of; she was only forty-six. Started with headaches."

"Oh." There was not much at all that Cullen could say to this. "How's Boyd's kids?" he asked instead.

"Miss Charity's in for a hard ride," said the doctor, a pensive note to his voice. "At her age I'd expect her to come through, but it won't be pleasant. Her brother ain't so sick, but he's fussier. Not a patient little soldier like your Gabe, that's certain. Little Daisy… well, it's early yet: too soon to tell."

"What about the baby?" asked Cullen. Boyd had said something about sneezing, he remembered uneasily. That was how it had started with Gabe, too.

"Sickening," murmured Doc. "There's no mistake about that. She'll be coughing in a day or two. That's why I wanted to leave word I'm over here."

"And if they need you, you'll go?" Somehow Cullen could not help feeling a spark of resentment at this notion. His own child was suffering, and might not even outlast the night. At the moment the plight of other children, even the Ainsley children, seemed secondary to that.

"Only if nothing has changed here," Doc said gently. "I'm committed to giving your boy the very best care I can, Cullen. I'll do everything in my power. I promise you that."

"Course. Course you will," breathed Cullen. His shoulders slumped out of their stiff prideful angle, and his tired spine curled. His head, weighted as though with lead, bobbed wearily. "It's bad, ain't it?"

"It's bad," Doc confirmed. His fingers closed on Cullen's shoulder again, almost but not quite embracing him. "That fever is high enough we might have to bath him in water straight up from the well, and the cough… well, _catastrophic _is just about the only word for it now. I don't like the sound of his lungs. It might even be the start of a secondary pneumonitis."

Cullen's head whipped towards him the way Jeb's used to when the hound heard a distant shot. "Pneumonia?" he gasped.

"I can't say that positively at this point," said Doc. He clapped his hand on Cullen's shoulder before settling back into the upholding grasp. "Son, you can't give up hope. Come on: Miss Mary's wondering where you got to. You can go up and sit with her, and Bethel can fix you both something to eat. I'll bet you ain't had no supper."

They had not, but food was as far from Cullen's mind as the results of the presidential election. "Doc, I can't," he confessed, hardly able to make himself heard through the roar of shame that rose in his ears like rushing blood. "I can't go up there and… He's my boy, Doc. I can't just sit and watch him die."

Now that it was said there was a strange relief in his chest. It seemed almost as though he could breathe with ease again. The worst was spoken, acknowledged. The fear had a name.

Doctor Whitehead looked at him with such kindness that Cullen felt his throat close again, burning painfully. The wise green eyes held his gaze, and Doc shook his head. "Don't watch him die," he said. "Watch him live. Be with him while he's living, son. He needs you. If he makes it through the night, he'll need to know you was there with him. If he don't, you can be with him right up 'til the end."

He clutched Cullen tighter, hugging him close in a one-armed embrace without quite turning to face him. "And I'll be right there with you," he said. "So will Bethel and Miss Mary. Whatever happens, nobody needs to go through it alone."

Cullen nodded mutely, not trusting himself to speak, and then turned out of Doc's grasp. Under his own power and by the strength of his own will he made it to the parlor door. While the doctor snuffed the lantern Cullen braced himself, marshalling his courage as he moved towards the foot of the staircase.


	61. The Desperate Moment

**Chapter Sixty-One: The Desperate Moment**

Dawn had broken, and Gabe was still breathing. Each labored inhalation sawed through the phlegm in his throat, spreading the delicate lattice of ribs beneath overtaxed muscles. When he exhaled he did so in tiny sighs, shallow and tremulous with the instinct that kept him from drawing too deeply upon his strained lungs. Now and then his head stirred fretfully against Cullen's breastbone, or one small hand clenched tighter around its fistful of shirt. His eyelids fluttered low, not quite furled in sleep. The livid fever-flush upon his cheekbones stood stark against ashen skin.

Mary was lying across the foot of the narrow bed, knees drawn up. Her head was pillowed on a bunched corner of the counterpane, and the lines of worry were smoothed from her face by slumber. It had been twenty minutes since the last spate of coughing, and she had at last succumbed to exhaustion. Her frock was rumpled and speckled with water-spots. There was a dark stain on one sleeve where some soothing syrup had spilled. Her hair was coming loose of its pins in wispy auburn tendrils that curled upon her cheek and brow. All through the awful night her courage had not wavered, and Cullen admired her for that.

Doc Whitehead was dozing too, sitting in the armchair with one foot up on the edge of the tin bathtub. He had kept his promise to sit the dreadful vigil with them, encouraging Gabe through every fit and helping when he came out of them. It was he who had suggested watching the time between coughing jags, as well as keeping track of their length. What it signified, exactly, Cullen did not know; but he found that keeping an eye on his watch provided a welcome distraction from dreading the next attack. It sat amid the clutter of spoons, rags and cups on the table by the bed, its face catching an orange ray of sunlight where it lance between the gaping curtains.

Bethel was downstairs, fixing breakfast. She had promised to carry Cullen's apologies to Nate, Elijah and Meg. There was no question of him joining them at their work today. If the day was a clear one, as it looked likely to be, they could start mowing the fall hay once the dew dried. If there were signs of rain after all, they could find other things to occupy them between their watches in the tobacco barn. They were perfectly capable of ordering their own day without a master looking over their shoulders: they knew their business much better than Cullen did. It was just a blessing that the yams were in and there was no other urgent task requiring another man. The plowing would just have to wait, and it could. A delay of a day or two, or even a week, in putting in the wheat would make no difference now.

Gabe shifted, moaning softly, and his fingers abandoned their hold on Cullen's shirt to pluck at the collar of the little nightshirt. Cullen reached with the hand not occupied in keeping Gabe upright, and slid his index finger between the cloth and the child's throat. The garment was damp with sweat, hot and sticky against parched skin. No one had troubled to fasten the buttons at the throat, and Cullen was able to fold back the edges to allow better ventilation. He reached awkwardly for the rag draped over the rim of a bowl of water, and used it to blot at the triangle of exposed chest. He wiped Gabe's jaw and chin with the cool water, and drew one corner of the cloth behind his uppermost ear.

Gabe cooed softly and opened his eyes, lashes sticking briefly. He tilted his head back, blinking up at Cullen. "Pappy? It mornin'?" he croaked faintly.

"Yeah, son, it's morning," murmured Cullen. "How you feeling?"

"Hot," Gabe mumbled. He was uncomplaining: only truthful. "I's hot an' I's hurtin'. How 'bout you?"

"Well, I got an itch in my beard," Cullen said. He refused to enumerate his other miseries: the scratchy sting in his throat, the throbbing in his temples, the knots in his neck and back and shoulders, and the numbness all down his right arm where the weight of Gabe's body was pressing on a nerve. His discomforts did not matter; his son was still alive, and now lucid into the bargain. "Other than that, I'm just about fine."

Gabe turned his head a little, wary of exerting too much effort, and squinted into the shadows on the far side of the room. "De doct'r still here?" he said. "I's still real sick?"

"Doc's just here looking out for you," Cullen said reassuringly, fidgeting with the cloth. Unsure what else to do with it, he moved down to wipe Gabe's hand and wrist. "You got nothing to worry about."

Gabe made an uncertain little humming sound and rubbed his cheek against Cullen's shirtfront. "Will you wash my eyes, Pappy? Dey's dirty."

"Dirty? Your eyes?" Cullen murmured, somewhat bewildered. He folded the cloth to find a fresh place to stretch over his fingertip. Very gently he brushed first one eyelid and then the other, feeling the gritty resistance as shards of sleep broke away from the child's lashes. Understanding now, he made a second pass. Gabe sighed.

"T'ank you," he murmured. He burrowed closer to Cullen, as though to settle back to sleep, and then sat up a little and reached for his father's mouth.

"What's this?" Cullen mumbled around the small fingers that brushed his lips and then dug into his whiskers, chaffing against his jaw.

Gabe paused, tilting his head worriedly. "Don' you got a itch in your beard?" he asked "I's scratchin' it."

Had he not been so exhausted or his throat so raw, Cullen would certainly have chuckled at this. As it was a warm burst of affection eased his anxious heartache. "So you are, son. That feels nice."

Gabe worked diligently for about a minute before an enormous yawn spread his jaw and sent him curling in against Cullen's chest once more. "You t'ink I can sleep, Pappy, or is de cough goin' come git me?"

"I think you ought to try and sleep, even if the cough might come back," said Cullen honestly. "You ain't had much sleep at all tonight. Look there: Mama's sleeping. Even the doctor's dozed off. Go on and get a little rest: I'm here."

"Yes," Gabe sighed, lips clicking softly as he parted and closed them drowsily. "You's right here."

He nestled close, and Cullen adjusted his cramping arm with care. He let his head tilt back into the pillow behind his neck, feeling the sinews in his throat and shoulders stretch. He wanted to arch his back and spread his limbs to their limit like a cat, drawing out all of the tension that came from sitting so long in this awkward pose, but that was out of the question. He closed his eyes, trying to enjoy what relief he could. His beard tickled where he could still feel his son's fingertips, and he savored the sensation. Likewise he clung to the weight upon his tired ribs, and the slow rise and fall of Gabe's chest against his own. His son was alive, still alive despite the night's travails, and he was grateful.

The worst of the coughing fits had come at half past four in the morning. Gabe had loosed such a quantity of mucus that he could not keep pace with spitting it up. It had clogged his mouth and rattled when he whooped, and after one sharp intake the coughs had failed to force their way out through it. Doctor Whitehead, ever calm in a moment of crisis, had plucked the child out of Mary's lap, turned him over his knee, and thumped him hard between the shoulder blades. The plug of phlegm had come flying out to land on the floor beside the doctor's shoe, and Gabe had been able to breathe again – at least as much as the cough would allow. The memory of that awful moment chilled Cullen now, and a shiver ran up his spine.

"Pappy?" Gabe mumbled thickly, stirring fretfully but not opening his eyes. Cullen raised his free hand to pat his son's back. It came down in the same spot where Doc's fist had landed as he drove out the deadly blockage, and Cullen let it settle there. The weight of his palm seemed to soothe the child, for Gabe's limbs grew slack and his head drooped a little further. He would soon be asleep, for however long this latest respite lasted. Cullen prayed that it would be a generous one. They all needed a rest.

He tried to settle himself, but it was no use. He was so far beyond ordinary exhaustion that sleep seemed unthinkable. He did not even have enough control left over his thoughts to quiet them, much less to stir them on towards slumber. His mind kept whirring anxiously over the hellish night behind, and the long day ahead. He could feel his son's fever burning through the fine cotton of a good shirt now quite likely ruined with sweat and medicine stains. He had dressed in decent clothing – though not in his best – out of some misguided desire to make yesterday seem like an ordinary Sunday. The thought was almost laughable. It had been months since they had had an ordinary Sunday. He could not even remember the last time he and Mary had ridden into Meridian to attend a church service. Other matters were so often more pressing.

The thought that many of the members of the Methodist congregation likely assumed the Bohannons were backsliding brought him a flicker of amusement. Weren't they just a terrible pair of sinners, staying home with a sick child, breaking the Sabbath to hew wood to keep him warm or picking tobacco to keep him fed? Yes sir, the Lord would have a reckoning for them on Judgment Day.

Privately Cullen was certain God must understand. They were doing the very best they could, but times were hard and Providence had not been kind. Cullen was more concerned about having to answer for his failings in this life than in the next. Surely a loving God would forgive him his sins, but would his creditors forgive his bungling when he failed to meet their notes? His eyes slid sidelong to Doc's shadowy shape, growing sharper every minute as the sun climbed. Well, one of them would, anyhow.

Cullen sighed, and the hot cloud of air irritated his throat. He was fearsomely thirsty, but he could not reach the pitcher on the nightstand without moving. If he moved he would disturb Gabe, who finally seemed to have settled to sleep. He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, trying to raise enough spittle to clear the tickle from his tonsils. He could feel it wriggling up either side of his throat, ineluctable and impossible to ignore. He set his jaw as though he could bite down upon it and tried again to swallow. It was no use. His mouth was dry, his lips shriveled with thirst. He tried to think of something else: anything else, even the horrors he had been grappling with all night. There was nothing.

High in his chest something spasmed against his will to be still, like a mule kicking a brick wall. His mouth filled with a puff of air that bucked against his cheeks when his pursed lips did not immediately give way. It rebounded high in his throat, irritating the canal from his sinuses through which phlegm had been trickling for days. For a brief instant Cullen thought that he had defeated his body's impulse through belligerent determination, but his lungs had their own opinion on the matter. They contracted harshly, almost painfully, and he coughed.

The first one was coarse-sounding but mild. The second shook his ribs and sent his head snapping upright. By the third he had no control at all. He clutched at his breastbone as though he could dig his fingers right between his ribs and arrest the reflex, his whole body rigid as he struggled not to jostle the child, but it was useless. The coughs came in quick succession, bucking his shoulder blades against the bedstead and making the mattress shake.

Over the din of his own hacking, Cullen heard Gabe's anxious voice. "Pappy? Pappy? It gots you, too! Mama! _Mama!"_

Cullen's eyes were watering, blurring the gray morning to a smear, but he knew that Mary was awake now, pushing herself up by her arms as she struggled to disentangle her skirts from her knees. She mumbled his name sleepily, and then her leg stuck his as she slid towards him. He had lost his hold on Gabe now, and the child was trying to balance in his lap as he shook with the force of his coughing. He tried to suck in a breath, but the air only wheezed high in his throat and was driven off by another paroxysm.

Then as if in a nightmare Gabe was coughing too. The blankets snagged, bunching awkwardly as Mary tried to draw the child off of Cullen's lap and onto her own. Then Cullen felt a firm hand on his arm and through the cacophony from his own lungs heard a low voice in his ear.

"Relax, son. Don't fight it. You'll only make it worse: don't be a fool!"

Doc, he thought dimly. His vision was filled with black spots and his head was beginning to swim, but the awful choking sensation kept tightening its grip. Desperately Cullen forced the muscles of his jaw to relax, letting the cough carry him. And carry him it did, rattling out more fiercely than before as he bowed low over his lap and the curled arm now alive with pinpricks of agony as the constricted nerve awoke. His other hand clenched a fistful of sheet and he thought in a moment of hysterical clarity that this was why Gabe clutched at their clothes when he coughed: he was trying to keep himself from being swept away by the tide.

Then he gasped, a burning gasp that brought more torment than relief. His lungs loosed one more shallow cough, and then he was gulping in small, strangled mouthfuls of air. For an interminable span of time he subsisted there, bent and struggling, and he could not understand why, if the fit was past him, he could still hear coughing and the horrible, high whoops that brought no relief. As his vision cleared and his thoughts lost their disordered panic, he realized that it was because Gabe was still in the throes of his own ordeal.

Cullen raised his eyes first through the curtain of straggling hair. Doc's right hand was still on his arm, but his left was reaching to support Gabe's ribs as the little boy coughed. Mary had the child propped against one shoulder, murmuring the senseless repetitive words of comfort that now had value only in their intent. Still wheezing, Cullen forced himself to straighten, shrugging off the grip with a roll of his shoulder. Doc glanced at him anxiously and was apparently satisfied, for he turned his attention wholeheartedly on the child. Gabe was spitting up a great quantity of phlegm, and when the cough passed at last he retched dryly before sinking into Mary's arms in absolute enervation.

Bethel was at hand, though Cullen could not have said when she had entered the room. She took the soiled handkerchief from Mary and moved to fill the child's tin cup with water. Cullen's tongue stung his sore lips as he heard the blessed sound of the fluid pouring, and he had to cast his eyes away when Mary took the mug and held it to Gabe's lips. But then dark fingers were taking hold of his own hand, curling it around the cool wall of another cup. He hooked his thumb in the handle and raised the vessel to his mouth. His arm was shaking, still half-asleep, but Bethel kept her guiding hand firm over his. He gulped greedily, leaning unwittingly against the support of her hip as she brushed the hair from his eyes and stroked his head just as Mary was doing for Gabe.

"Thank you," he wheezed when he had drained the cup. His throat was no longer so taut, and the tickle had died away to an almost ethereal flutter deep behind his tonsils. He panted heavily while Bethel filled the cup again, and drank deeply. He tried to straighten his back and overbalanced, slumping against the headboard with force enough to make the whole bed shudder. "Don't know what come over me," he huffed.

"I does," said Bethel darkly, picking up the fallen pillow and plumping it with unnecessary vigor. She set about fussing with the bedclothes, shaking them out and tugging them straight – or as straight as she could, with Cullen's legs beneath them and Mary and Gabe sitting on top. "You's got the kink cough youself. Don' think I ain't see'd you sickenin', snortin' an' snufflin' when you thinks I ain't lookin', an' tryin' to make out like you's feelin' fine."

Cullen met her eyes, taking his scolding meekly. There was nothing much he could say anyhow. It would have made no difference if he had announced it to everyone when he first started to feel unwell; he would have kept on with his work regardless, sat up with Gabe all the same, and tried not to let any fresh frustration brew. He was so tired of constant discouragement, of going from one worry to the next without any hope of resolving even one of them. It had been better to pretend, to himself as much as to Bethel and Mary, that this storm had not been looming for days.

"What do you think, Doc?" he asked. "Is the same thing?"

"He didn't whoop," Mary said timidly, clinging to false hope. She was stroking Gabe's hair with such fervor that the child's head rocked with the motion of her hand. "I didn't hear him whoop; I didn't."

"Grown folks sometimes don't, particularly at first," Doctor Whitehead sighed. He stepped nearer to Cullen, forcing Bethel to draw back, and held the back of one hand to his brow while the other found a pulse at his wrist. "It's too much of a coincidence, you falling ill too. Only to be expected, worn down with hard work and too little sleep. It's a mercy you've had it, Miss Mary; you and Bethel both."

Gabe's feet curled as if he wanted to stand up, but he lacked the strength to do it. He twisted as best he could in his mother's arms, turning mournful eyes on his father. "Pappy, you's sick," he said solemnly. His lower lip quivered. "We's both sick. Is ev'ybody goin' git sick?"

"No, son, not your mama. Not Bethel, either," Doc Whitehead soothed, smiling for the child. "Just you and your pappy. Just between you and me, I'll bet you a quarter you'll be a better patient than him."

Gabe did not seem interested in the wager. His eyes had strayed briefly to the older man when he spoke of Mary and Bethel, but travelled quickly back to Cullen. He looked at once pensive and anxious. "But Pappy," he said in a tiny, worried voice. "Who goin' hold you while _you's _sleepin'?"

Mary muffled a sigh that was almost a cry of distress, and Bethel looked away. Their emotions were raw and too near the surface, laid bare by want of sleep and the constant nervous strain of the long, awful night. Cullen's own feelings were bubbling dangerously near the boil, but it was vague anger and livid frustration that threatened to overtake him, and Gabe's sweet and innocent concern quieted those grappling demons. He turned up the corners of his mouth in a small smile that made every muscle of his face ache.

"Why, you will, son, of course. Who else?" he asked, leaning forward and reaching for his child.

_*discidium_*

Bethel brought up breakfast, but no one ate much. Mister Gabe had no appetite because of the fever, and the rest of them were just too plumb tired to chew. The doctor looked haggard and older than his years. Missus Mary was as pale as the pretty tatted collar on her dress. And Mister Cullen was gray and dull-eyed with exhaustion.

Bethel herself was so worn out that she felt like her bones were held together with red-hot wire. Her back ached with the effort of keeping straight, and she wanted nothing more than to sink down on her mattress on the nursery floor and snatch a few minutes' sleep. It was out of the question, of course, while the doctor remained in the house. The intimate informality of the family was sacrosanct, not to be questioned or criticized by others, but making a show of it in front of a guest was another matter entirely. While Doctor Whitehead was present, Bethel was not the woman who had raised Mister Cullen up like her own dear child. She was not Missus Mary's ally and helpmeet. She was not the one who loved Mister Gabe with the same love his sweet grandmother would have showered upon him if only she had lived. She was just a slave – headwoman and mammy, yes, but still nothing more than a slave. She had to stand respectfully to the side until she was called for or a moment of crisis made it permissible for protocol to lapse. She could not speak soothingly to Mister Cullen or Missus Mary, but only to the child and only when the minutiae of waiting upon him brought her near enough to do it. And so, grateful though she was for the physician's kindness and the care he was giving to Mister Gabe and as much as she knew they needed him, she could not help but long for the time when he might be gone.

Lottie was in the kitchen when Bethel came down with the tray of picked-over preserves and hominy porridge. She jumped up as the old woman came into the room and hurried to relieve her.

"Ma says I oughts to help 'round here," she said pertly, smiling and puffing out her chest a little. "Ma says 'til it my turn in the dryin' shed, my place be in the house doin' what I can to help. I can fetch water an' fill up the woodbox. I can sweep the floor if you wants me too, an' I can dust them shelves in the pantry. I already done washed the porridge-pot: scrubbed it all out. If'n you'll let me, Bethel," she added with a shy little twist of her shoulders; "I could wash these here, too. I'll be _so_ careful: you can rely on me! I wouldn' break none of Mist' Cullen's mama's china. I _promise _I wouldn'."

Even forty-eight hours ago, the thought of allowing a slip of a girl like Lottie handle Miss Caroline's china would have put a chill in Bethel's heart. Looking at the child's eager face now, nothing seemed more fitting. Bethel loosed her hold on the tray and let Lottie carry it to the counter by the dishpan. "Go on then, chile," she said. "That be a help, an' no mistake."

"I'll be careful; _so_ careful," Lottie reiterated earnestly. She picked up one of the teacups and began to rinse it, then glanced over her shoulder in a very adult way. "You' breakfas' on the warmin' shelf, Bethel. Sit down an' eat it all up. Ain't goin' do Mist' Gabe no good if you's faintin' 'way for hunger."

Bethel shot her a sharp look, but the imitation of her own sternly coddling tone did not seem to be comically meant. She took the bowl and poured cream over the stewed grains, then eased her aching body down into her chair. Too late she realized that she had not thought to grab a spoon, but before she could muster her courage to bestir herself again Lottie was at her side with the utensil in hand. It was one of the good silver spoons, but the child looked so proud to have anticipated the need that Bethel did not have the heart to correct her. She smiled wearily and murmured her thanks.

Lottie bobbed a curtsey and went back to washing the dishes. She worked with care, scraping the leftovers into the slop bucket and scrubbing each bowl and saucer meticulously. She rinsed them in the basin of fresh water with a practiced flick of the wrist and then wiped them with a soft cloth before setting each one in its place in the dish dresser. Last of all she cleaned the tray itself and set it on its shelf. Then she picked up the heavy dishpan with both hands and carried it to the door, balancing it briefly on her hip to work the handle. Stepping out into the cool bright morning she sent an arc of water flying into the air away from the stoop. Jeb, roused from his customary place under the bench, yelped questioningly and rubbed his snout against her bare leg. Lottie looked down at him and laughed.

"You's still waitin' for Mist' Cullen, ain't you, hound?" she asked. "Well, he ain't comin' down today. His boy be sick, so jus' you run 'long an' mind you' business."

The old dog snorted disdainfully and stumped back to his sleeping-place out of sight from Bethel, and Lottie came back in. She dried the dishpan and hung it on its hook, then ran the cloth over the wet place on the countertop. Bethel had been eating methodically all the while, scarcely tasting her breakfast, and the spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.

"Oh, I forgot that one!" Lottie cried, dismayed. She tugged at one pigtail, shaking her head. "Bethel, you's goin' think me a fool!"

"Never mind: I forgot it myself," said Bethel, hefting herself onto her feet despite the daggers that shot up through her heels as they were forced to bear her weight. "I'll jus' rinse it, an' it can sit 'til dinnertime."

"I'll rinse it," Lottie insisted, hurrying to snatch the dish away. "I'll heat up some more water an' I'll wash it proper. Bethel…" She hesitated, and the eager-to-please expression faded to one of deepest worry. "Bethel, Mist' Gabe. Is he… how he… well…"

"He still 'live an' breathin'," Bethel told her. "He make it through a long, hard night. He a brave li'l man."

Lottie nodded, lips pressed together and dark eyes shining. "Does you think… could I maybe go up an' see him later on? When the doct'r gone, I mean."

"I don' know when the doctor intendin' to go, chile, but when he go I's sure you can," sighed Bethel. "You was so good with him yest'day when he coughin', an' you played so nice an' cheer't him right up. I know Missus Mary be happy to let you in to see him."

Lottie giggled. "Shoot, Bethel," she said; "that weren't yest'day: that were Sat'day. This here be Monday mornin'!"

Bethel's exhaustion was dragging on her, but she managed a slow nod. "That so," she said. "Don' hardly seem like it."

"You go on back upstairs," Lottie said in a confidential tone, patting Bethel's arm reassuringly. "I's goin' wash this here, an' then I's goin' see 'bout the woodbox. Does you need more wood up in the nurs'ry?"

"You know, I think we does," said Bethel. "You bring it up quiet-like, an' you can get youself a li'l peek at that chile. Maybe say a kin' word or two if he ain't sleepin'. How that be?"

"Be jus' fine," Lottie said, nodding her head gravely. "I'll be up there in a few minutes."

Bethel nodded again and left the kitchen. She moved like a haunt through the empty dining room and stopped at the foot of the stairs, gripping the newel post and wondering grimly whether she had the strength in her limbs to reach the top. Her body felt as heavy as if it were cast in lead, and every step dragged on her shoulders. But in the end she was standing in the upstairs corridor, breathing shallowly and trying to compose herself.

Before she could quite manage it, the nursery door squeaked and Missus Mary slipped out, drawing it carefully closed behind her as though she feared to make a noise. She slumped against the jamb, one hand splayed across her stomach and the other raised to her temple. Then she startled, realizing she was not alone.

Almost at once she relaxed into a tired slouch. "Oh, Bethel," she sighed, her voice the barest whisper. "Such a long night."

"Yas'm," Bethel murmured, drawing closer and reaching to cup the younger woman's elbow. "The longes' night a mother could have."

"His fever is still so high," Missus Mary mumbled distractedly. "He's burning with it. I thought…" She looked down and tried in vain to smooth the crushed cotton of her broad skirts. "I thought if I changed my frock, washed my face… I thought I might feel able to face the day."

"That a good idea, honey," affirmed Bethel. She guided her mistress towards the bedroom. "I's goin' brush your hair, too. That allus make a body feel like she been made new."

"I must look a fright," said Missus Mary. "Perhaps if I looked tidier, too, Cullen wouldn't fret so. He suggested… he said I ought to lie down and try to sleep!"

"We all of us need sleep," said Bethel. "Ain't such bad advice."

"But if it should happen again!" They were in the bedroom now, and Bethel was closing the door; it was a good thing, because Missus Mary's voice rose shrilly. "Bethel, he was choking: he couldn't breathe at all! If Doctor Whitehead hadn't been here…"

Bethel did not need to ask which incident the lady was thinking of: it would be emblazoned on her memory until the day she died. Mister Gabe, his face already blue-tinted from the coughing, strangled into silence by the secretions of his own tortured lungs. He had not been able to get any air, not even the cruel little whoops that did nothing to soothe him. He hadn't even been able to cough. She suppressed a shudder and reached to ease the gown off of Missus Mary's slender shoulders.

"Now, chile, the doctor _was _here, an' he knowed what needed doin', an' he done it," said Bethel. "Ain't no sense thinkin' 'bout that. Maybe you _did_ out to sleep a li'l bit. Maybe if you done that, we could persuade Mist' Cullen to take his turn. He need sleep bad, honey. He already sick, an' it goin' turn nasty if he don' get no rest."

"I know," Missus Mary sighed. "Why wouldn't he tell me? We're meant to support one another, to help one another. Why wouldn't he tell me he was ill?"

"I 'spects he didn' want to think 'bout it hisself," said Bethel blackly. "He got him a way of on'y thinkin' 'bout one thing at a time, Missus: you know that."

The auburn head nodded as Missus Mary stepped out of her petticoat and bent to pick it up. She had never quite taken to the finer points of being dressed, and as she so often had to shift for herself Bethel had not had the opportunity to break her to it. She went to the clothes press to take out fresh underthings, and then lifted her arms so Bethel could loosen and unhook her corset. As she worked she went on.

"Well, all this time he been thinkin' 'bout how his boy be sick. Been wonderin' 'bout it, worryin' over it, frettin' an' stewin' an' imaginin' the worst. He ain't hardly stopped to think 'bout nuthin' else: not the tobacco curin', nor the 'lection. Even them yams didn' hardly distract him for more'n a day, an' that were pretty near a catastrophe! All he been thinkin' 'bout, all he been seein' is that sick chile."

"You're right," Missus Mary sighed as she slipped on a clean chemise. The pantalets were next, and then she picked up her corset again. "It's all he's thinking about _now_. But Doctor Whitehead did say it isn't ordinarily dangerous in adults. He _did _say it; I remember. So long as they don't catch pneumonia on top of it… but Bethel, it's bound to be unpleasant! Hasn't he had enough unpleasantness this awful year?"

Bethel knotted off the corset-strings and twirled Missus Mary with a light pressure on her right arm. She reached to plant one coarse hand on each smooth cheek. "Honey, you's had 'nough unpleasantness too," she pledged soulfully. "But the good Lord sen' his trials, an' we gots to bear 'em jus' the bes' we can. You been brave, Missus Mary. You gots to keep on doin' it, whatever goin' happen."

Blue eyes brimmed with tears, but not one slipped over the dam of determination. Missus Mary nodded, then swooped to retrieve her petticoat. "Let's hurry and do something about this hair, Bethel," she said briskly. "We might be needed at any moment."

_*discidium*_

The summons from West Willows came shortly after noon by way of the Ainsleys' carriage boy. At first Doctor Whitehead was reluctant to leave, but Pip was insistent and Cullen was firm. Gabe's condition was unchanged. The fever still raged and the cough still seized him frequently and for far too long at a go, but there had been no incident comparable to the one before dawn. Bethel's capable nursing was what he needed, and with it his parents' reassurances. There was little that the physician could do they could not, and tiny Lucy Ainsley had had her first coughing fit. Knowing the agony of terror her poor mother must be suffering, Mary was grateful to her husband for being brave enough to do what she could not: tell Doctor Whitehead to go and care for another child while their own was languishing in febrile misery.

Doc had departed only after giving Gabe a thorough examination, and even then it had been with the promise to return the moment he was finished looking in on the baby and her sick siblings. Leon Ainsley, only a couple of months younger than Gabe, was the only one of the five children who had not yet shown signs of whopping cough. How he had escaped thus far Mary could not guess, but she was thankful for small mercies. She was frazzled and exhausted from caring for one suffering child. She could not guess how Verbena was coping with four, even with a mammy and two nursemaids to help her.

Gabe was shivering again, clinging to his pappy's neck while Cullen crowded close to the small stove and kept him snugly wrapped in a quilt. Bethel had changed the sheets on the bed, and Lottie had come to carry away the sweat-drenched ones and the heaps of soiled linen. Mary never would have guessed the family possessed such an enormous supply of towels, napkins and handkerchiefs, but Bethel's resources in that respect seemed limitless. Tomorrow's washing would be a mammoth undertaking, if anyone felt well enough to attempt it.

At Bethel's suggestion Mary had taken the chance to lie down for half an hour in the cool and quiet of the master bedroom. With the window repaired at the cost of its partner on the other end of the house, the room was comfortable and free of drafts once more. Mary had fallen asleep almost as soon as her cheek hit her pillow, enveloped in the half-forgotten luxury of lying in her own bed. Although inevitably Gabe's violent coughing had roused her, the nap had done a great deal to clear her mind and ease the ache in her head. Her body was still sore, as though battered in a butter churn, but she felt better able to cope.

The look on Cullen's face when she had come into the nursery in a fresh, pressed work dress, her hair neatly fixed and her face and hands clean, had justified the effort she and Bethel had put in to the morning toilette. He had looked her over in mute relief, as if it comforted him to see her tidy and collected. He looked such a poor, disheveled apparition himself that Mary understood all too well the consolation he took from her appearance. His hair was wild and tangled, here damp with perspiration and there dry and coarse for want of a good brushing. White crust clung to the corners of his eyes, and his lips were shriveled and taut with the heat of the room. His good day clothes were creased and wrinkled, his shirttail untucked on the left side and bunched uncomfortably on the right. There was a hole in one sock that had migrated around to his great toe, which now stood out starkly white against the dark knitted cotton. Even the hair on his forearms seemed to stand out every-which-way, stiffened with the salt of Gabe's sweat and tears. Juggling his son gently from one arm to the other so that he could adjust the quilt more thoroughly, he looked like the survivor of some terrible shipwreck or fire.

"Let me hold him a while," Mary said, setting down the cup with which she had just dosed the child. He was so far gone with fever and enervation that he no longer even exhibited interest in his beloved elderflower cordial, but when he did sleep a little it never lasted long. He had drowsed through Lottie's visits, and had awakened with a feeble whimper when Doctor Whitehead had to examine him, but for the most part he drifted on the border of sleep and delirium. Now he was awake, but concentrating solely on huddling against his father as he shook and shivered and tried not to cry.

"Naw, I got him," Cullen croaked. His throat sounded raw and Mary's heart ached. Cullen himself had had three bouts of coughing since the first one, none of them quite so violent. He was running a mild fever, and seemed to be constantly clearing phlegm from his airway. She had tried in vain to persuade him to go to their room to sleep a little. The nearest he had come was when Doctor Whitehead had declared he was going to hold Gabe a while, and had settled with him in the armchair so that Cullen could stretch out for a while on Bethel's pallet on the floor. He had closed his eyes at once as though he lacked the strength to resist the urge, but whether he had slept at all in the scant quarter of an hour before the child's next coughing fit Mary did not know.

Bethel was lying there now, curled on her side with the quilt tugged over shoulder and hip. She was certainly asleep, having lain down at Mary's insistence the moment the doctor was gone. She knew that Bethel had been reluctant to show any casual familiarity or to presume beyond the standards of Southern propriety in front of an outsider, and Mary feared it had taken a terrible toll on her endurance. Bethel was no longer a young woman, strong and valiant though she was, and it was a fearsome test of stamina to stand awake all night caring for a sick child.

"Please let me hold him," she tried again, reaching for her son with arms that ached abruptly in their emptiness. Cullen studied her eyes, reading the longing within, and then nodded tersely.

"All right," he murmured. He tucked his chin to look down at the boy's face. "Gabe? Mama's gonna hold you a while. What 'bout that?"

Gabe made a noncommittal noise through chattering teeth. Mary stepped near and Cullen turned so they stood shoulder to shoulder. Bending his knees he levelled Gabe's head with Mary's collarbone, and lowered his near arm enough for her to slip her hand between his body and the child's.

"You got to let go," Cullen said gently. "Let go of my neck, son; there's a good boy."

Gabe sniffled unhappily, but he was too worn out to do anything but obey. He unlatched his fingers from the base of Cullen's spine and tried to tuck his arm into the warmth of the blanket. As soon as Mary started to draw him towards her, however, he reached for her instead. His arms twined about her neck and his body stretched to cuddle her. Cullen passed off his legs, catching the quilt as it began to sag and tucking it around Gabe's back again. The child's head flopped against her with a soft _thunk_, and he let out a weak whimper. He was trembling deep into his bones, and Mary hugged him as close as she dared. Disentangled at last, Cullen put a hand on each of her shoulders and steered her in nearer the stove. She could feel its heat even through the layers of skirt and petticoats, but still Gabe shook with the chill. She pressed the backs of her fingers to his cheek and felt the fire of the fever.

Cullen was rolling his left shoulder, digging into the joint with his thumb. He was all but dead-eyed, mustering only a flickering spark of resolve when their eyes met. "It's got to break sometime," he sighed. "Doc said this here's likely to be the worst of it."

_Likely_. The cautious quantification made Mary's throat close. She understood the doctor's reluctance to give firm promises or make definite predictions, for no one could know the course a disease might take from one child to another. Still, the uncertainty only fueled her bleakest fears. She could not bear the thought of losing Gabe. It had been a nameless terror in her heart for months, since long before he had ever fallen ill. Since that terrible day when she had slipped a hand up under her skirts and brought it back stained in blood.

The door crept open, creaking all the way. The sound brought a bubble of hysterical laughter to Mary's lips, though she swallowed it before it could burst forth. Cullen never oiled those hinges, though he was careful to keep all the others on the property well-tended. There were times when a married couple might want a little warning if their child was abroad in the night. Now it seemed unthinkable that they had ever indulged in such pleasures while Gabe slept peacefully without three weary guardians to tend him.

Lottie slipped into the room, dragging a pail of water behind her. "I thought you might want sumthin' cool, Missus," she whispered shyly. "Fo' washin' or fo' drinkin'."

"Thank you, Lottie," Cullen said, nodding towards the washtub. They had given Gabe a cold bath that morning, but it had done nothing at all to ease his fever. The sickness was consuming him from within, and water would not quench it anymore.

Lottie set down the pail and hesitated, wiping her hand on her apron. "Is he… is he sleepin' again, Massa?" she asked.

"No, he's not," said Mary, tugging down the edge of the blanket and tilting at the hip so that Lottie could see Gabe's face. She drew nearer on nimble but wary feet, as though she might frighten him. Timidly she reached to touch her bent knuckle to his cheek.

"Hey now, Mist' Gabe," she said. "Don' you look handsome! You's a brave li'l boy, you is."

Gabe blinked at her ponderously, and licked his quivering lips. "'Ottie," he sighed. For a long moment he was silent, and then went on. "'Ottie, I's sorry. I's too sick to play wid you today."

Mary bit down on the inside of her lip to keep her composure, and Cullen flinched visibly, but the girl only smiled kindly.

"I know, Mist' Gabe honey," she said. "It awright. Jus' you res' up an' get better. Then you 'n me can play all we want."

"Soljurs," Gabe mumbled dreamily. "Bear huntin'. Hide-'n-go-seek."

"Just you wait a minute," Cullen cut in, almost jovial. "Hide-and-go-seek's _our_ game, son! You goin' cut me out?"

"No," Gabe said with dim magnanimity. "You may play too."

Then he turned and buried his face against the front of Mary's frock. Lottie's hand hovered indecisively for a moment, and then moved to caress his curls briefly before retreating behind her back. She looked up at Mary with wide eyes. She was too brave to voice the question, or too wise, but it was there all the same. Mary struggled to smile, but found she could not.

"You can stay for a while, Lottie. If you wish to," she said.

The girl shook her head. "I's fixing some food to take out to Ma and Nate, Missus, then I gots to go spell off Elijah in the tobacco barn. I jus'… I wanted to see Mist' Gabe 'fore I went."

Mary nodded, understanding all too well. Lottie left the room, and Mary looked down at Gabe. He had stopped shivering and was now moving his head fretfully from side to side, scrubbing his brow against her front. She peeled down the blanket as far as her arm, then slid the other under it to support Gabe's bottom while Cullen dragged the quilt away. Sticky with perspiration, the nightshirt clung to Gabe's back and the contours of his legs. Mary tugged the hem to loosen it and ran her hand up and down his spine, feeling the little knobs of the bones beneath her fingers. One of them bounced against her thumb, and that was the first warning that the cough was rising again.

"Put him down, Mary," Cullen said hastily, sidestepping out of her way.

The first cough shook Gabe so violently that Mary's arm slipped. She hugged him closer as she hurried to the side of the bed, and Cullen swooped near in case her hold should fail. Gabe's foot struck the side of the tick, and he bent his knee as he struggled to stand. Mary lowered him gently but swiftly, guiding him to sit instead. He drove one heel deep into the mattress, rocking with the force of another cough. On her pallet Bethel stirred and sat up, flinging off the blanket. Mary had no attention to spare her, for Gabe was already struggling with a mouthful of phlegm. Cullen had a handkerchief in his hand in an instant, and he held it out, murmuring encouragements to the child. At his prompting Gabe spat, and Mary slid onto the bed to curl a supportive arm around her son's back. With the other hand she shored up the left side of his ribcage, while Cullen curled his free hand over the right. The little boy's wide, tormented eyes rolled from one parent to another.

Despite the instinctual terror, there was a smoothness to their motions that was born of much practice. Bethel came up on the child's other side, so he was secure between her and his mother. Everyone knew their lines, the encouraging phrases to utter. When the whoops came Cullen was ready with the handkerchief, and Mary mumbled loving nonsense into her son's ear. Gabe's pale face grew ruddy with exertion, even the fever spots vanishing in the rising flush of color. Then his lips began to darken, purpling in the horrifying way that had struck such terror into their hearts before. Now it was almost routine. Gabe was shaking violently even in the brief instants when the cough was not sending concussive shudders through his body. One hand clutched his father's wrist, opening and closing with convulsive force. The other burrowed into the bedclothes at his hip.

The coughs culminated in a high, horrible wheezing sound that cut off abruptly into silence. There was a crystalline moment of time when Mary was certain the fit was over. But Gabe did not gasp as he always did when the coughing passed. He did not sag limply against her arm and Bethel's. His poor shadowed eyes did not slip closed as his spent strength abandoned him He remained rigid against her, jerking and quaking, with his mouth in its terse and overstretched ring and his arm still locked straight at his side. His ribs still reared and heaved as though he was struggling to breathe, and the muscles of his abdomen contracted as though to drive out a cough. But only a faint gurgling sound came from his mouth, and no air at all. Then Mary's veins ran with ice and her heart seemed to arrest against the whalebones of her stays. There was no mistaking the signs: Gabe was choking.

Cullen realized it at the same moment she did, recognizing the awful signs that had overtaken him early that morning. The color drained from his face and the hand holding the cloth shook. But he swallowed hard and his eyes narrowed in resolve. "Get up!" he snapped. "Get out of the away!"

Mary could not move, but Bethel did. With a speed scarcely to be believed in one so long bereft of sleep, she bolted from the bed and retreated to the footboard. There she stood clutching the bedstead, transfixed in terror like Mary was. Instantly Cullen was in her place, sitting down squarely with such force that his tailbone struck the side of the box audibly even through the barrier of the mattress. The floor shuddered, but Cullen was firmly braced, his feet shoulder-width apart and planted forcefully on the ground. He seized Gabe under the arms and put him over his knee in a single efficient motion. Then he hesitated. Mary could see the doubt in his eyes as he scanned the length of the child's backbone, unsure of where to strike. Then he closed his eyes, raising his left hand in a tightly-curled fist, and brought it down with a resounding _thud_ between Gabe's shoulder blades.

It was just where Doctor Whitehead had struck him; Mary was sure of that. But the effect the first time had been immediate. The strangling mass had come flying out with the last of the air in Gabe's lungs, and he had drawn in one of the brutally loud and painful-sounding gasps. Now, though the percussion of Cullen's fist sounded just the same, no violent expectoration followed. No gasp. No breath at all. Gabe merely flailed, panicked, across his father's knees.

Cullen struck again, but with less force. He was uncertain now, and fearful of hurting the child. Mary seemed seized by a terror too great to articulate. Her lips moved soundlessly. Her heart hammered in her ears. He was not breathing! Her boy was not breathing! They had sent the doctor away, and now the moment of crisis had come and Gabe could not breathe. He was strangling before her very eyes, asphyxiating while she sat helpless. Vaguely, as from a great distance, she heard Bethel's low voice rumbling through a desperate prayer that rose and fell like a song. Cullen lifted his arm and brought it down once more, this time with the heel of his hand instead of a fist. The noise it made was like the noise of a drum muffled by a boot on the skin: hollow, resonant and dead.

Mary could see the panic in her husband's eyes, could see his chest heaving and his head oscillating wildly, and she knew their child was doomed. This was the moment she had feared so long. This was the outcome of which Doc Whitehead had tried to warn them in his soft, gentle way. Gabe was dying. Every second he went without air he died a little more, and they were helpless. Perhaps even the doctor would have been helpless, but he was not here. Cullen had sent him away to tend to another child, and now _Gabe was dying_.

She knew that she was sobbing, feared that she was screaming, and could do nothing to stop it. Bethel's eyes were cast to heaven, her hand splayed across her bosom. Cullen was trembling with ineffectual indecision, powerless before the force that was choking their child. Lying prone upon his lap, Gabe was limp now, feebly floundering feet the sole sign of lingering life. That too was fleeting. Soon he would faint dead away, and it would be over. There would be nothing left but to wash his little body for burial.

Suddenly a light blazed in Cullen's eyes, turning them hard and brilliant as smoky gems in firelight. The frantic slackness left his features, tightening his face into crags of bleak determination. He did not know what to do, but he refused to sit idly by and watch his son perish. He was going to fight for Gabe, however he could and whatever it cost him. In her maddening panic Mary could not seize upon that same resolve, but she recognized it all the same.

Cullen grabbed hold of Gabe's near hip from above, his far shoulder from below, and he flipped him over. The child bounced like a waxwork upset from its plinth, his arm flailing away from his body and hanging lifeless between Cullen's knees. His right foot still twitched, and his mouth was still stretched wide. Lolling eyes, unseeing in the desperation of the moment, whipped from side to side as if seeking some familiar landmark in a sea of chaos. Firmly Cullen planted his forearm along the child's breastbone, still jerking shallowly as his lungs persisted in their instinctive struggle for air. With his left hand he gripped Gabe's jaw, cupping his chin in the web between finger and thumb. His right hand hovered over the boy's face for a moment, fingers flexing as Cullen focused keen eyes on his son. Then he tucked his thumb and last two fingers and plunged the first two, the longest, deep into Gabe's mouth.

For an unimaginable eternity of anguish Mary saw them frozen there, Cullen's hand driven hard against Gabe's lips, Gabe thrashing in one piteously effete attempt to throw off the invasive contact. Then Cullen let out a hoarse, sawing "_Hah!_", and withdrew his hand. Something long and stringy and white followed it, dragging slender and slick from his fingertips before it broke off and contracted into a swaying gelatinous bulb the size of a hen's egg. It was gripped between the sides of his fingers, dancing and bobbing for a surreal moment before he flung it away. He was about to thrust his hand back into the child's mouth when Gabe's whole body jolted and he took in a deep, almost seismic gasp that thrust out ribs and belly and made his back arc against Cullen's thighs.

All at once Cullen had him sitting up, leaning forward against his left arm while his right braced his back. Gabe spluttered and wheezed, sobbing and bewildered but very much alive. Mary gave a sharp cry and flung herself towards her child, scrambling inelegantly down the bed and embracing her with one arm while the other clutched Cullen's far shoulder. She buried her eyes against her husband's shoulder even as she kissed Gabe's clammy brow.

"Darling, dearest!" she wailed, lost in a euphoria of relief made all the more painful by the awesome scope of the terror she had felt a moment before. She was not even aware of Bethel rushing near to touch the child's back, nor of the breathless heaving of Cullen's own ribs as he tried to compose himself. All the world had contracted to her child and the divine mercy that had spared him. "Gabe, Gabe darling, breathe!" she cried. "Oh, I couldn't lose you, dearest! Not you, too. I couldn't bear to lose you, too. Darling, darling boy! I couldn't bear to lose you!"

She knew she must sound a fool, but she did not care. The only people to hear her were just as incandescent with relief as she was, just as cognizant of how close they had all come to the unthinkable disaster. But even if all the world had been there to witness her loss of control she would not have cared. Her son was alive. He was breathing, where a moment ago he had been incapable. He was alive and he was weeping noisily, a warbling anxious cry that sounded every bit as sweet to her as the lusty indignant one that had ushered him into the world almost four years before. Again and again she kissed him, feeling the heat of the fever in her lips and distantly aware that they were not past the danger yet. But they had escaped _this_ danger, this desperate moment, this brush with death, and somehow that was enough.

"Mama!" Gabe repeated, his hand landing against her nose and trying to push her back. "Mama, you's ticklin' me!"


	62. Confession and Confrontation

_Note: "Hey. You remember this minute, all right? Might only come once." - Cullen Bohannon, "Big Bad Wolf", Episode 301_

**Chapter Sixty-Two: Confession and Confrontation**

After Gabe's petulant protest Mary stopped showering him with kisses, but she kept stroking his hair with such anxious fervor that the child's head kept bobbing against Cullen's arm. Still dazed in the wake of his own panic, Cullen could think of nothing to calm her. He could only feel the reassuring rise and fall of his son's chest beneath his palm and the hammering of his own heart. After the moment of clarity when he had realized what to try his thoughts were nothing but a blur, and he was left now with nothing but the awed realization that it had actually worked. Gabe was breathing again, Mary's tears were those of joy and relief instead of mourning, and Bethel stood now with her hand upon a small arm still warm and vital with life.

Gabe's frightened sobs quieted quickly, though his tears were soaking through Cullen's sleeve. "I couldn' bree'd," he murmured.

"You can now, son," Cullen mumbled hoarsely, blurred eyes staring fixedly at the curve of Bethel's back.

Gabe's left hand was clutching the underside of Cullen's arm while he reached with his right for Mary's face again. This time he was not trying to push her away; he patted her cheek instead.

"Mama, please don' cry," he said tremulously. "_Please_ don' cry."

He tucked his foot up onto Cullen's thigh, and wriggled against him so that he could climb over his arm and into Mary's lap. Gabe curled his fingers around the back of her neck and planted a kiss on her cheek while she hugged him zealously but with obvious caution. Bethel, reluctant to relinquish her own reassuring hold on the child, moved past to Cullen's other side. So when his breath caught in his throat he was able to hoist himself off of the bed and slip away, retreating to the far side of the room as he began to cough.

He knew better than to try to resist, instead allowing his lungs to heave as he clutched the back of the armchair to steady his legs. The oppressive weight against his ribs, the twitching heave of the muscles in his abdomen, and the strangled tightness in his throat were awful, but only a shadow of what Gabe must have suffered only minutes ago. When the last spasm passed he sank down into the chair and buried his face in his hand, struggling to maintain his composure.

Bethel cast three worried glances between the child and the man before abandoning the bed to cross the room. She paused midway, stooping to wipe up the clump of mucus that Cullen had dragged from Gabe's throat. She flung the rag onto the new heap of soiled linen and then poured a cupful of water, which she offered to Cullen. He swallowed unsteadily, still trying to shake off the terror of the near disaster. It seemed those desperate seconds were imprinted indelibly on his mind, cycling over and over again. He forced himself to look up at his child, cuddled safely in Mary's arms with his cheek on her shoulder. The fever flush was high in his cheeks, and a small trickle of blood showed bright at the corner of his mouth where his lip had cracked under the pressure of Cullen's knuckles, but his eyes were closed serenely as he snuggled his mother. He was safe. He was breathing.

Yet still it seemed Cullen could still taste the blinding panic of the realization he was choking, and the horror when it became plain that Doctor Whitehead's method of thumping on the back was not about to work. He could feel the impact upon his legs as he turned Gabe, and his hand fell into his lap. The marks of small teeth stood red across the back of his fingers, and the sickening terror rose again. Mary's frightened sobs rang in his ears, though now she was quietly cooing to her child. Screwing his eyes closed and feeling Bethel's strong hand between his shoulder blades he forced himself to focus instead on the moment of grim triumph. Somehow it made it easier to believe the crisis was past, recalling the sweetness of Gabe's first unsteady sob and Mary's frenzied cries of relief. Then Cullen's eyes narrowed to piercing slits and he looked up.

"Why'd you say that?" he breathed, his voice coarse and strained. His shoulders stiffened so abruptly that Bethel withdrew her hand. Mary's eyes flitted to him, gentle but uncomprehending.

"Say what, Cullen?" she murmured. Her chin brushed Gabe's curls and her eyes fluttered briefly closed, cherishing the feel of her child against her.

"That you couldn't lose him, too," said Cullen. "Who else you lost?"

Mary's eyes grew wide and her lips quivered. She gave a tiny shake of her head.

Cullen's heart constricted and he shifted to the edge of the chair, clutching one armrest. A series of random recollections were crowding in his mind, addled in extreme exhaustion and the wake of the unimaginable fright. Blood on the bedsheets. Doc Whitehead explaining gently that she was suffering from a womanly complain. Mary murmuring that it was only her course come hard and early, and Cullen's own protestation that it seemed to him it was late. Tears bright in her eyes when he asked if she had ever thought of having another child.

"Angel," he gasped, his want of breath now having nothing to do with the cough; "who else you lost?"

Mary's eyes were locked upon his, huge and brimming with a storm of terrible emotion. So intent was he upon her face that he scarcely noticed when Bethel slipped between them, breaking the contact of their gazes for a moment. The old woman bent and took Gabe into her arms, lifting him away from a mother too numb with shock to do more than let go. The little boy stirred as he was lifted, and hooked his leg instinctively around Bethel's hip.

"Bet'l?" he queried drowsily.

"Hush, lamb," she murmured. "You an' me, we's goin' go down an' see if I cain't temp' that li'l stomach."

The door creaked, but neither Mary nor Cullen spoke. Reality had constricted, narrowing to the gulf of silence and hurt between them. As if in a trance Cullen rose, taking two hesitant steps before his toe struck the corner of Bethel's mattress.

"Mary, tell me," he said. The words rang hollow in his jaw. "You tell me."

Her lips moved soundlessly, then pressed together briefly before parting afresh. "Cullen…" she exhaled plaintively.

The blood was rushing in his ears, and though his mouth was filling with thick spittle he could not swallow. Vacantly he wondered whether he had fallen asleep after all and slipped into some sort of surreal nightmare. Certainly this had all the qualities of his darkest dreams, right down to the strange detachment of his head from his body.

"Mary, you got to tell me," he said. Now it did not even sound like his voice at all. It was blank and removed, and yet saturated with desperation. He had to know, one way or the other, and he would never believe it unless he heard it from her own lips.

"Cullen, I…" Mary's voice broke harshly, and her eyes tore from his at last. They fell to her lap, where her empty arms lay curled as though Gabe were still cradled in them – not the lanky almost four-year-old boy Bethel had just borne away, but little newborn Gabe in his long gown and bonnet.

Curiously it was the loss of eye contact that allowed him to move, bounding over Bethel's mattress and sliding his hip against Mary's, torso twisted and right leg canted off the edge of the bed so that he could face her. His fingers closed upon her shoulders. "Mary. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't." She seemed to choke on the words. "I couldn't bear to. I thought… I thought it would be easier…"

His grip tightened and she looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears. "You had a… you lost a…" he stammered, groping for words that had no place in polite society. Words, he realized now, that were too painful to speak even in whispers behind closed doors.

Hypnotically, Mary nodded, not taking her eyes from his face. "I didn't know how to tell you," she murmured.

It seemed as though the Earth was wobbling on its axis. Cullen's innards had shriveled into knots of porous stone, and his heart was beating more violently now than it had at the height of the crisis with Gabe. His vision grew unstable, casting curious auras in the sunlight, but Mary's face remained acutely in focus. He could see each muscle of brow and cheek fraught with anguish. He could have counted the fine lines on lips dry with heat and sleeplessness. Her eyelashes looked dark and sharp as harrow-teeth, and in the eyes themselves he could see every hurt she had borne silently these many months suddenly rising to the surface. Fear, silent but potent, rose within him and pressed upon the root of his tongue.

Laboriously he formed inadequate words. "You didn't even tell me we had hopes."

"At first I wasn't sure," she said hastily. "I didn't want to say anything until I was certain, and once I was… you were so preoccupied, Cullen; working so hard all day, and sitting up late in the night to worry and figure and plan. I didn't know whether the news would be welcome."

"Course it would have," he choked out, as though it mattered now. "News like that, it's the best thing a man could hear."

"I was waiting for the right moment," Mary confessed. "For a week when you weren't suckering, when you came to bed at a reasonable hour, when we could have talked it all through together. But before that could happen, it… I… I took ill."

He had to close his eyes, his jaw clenching so tightly that his back molars squeaked. He exerted all his will to keep his hands from tensing also, or his fingers would have clawed right into the sockets of her shoulders. His nostrils flared as he drew in a long, thin breath. "A womanly complaint, that's what Doc called it," he said when he trusted himself to speak. "Did he know?"

"He was very kind," Mary whispered. "He didn't say it outright. He told me it might just have been a bad course, told a story about a lady who suffered with terrible cramps, promised me… he promised, Cullen. He said everything was still, ah, just as it should be, and that it shouldn't prevent me from having another baby; half a dozen babies. I'm not… not damaged."

"You could have told me!" he cried. His eyes flew open and his voice seemed to echo off the walls. Mary flinched, but maintained her steady gaze with valiant resolve. The torment in her eyes was matched with courage that blunted the force of Cullen's outburst. Softly he amended; "You should have told me. I could have helped you."

"There was nothing for you to do," said Mary. "It was so early; everything just bled away. There wasn't… I couldn't see a thing."

"I could have helped you bear it."

It was no more than a whisper, as frightened and timorous as one of Gabe's anxious questions. Cullen felt his heart ripping slowly in two, as if torn by pinching fingernails. He had not thought it possible to feel pain such as this, not for the loss of a child he had never known – a child whose very existence had been a secret to him until today. It was almost as if Gabe had died: it seemed like the same pain. And all this time Mary had been carrying this sorrow, this agony, this heartbreak alone. He thought again of the night when he had broached the question of having another child, and he cursed himself. He had wounded her with those words, deeply and perhaps indelibly, because he had not known of this. And he realized now that he should have known. That some part of his mind _had_ known, or at least suspected, and had hidden from the possibility because it was too terrible even to contemplate.

"You had so much to bear already." Mary's voice trembled, and she was staring down at her hands again. "You were so afraid for me those first few days, and when I started to get well you – y-you took ill yourself, and I couldn't… Cullen, I _couldn't_!"

"Why didn't Doc tell me instead?" asked Cullen, bewildered. "He could have broke the news: that's his job, ain't it? And you without no one to comfort you…"

"You _were_ a comfort to me!" she protested fervently. The first tear spilled from her left eye as she raised her head again, glistening whole and perfect on the tip of an eyelash for a moment before sliding down her cheek in a delicate rivulet. "You've always been my comfort. And Gabe, my sweet little consolation. Holding him, petting him, even just watching him play." Her body shook with a sob that broke from her lips like a crashing wave, and her hands flew up to Cullen's neck, drawing him towards her in a frantic embrace. "You saved his life, Cullen. You saved him. He was choking and you saved him. He might have died. He would have died! You saved my little boy!"

And suddenly they were embracing one another, Mary weeping with the sundering catharsis of absolute exhaustion and Cullen striving with all his might to cling to his last shreds of masculine dignity. He could not sob as she was sobbing, however he might wish to. Such things were not for men. But he could cling to her as long as she clung to him, palm pressed against her back so firmly that he could feel the crisscrossed laces of her stays through the sturdy cotton of her dress. He could crook his other arm about her waist and grip her, warm and living woman though she was, as a small child might grip a doll for comfort. He could press his cheek against her ear and feel the weight of her head upon the base of his neck, and let her hot breath under his collar ground him in the present. He could close his eyes and let the tears slide soundlessly down into his whiskers – one on each side, hot as molten lead and bitter as gall.

For a long time, far longer than the patient ticking of his pocketwatch claimed it to be, they sat like that, melded together into the one flesh the reverend had spoken of in the prayers at their wedding. This was not the flesh of passion, but the flesh of suffering: the body created between them when neither had the strength to carry their own. Worn beyond the limits of endurance by sleepless nights and constant worry and this terrible revelation – so devastating on his part to hear, and just as traumatic for her to speak – they melted together into a stillness at once intolerable and sumptuous. Despite the ordeals behind them, the torments of the present and the trials still lying ahead, at least neither one was alone.

It was Mary who first found the strength to move, to break the first bond and make the first attempt to carry herself again. Tightening her embrace, she raised her head and drew back a little so that her soft cheek was pressed to Cullen's angular one.

"You saved our son," she whispered, her lips brushing the lobe of his left ear. Then her arms loosened and she began to sit back.

He eased his own hold to let her, blinking rapidly before her face came into view. Her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in red, the shadows of weariness beneath them dark against pale skin. She was beautiful.

"I wish I could have saved the other one," he mumbled.

Mary's eyelids fell, wet lashes swooping low for a moment before rising again. "There was nothing anyone could do," she said. Then a flush rose hot across her cheekbones. "Cullen, can you forgive me?"

"For what?" His hands were both in the small of her back now, though their legs were still pressed close in the valley of the feather tick.

"For losing your baby, and keeping it from you," she said.

"No." He shook his head. Reflexive hurt paled her blue eyes, but he knew his own were gentle. "Ain't nothing to forgive. You done what you thought best. You was only trying to take care of me, same as you always do."

She stroked the side of his face with the back of her fingers, tenderly brushing aside a tendril of dark hair. Her sweet, full lips pursed briefly as if miming a kiss. "You're a good man," she murmured. "Not everyone would understand."

"But you got to promise me," he said hoarsely. "You got to promise me you won't do it again; keep something like this from me. It don't matter what else I got to worry about, what else I got to cope with. It don't matter if I'm on my own deathbed. Mary, you _got_ to tell me. Promise?"

She nodded, sorrow and solemnity in equal measures with love in her eyes. "I promise."

"All right, then," Cullen huffed, settling the folds of his composure into place like his best frock coat. He pried one hand from her waist to reach for his handkerchief, only to remember that it had long since been dragged out for Gabe to spit into, and subsequently flung aside. He leaned forward against her, reaching to the limit of his grasp to pluck one off of the bedside table instead. With the same exquisite care with which he had undressed her on their wedding night he wiped away the tears from each velvet cheek, and then slipped the cloth into her hand so that she could blow her nose. She forgot herself in her fatigue, and made a very unladylike honking sound as she did so. It startled a chuckle from his lips, and she giggled, blinking rapidly in charming embarrassment.

"What you must think of me!" she fussed primly.

He ducked in and pecked her on the corner of her mouth. "Come on," he said. "We got a sick boy to see to."

And somehow that prospect did not seem quite so terrifying as it had an hour before. Though the whooping cough still had Gabe in its throes and the fever was no lower, though a fit like the last ghastly one might strike again at any time and with far more disastrous results, it somehow felt to Cullen as though they had come through the worst of it at last.

_*discidium*_

Pappy was sleeping.

His head was tilted back so that all Gabe could see was his Adam's apple and the underside of his chin. He was snoring faintly, and now and then his breath would hitch in his throat and he would give a shallow little cough. His right arm was curled around to support Gabe's back, and his left hand lay limp and heavy on the little boy's lap. Reaching down, Gabe could pet the back of the strong, calloused fingers and run his palm against the nap of the fine hairs on Pappy's wrist. He did not do it too often, because he didn't want to wake his pappy. Pappy was very tired; he needed his sleep.

Gabe was tired, too, but sleep was out of the question. He wondered if it was possible to be too tired to sleep. Anyway he was certainly too hot. Down in the kitchen Bethel had given him a piece of bread with strawberry preserves, and then she had sponged him down with water fresh from the well and put him in a clean nightshirt. That had helped for a little while, and he had even dozed in Bethel's arms for a bit until the cough had decided to wake him again, but now he was hot once more, and he was sad and he could not sleep.

Mama was sad. She had been crying, and even now as she sat in the armchair in the corner she dabbed at her eyes with a rumpled handkerchief. Bethel had brought in the chair from Mama's bedroom and was sitting beside her, holding her hand. Now and then she would stroke it as Gabe had done to Pappy's, only Bethel did not watch Mama's hand when she did it. She was watching Mama's face with a mournful but loving expression in her eyes, and she was murmuring to Mama.

"Weren't nuthin' else you could have done, honey," she said. "He weren't in no state of min' to cope while you was sick, an' after…"

"I know," Mama whispered hoarsely; "but to have him find out like this, _now. _It isn't what I would have wanted."

"I know, Missus Mary, I know," said Bethel. She closed her eyes and shook her head. "But the truth out now, an' there ain't no hidin' from it. How he take it?"

Mama's eyes flickered up towards Gabe and he blinked slowly, wondering whether she would say something to him. But she only gazed at Pappy's face with heartbroken eyes and sighed. "He was horrified, devastated. He…" She hid her head in her hand, the handkerchief trailing from her last two fingers. "I couldn't have told him when it happened. His mother, she died of a miscarriage, didn't she?"

Bethel nodded, and now her eyes too were shining with tears. "Miss Caroline, she was jus' 'bout three month 'long when it happened. Started jus' the same, too: bleedin' in the night an' pain. Eight day she lasted 'fore the fever took her."

Mama gave a tiny little cry and twisted in the chair to fling her arm about Bethel's neck. Their heads leaned together and Bethel reached to hug Mama, too. "You loved her, didn't you?" Mama whispered. "Cullen's mother."

"She was a fine lady," said Bethel. "Kin' an' sweet an' good-hearted. Jus' like you, Missus, on'y she weren't so strong nor so clever as you be. You been so brave, honey. All you gots to cope with, an' you still so brave."

Mama made a dry sobbing sound and straightened, blotting her eyes again. She looked piteously at Bethel and then shook her head. "I thought when times were better I might be able to tell him, but… but they just seem to get worse and worse." She exhaled softly and squared her shoulders, then tried to smile. "It seems we'll all have to keep on being brave a little longer."

She glanced towards Gabe and Pappy, started to look back to Bethel, and then paused. "Oh, dearest, you're awake!" she exclaimed, standing up hastily and hurrying to the bed. The hem of her skirt dragged on the corner of Bethel's bed, and she tugged it into submission with an absent flick of her wrist. Gabe looked up at her as she ran her hand through his curls. "Why don't you try to sleep a little?"

"I's too hot," Gabe explained. Mama's hand slipped down to his shoulder and he was able to rest his head against Pappy's chest again. "I ain' sleepy." He yawned expansively and rubbed his eyes. "I's a li'l bit sleepy," he confessed; "but I's goin' cough again soon anyhow."

Mama's mouth rippled, and she bent to kiss his brow. Her lips were cool but rough and dry. Gabe's eyes fluttered closed, savoring the sense of his mother's love. Then his head bucked against her, the bridge of his nose smacking into her chin as Pappy's chest heaved. Mama withdrew, startled, and Gabe hurriedly sat up straight as Pappy began to cough. The first one made his head jolt, slipping off the edge of the pillow and striking the headboard with a loud _crack_. With a strangled snort Pappy sat up, his hand slipping over Gabe's knee to seize a fistful of coverlet as he coughed again.

Gabe turned in towards his father, left knee sliding up between them, and reached to grip his shoulders. Pappy's eyes, lolling broadly in the throe of another spasm, fixed upon him, and Gabe bobbed his head gravely. "It awright, Pappy. I's here," he said. "I's right here. Cough it all up. Cough it up."

A strained sound that was something like a laugh bit in between two coughs, and Pappy's fingers squeezed Gabe's elbow affectionately. He could not speak; he was struggling just to breathe between the coughs while Mama planted a hand at the base of his neck to support him. His left knee slid up, and Gabe's hips rolled, but he was determined to stay steady for his father. Pappy was always so calm and steady while _he_ was coughing. Pappy had even known what to do when Gabe's throat had stuck shut and he couldn't breathe at all, not even in the painful whoops. Gabe could still feel the place in the middle of his back where Pappy had tried to whack him like the doctor did, but it hadn't worked at all. Gabe had been so frightened that he had been unable to move, feeling the room shrink away into darkness around him, but Pappy had known. Pappy always knew what to do, and Gabe wanted to be just as brave and steady as he was.

"It awright," he repeated solemnly. "You go on an' cough. Cough, Pappy honey. Cough."

The last rattling hack was followed by a thin wheeze, and Pappy slumped back, Mama easing his shoulders down so that he did not crash into the bedstead again. Beads of perspiration were rolling over his temples, and he raised his hand to wipe his eyes as he struggled to catch his breath. Mama hurriedly poured a cup of water and gave it to him. His hand was shaking, and Gabe reached to hold the bottom of the tin mug, helping to boost it up to Pappy's lips. Pappy gulped noisily and swallowed with a sigh, then smiled unsteadily.

"Thanks, son," he mumbled, passing the cup off to Mama and tousling Gabe's hair with fingers that still trembled. "You're a mighty good help. But son?"

Gabe looked up at him studiously. "Yes, Pappy?" he said obediently.

Pappy's reddened eyes twinkled playfully, though his face was too leaden and tired to sustain the smile. "Don't you call me 'honey'."

Mama laughed a little, very softly, but Gabe frowned pensively. "But Bet'l do it," he said. Bethel said it to him, too, every time he coughed.

Pappy chuckled ruefully. "I know, but that's because Bethel's older'n me, and we got to let her have her way in things like that. Mama don't call me 'honey', now does she?"

Gabe gazed up at his mother, who had her fingertips pressed to her lips now. She looked happier than she had in days, and Gabe was glad. "No," he admitted. "She don'."

"There you go then," said Pappy. He chucked Gabe's chin. "Thanks for talking me through it, though. I mean it." He looked up at his wife. "Poor Mama, with two invalids to look after."

"What a invalid?" asked Gabe.

"Somebody who's sick in bed," Pappy translated.

Gabe looked down at the rumpled blankets and the sheet tangled around Pappy's trouser legs. Then he looked from his father's face to his own small hands and nodded. "Dat us," he agreed. "We's sick in dis bed awright."

Pappy craned his neck towards the window, his whole body tightening as he did so. He cringed and moved his head gingerly back, kneading at the root of his shoulder. "Is that Doc?" he muttered.

Mama went to the window, drawing aside the half-open curtain. She nodded. "Bethel, would you please go down and show him up?"

Bethel went, and Mama made a hurried sweep of the room to gather the soiled linens into one heap and the used medicine spoons into one of the cups. She smoothed her hair and would have tried the same with Pappy's, but he swatted her hand away. "Never mind," he said. "Doc won't care. It's a wonder any of us is even decent, after all we been through these last two days."

The nursery door opened and Bethel held it as the doctor came in. He set his bag on the foot of the bed and came at once to feel Gabe's forehead and cheeks. He looked tired and harried, his face carved with deep crevices and his hair standing up in disarrayed graying curls. His stock was awry, and one of the buttons on his vest had come unfastened. Gabe wanted to reach to button it up properly, but he was not sure if that was allowed. He submitted calmly to an examination, while Pappy and Mama explained what had happened. Pappy spoke very quickly, and Mama seemed to be struggling not to cry. At Doctor Whitehead's request Bethel found the rag in which the half-crusted clump of mucus was wrapped, and Doc clicked his tongue wonderingly as he inspected it. Then he stared at Gabe.

"It's a miracle you're breathing, young man," he said. "Your pappy done right. You saved him, Cullen, and no mistake."

Pappy cast his eyes away uncomfortably, as if he did not want the congratulations or the grim reminder of the terrible moments of panic. Gabe certainly didn't want to think about it, and he was grateful that the doctor did not ask him to give his own account. He didn't know how he could have explained it, anyway; how the awful fear had dimmed and faded, becoming something distant like a story in a book until he had only wanted to drift off to sleep again even with the weight of Pappy's hand against his lips and the long fingers sliding down his throat. He shivered, cuddling closer to his father, and Pappy squeezed him reassuringly.

That little shiver was enough to send him shaking again, suddenly wracked with chills. Doctor Whitehead helped to bundle him in a blanket while Mama tried to comfort him and Pappy shifted awkwardly to get his feet off the edge of the bed.

"Mary, you take him and get near the stove," he said huskily, boosting Gabe up so that Mama could settle him on her hip. Gabe didn't much care who was holding him now, so long as they hugged him close and helped him to warm up. "Doc and me got to have a talk."

"A talk about what, Cullen?" asked the older man, puzzled.

Mama knew. It was plain from the desolate look in her eyes that she knew. She moved so quickly towards the stove that Gabe felt he was flying. He screwed his eyes closed and held tight to her, quaking with the inexplicable cold that made his skin shrivel and his bones quiver. So he did not see Pappy and Doc leave the room: he only heard the door creak as Bethel closed it behind them.

_*discidium*_

The parlor was still cool, with the dusty smell of a room left unlived-in for many days, but the golden light of late afternoon cast long shadows from the furniture. One of these stretched over Doc Whitehead's boot as he turned, perplexed, towards the man who had herded him in here so unceremoniously. Cullen took in a swift, deep breath that thankfully did not bring on a cough. His pulse was racing and his temples throbbed, and in his exhaustion he knew there was not much hope of containing his temper, but this had to be said and damn it, he wasn't going to wait! No good came from waiting. If Mary hadn't waited, had told him the truth straight off, they could have coped with it together and been long recovered by now, when their living child needed them and they instead had to mourn a lost one.

"Why didn't you tell me about Mary?" he demanded.

Doc frowned. "Cullen? Tell you what about Mary?"

He was confused, of course. It was only natural, for this had all happened months ago. Likely he saw a case like it every few weeks, maybe more often. Cullen didn't know how frequently ladies suffered such losses, but it couldn't be uncommon. If it had happened to Mary, strong, healthy young Mary who scarcely ever fell ill, it could happen to anybody at all.

"In July," he said, his voice rasping roughly. His throat was raw with fatigue. He could not have slept more than half an hour, and it was just enough to make the weariness worse. He felt as if there were hot coals ignited behind his eyes, searing mercilessly. "You told me she was suffering a womanly complaint. She lost a… had a… she was… then she wasn't…"

He was stammering like a fool, trying to articulate what he had not even successfully voiced to his wife. His cheeks were burning, and he knew it was not just with the nascent fever. His right hand flapped vaguely, trying to express what his mouth could not. It fared no better.

Realization dawned on Doc's kindly face, furrowing his brows deeper with worry instead of bewilderment. His mouth crumpled piteously and he reached for Cullen's arm. "Son," he sighed.

Cullen flung his hand off and retreated three steps until his hip barked the sideboard. The crystal rattled and he gripped the raised lip of the table to steady himself. "You lied to me," he accused. "You said you didn't know quite what was wrong, that there were things even doctors couldn't be sure of. She lost a baby, _my_ baby, and you lied to me."

"I didn't lie," Doc said. "I _wasn't _sure. If it was a baby, it was too early to be absolutely certain."

"Mary was certain," Cullen spat. "Looks to me like Bethel was certain. How is it you ain't?"

"Medicine is a measure of uncertainty," said the physician, parroting words no doubt heard in some long-ago lecture at university. "It's just as likely it was only a bad course, more painful and more copious because it came late."

"Just as likely?" challenged Cullen, only able to restrain the urge to shout because he knew his wife and son were just upstairs – and that Mary would be listening for raised voices.

Doc hung his head, shaking it tiredly. "No, Cullen," he admitted softly. "Not _just _as likely, but still possible. It's possible she didn't really lose a child…"

"She thinks she did, and that's what matters," said Cullen. "Damn you, if you'd told me I might have helped her through it!"

"It weren't my place to tell you," whispered Doc.

"Not your place? You's her doctor, for God's sake! Whose place is it, then?" Cullen's vision was turning dark. He thought absently about turning to pour himself a drink, imagining how the whiskey would steady his nerves and maybe drive off the crippling exhaustion that was dragging on every limb. But somehow he could not move.

"Miss Mary's, of course. She was the patient; it was for her to decide how you ought to be told. If you ought to be told, son. She didn't want to burden you. She was doing as she thought was best."

"Is this best?" roared Cullen, forgetting his intention to stay quiet. "My son's fighting for his life, and now I got to find out after he just about chokes to death that I might have lost another one, too, only nobody thought I could stand to hear it! Mary's got a sick child to look after, and all the time she's scared he's goin' die just like the little one she lost? And I can't even comfort her, 'cause I don't know nothing 'bout it? Hell, Doc, I been talking to her 'bout having another baby, not knowing all the time she's mourning one that got away! How's that best for anyone?"

"You have to appreciate how hard it was for her," Doctor Whitehead said soothingly. "To have to break something like that to her husband… it was likely more than she could have borne herself at the time, especially given your own frame of mind."

"That's exactly why _you _should have told me!" cried Cullen, whipping his fist to the side against the wallpaper. The lamp in the sconce shuddered. "It ain't like I didn't ask you straight out!"

"I was respecting Miss Mary's wishes," Doc protested, very quietly. He was not meeting Cullen's eyes.

"The hell you was," he spat, rage leaving him blind to the other man's remorse and deaf to the loving concern in his voice. He only knew that he was hurting, and he wanted to hurt someone back – and a few home truths would just about do it. "You was trying to coddle me, same as she was. Same as Bethel, same as all of 'em. Because you don't believe I can cope with all this. The farm, the losses, the debts, the worries, tobacco sickness, Gabe taking ill, none of it! You don't think I got what it takes to stand up on my own and do what's got to be done. Well, damn you, Doc! I can take care of my family, and I can stand by my wife, and I don't need you telling me I can't! You ain't my damned father, and this here proves you ain't much of a friend, so get the hell on out of my house!"

Doctor Whitehead's eyes widened like those of a buck shot through the heart. Instead of falling to his knees, however, he held out a protesting hand and took one swift step forward. "You don't mean that," he said breathlessly. "That boy upstairs…"

"Might be dying. I know it," snarled Cullen. "I also know we can do just as much for him ourselves as you been able to do. I saved him while he was choking, just the same as you done last night. We ain't got no use for you here. Now get on out. Nate'll saddle your horse if you ask him: get!"

For a moment it seemed Doc did not know what to say. The hurt on his face and the shame in his bearing scarcely registered through the film of Cullen's addled mind. He had been without rest and under enormous strain for too long to think rationally. He flapped his arm violently towards the parlor door. "Get out or I'll throw you out!" he bellowed.

The doctor nodded slowly. "I'll come back tomorrow sometime to see how Gabe's getting on," he said softly. "If he needs me before then, just send Nate. I'll come. Even if you think I might not, once you come back to your senses, try and remember I promised I would."

"Get the hell out of here," Cullen growled, unable even to raise his voice now. Only distantly did he see Doc Whitehead retreat hastily from the room. Some small part of his mind remembered that Mary and Bethel and Gabe were upstairs, no doubt waiting and anxious after hearing him shout. But all the rest of him, overtaxed body and enervated mind, weary heart and aching head, could only see the horsehair sofa with its lacy crocheted antimacassars and the deep, firm cushions. Drunkenly he stumbled, the toe sticking through the hole in his stocking snagging on the fringe of the carpet and tripping him. He pitched forward, powerless to arrest his descent, and landed hard on his knees, the floor shuddering with the impact. But his torso smacked onto the couch itself, and his head sank against the cushioned seat. Somehow he crawled up onto the sofa, dragging his legs after him. With his head buried in the crook between armrest and back, his belly flat upon the middle pillow, and his right foot still dangling, he sank deep into enticing oblivion.


	63. Breaking

**Chapter Sixty-Three: Breaking**

Cullen's first sensation upon waking was a curious chill in his right great toe. He snorted, body bolting sharply against the firm but yielding surface beneath it, and tried to turn his head. His cheek was stuck, pasted with sweat to the slick horsehair cushion. Cautiously he peeled it away as his neck creaked and strained against stiffened ligaments. His mouth had been hanging slackly open, and he felt the warm trail of spittle in his beard as he landed successfully on the other cheekbone. Blinking to bring the orange glow into focus, he recognized the parlor hearth and the prettily-carved mantelpiece without any clear understanding of how he had come to be lying here. There was a fire in the grate, now burned down to richly glowing embers and emitting a steady, welcome warmth. Cullen's right hand travelled down the couch cushion to chafe at his chin, and he grunted thickly through a curtain of mucus. He cleared his throat with a shallow cough that stirred a tickle deeper in his lungs, and then swallowed dryly in the hope of fighting off a full-fledged fit.

Something rough, warm and wet scraped over his toe, and the coldness returned. Cullen wiggled the appendage experimentally, and was rewarded for this exertion by a blow to the ball of his foot. Something swift, small and strong with sharp little pinions struck his stocking, snagging briefly, and then the rough thing lapped against his exposed skin again.

Using his left elbow for leverage, Cullen rolled onto his back, dragging his right foot up over the left and onto the sofa. The motion disturbed the gray woolen blanket spread over his body, bunching it uncomfortably between his spine and the couch-back. Timidly he raised his head, trying to look down towards the floor, but he was able to sag back almost at once as his assailant sprang up onto the couch and strolled nonchalantly over his thigh to sit proudly on his belly. It was Stewpot, Gabe's absurdly-named kitten. He licked his forepaw proudly and mewed a question at Cullen.

"What you doing in here?" the man muttered, voice cracking dryly. The kitten was no longer small, but had a certain long-legged leanness that reminded Cullen of a yearling fawn. Stewpot had, however, already mastered the supercilious air common to all adult housecats, and he was exuding it with vigor at the moment. He seemed to look down disdainfully at Cullen's bedraggled countenance as he preened.

Cullen raked a hand through his hair, feeling the grit of shed skin upon his scalp and the snagging of matted curls tugging on his fingers. He grimaced as the memory came back to him; the quarrel with Doc Whitehead and his unconscionable demand that the man leave the house before Cullen could throw him out. He closed his eyes as though he could wipe away the recollection. His anger had been justified, and the sense of betrayal very real, but to send away the doctor while his son was still so perilously near the line between life and death was damned near unforgivable.

He scowled at the cat, and reached to swat ineffectually at him. His fingertips brushed the ruff of soft fur beneath Stewpot's chin, and the kitten drew his head back indignantly but did not move any other part of his body. When Cullen's hand flopped down against his hip Stewpot twisted, bending to lick his wrist. The sensation was instantly recognizable: the kitten had been licking his toe.

Somehow the answer to this insignificant mystery raised a host of other questions. Who had lit the fire and spread the blanket? How long had he been asleep? Most importantly, what had transpired in the nursery while he slumbered? Groaning with the effort of shifting his stiff spine and aching limbs, Cullen sat up. Stewpot scrambled down onto the floor and retreated a safe distance, settling on the hearthstones where he could luxuriate in the heat. It was likely the fire that had drawn him in here in the first place: ordinarily when Gabe was not playing with him he stayed in the kitchen near the heat of the stove, the comfort of his little nest under the washstand, and the convenience of the occasional vegetable peeling or other cast-off morsel from the cooking.

Cullen rested his elbows on his knees, head and hands both dangling wearily. His head felt clearer than it had at any time in the last two days, but his body was riddled with pains and stiffness that had only sifted deeper into his sinews with prolonged inaction. Again he wondered how long he had slept. The room was gloomy beyond the radius of the firelight, and behind the curtains the windows yawned black. He used his thumb to wipe away the crust of dried saliva at the corner of his mouth, and then scrubbed at his eyes. He would have inhaled deeply through his nostrils, but his sinuses were still clogged and he had no wish to drag any more phlegm down into his throat. Then, more out of grim determination than any real reserves of strength, he hoisted himself onto his feet and stood swaying for a moment while Stewpot watched him dubiously.

"Mind your own business," Cullen muttered, shuffling towards the door. The drag of the split stocking between his toes was suddenly extremely irritating, and he halted to lean on the post so that he could tug it off. For the sake of symmetry he removed the other one as well, balling them up in his hand as he moved through the dark entryway to the foot of the stairs. He gripped the bannister so tightly that by the time he reached the top his wrist was aching, and groped his way to the nursery door.

It squawked as he opened it, and Mary looked up. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, skirts trailing. Gabe was beside her, legs curled behind. He was propped up semi-prone, his bottom on the tick and his body supported by the side of Mary's thigh and the pillow in her lap. He was asleep, tousled hair dark against the muslin slip and left fist balled up beside his flushed cheek. At some point they had changed him again, and he was apparently out of clean nightclothes: he was wearing one of the shirts from the Christmas barrel instead, trailing tails reaching almost to his knees and too-long sleeves rolled up to his wrists. Mary's hand settled again upon his upper arm, caressing soothingly as it had no doubt been doing before Cullen had interrupted the scene.

"How is he?" he asked, voice creaking almost as rustily as the hinges as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door.

"Burning with fever," Mary answered in a whisper; "but resting at last. It's been nearly an hour since he fell asleep."

Cullen's relief gave him the strength to take a few more steps, and he made it to the foot of the bed where he could lean his hip against the post and study his son. The nursery lamp was not lit, for it was empty. Someone had brought the good one from the dining room instead. He reflected that he ought to go down and syphon the kerosene out of the wall lamps they had filled so extravagantly for the Tates' visit.

"Has he… there ain't been…" He fumbled awkwardly at the question he was afraid to ask.

"Any fits as bad as that one?" Mary asked, understanding him perfectly. She shook her head. "No. Two long ones, and of course all of them are awful, but there's been nothing like that."

Cullen glanced around the room. "Where's Bethel?" he asked.

"Trying to fix something hot to eat," said Mary. "You didn't look in on her?"

"Naw," Cullen huffed. He rubbed at his eyes again. "How long I been asleep?"

"Just about four hours," Mary murmured. Her eyes were gentle as she added; "I hoped you might sleep through the night."

"Stewpot had other ideas," muttered Cullen. He stepped carefully around her and eased himself down beside their son, reaching back to cup one bare foot in the palm of his hand. "You should go and take a turn once you've eaten," he said. "You's just as wore out as I am."

"I slept this morning, remember?" Mary said. "I'm all right."

"Just the same." He studied the contours of Gabe's face, serene in slumber and as timelessly lovely as a Renaissance painting. Between them he and Mary had made a beautiful child. He rocked his head from side to side as if to shake off the strangely sentimental thought. "What did you hear?"

"Of your argument with Doctor Whitehead? Not much," Mary admitted. "Was it… I mean, I assume it was about my…"

Cullen nodded. "I don't like how he handled it. You was sick and scared and hurting; he should have known better than to leave you like that with no one to talk to. But I never should have shouted at him. He… I owe him too damned much, Mary. We need him too damned badly."

"He said I should remind you that he told you to send for him if he's needed before morning," Mary ventured, eluding his gaze under the pretext of watching as she felt Gabe's brow.

He flinched. "You mean he came up here afterwards?"

Her chin bobbed quickly. "He knew you weren't in your right mind," she said. "Too much strain and too little sleep. He wasn't angry."

She did not say he was not hurt, Cullen noted, and his conscience gored him afresh. Doc had never been anything but a friend to him, through all his boyhood scrapes and his adolescent folly, the wild fears of a young husband through a first pregnancy and childbirth, and all the agonies and misfortunes of the last year. Even in the matter of Mary's miscarriage he had acted out of good intentions – foolishly, perhaps, and certainly wrongly, but all the while well-meaning. He deserved better than to bear the brunt of Cullen's anger which was, after all, directed at the cruelty of Nature and the senseless loss of a tiny life. Before Mary's quiet tenderness Cullen was shamed.

"He still ain't through it, then," he mumbled. "The crisis. If the fever ain't broke."

"I suppose not," sighed Mary. She reached for Cullen's hand and drew it down to touch Gabe's face. His skin, dry and silken, was smoldering with the poisonous heat. Cullen tugged his fingers back hastily, as though if he could not feel it the fever might vanish. "He was getting fussy again. Weepy. Poor little thing, he needs more sleep."

Here was something else to feel guilty about. Cullen had slept for four uninterrupted hours while his wife and son continued the ceaseless battle against the whooping cough. Mary's nap that morning did not excuse his abandonment of his post, however involuntary it might have seemed at the time. Dimly he recalled collapsing out of sheer exhaustion the moment the doctor was gone from the parlor. He worked his jaw from side to side, feeling the looseness in muscles that had had time to slacken after days of constant tension.

"You got to promise me you'll go and sleep," he said. "I mean proper: nightgown and everything."

Mary smiled sadly. "Only if you'll go and change your own clothes," she said. "You've been in them nearly forty hours. That shirt will be ruined." Her eyes widened as a thought struck her and she slumped as much as the burden in her lap would allow. "How we shall ever find the energy to do the washing tomorrow I don't know!"

"Leave it," Cullen advised, shying away from thoughts of his own neglected work. "Don't matter if we go another week without."

"Not for you and I, maybe," said Mary; "but the others haven't ten suits of underclothes, and Nate and Elijah are out of clean shirts. And all the linen… we'll have no towels left at all if we keep up like this. I never realized what a quantity of laundry a sick child can soil." She sighed helplessly and petted Gabe's head. "Poor little thing," she mourned.

Cullen leaned in so that he could wrap his arm around her shoulders, hugging her reassuringly. "We'll figure something out," he promised. "Washing ain't what you ought to be fretting over. You got worries enough with Gabe."

Mary nodded, biting her lip to keep it from trembling. Then without warning she straightened, brushing at her eyelashes with the side of her thumb and settling her expression into one of courageous resolve. "We'll manage," she declared. "I know we will. I can't help but feel… Cullen, maybe it's foolish, but I can't _help _but feel we've seen the worst and survived it. What happened this afternoon, what you did… I can't help but think that was the moment when…" She flushed, the color restoring some measure of youthful charm to her pale, careworn face. "It sounds so silly, but watching you at that moment it looked like you were facing down Death himself, and won."

For a breath Cullen was startled by the mythical image this remark raised in his mind, and then he forced a rueful chuckle. "Weren't like that at all," he said. "I had a wild notion in a moment of panic, and it just happened to work like I wanted it to. That's all: just luck."

"Maybe." Mary was looking at him with adoration in her eyes, an awed worshipful expression of an intensity he had not seen since the days of their courtship. "If it was luck, I'm thankful I married such a fortunate man."

Cullen huffed, resentment piquing him. "Wouldn't call myself that," he muttered. The twists of bad luck that had dogged him for years seemed to stretch out before him like a string of black pearls, one after another, dark and maliciously lustrous. He shook his head to banish the thought and fixed his eyes on his son. "Maybe he's the lucky one."

"And I," murmured Mary. She tilted in to kiss him, able only to brush the tip of his nose with her lips without leaning far enough to disturb the slumbering child. Hovering near she began; "Cullen, why is it you just cannot see—"

The creak of the door cut her off and she retreated shyly, busying herself in smoothing Gabe's shirt as Bethel came in with a laden tray. She set it on the table by the bed, which had been tidied at some point in the evening.

"Ain't nuthin' fancy," she said; "but it goin' keep up you' strength anyhow. Wish them ornery jackrabbits would get to hoppin' again. Ain't so cold they gots to be burrowin' up like that. Maybe they's got wise to Nate's traps. Young fool pro'ly gots them in the same places day aft' day."

"That's how you catch rabbits," Cullen said, a little sourly. The source of their scanty meat was still a sore spot, and not having meat to offer his workers or his child at all was worse by far. Vainly he wished there was some way he could get off to do a little hunting. Venison would be more than welcome. "They ain't real bright, and they's creatures of habit: they keep to the same runs for years and years."

"Well, if I was a rabbit an' all my relations was gettin' caught an' et up, I'd fin' me a diff'rent place to run," Bethel grumbled, handing Mary a plate and fork. "Honey, is you goin' be able to manage that with that chile on your lap?"

"Yes, of course," Mary said with a sweet little smile, inhaling deeply of the scents of supper. Bethel had whipped together a simple but hearty meal: okra and onions in butter, baked yams with their crisp skins split wide, thick slices of Friday's bread, and – in the absence of rabbit – fried eggs. Holding the plate artfully in her left hand, Mary used her right to handle her fork. She took the first bite with the same dainty courtesy she would have exhibited at a fine banquet.

Cullen, on the other hand, bent low over his own plate and dug into the food with a vengeance. He had not realized how hungry he was, nor even imagined he might find the energy to eat, but when faced with Bethel's cooking he caved immediately. His stomach snarled and his body cried out to be fed, and manners fell by the wayside. Time and again Bethel scolded him about letting standards slip, and this one certainly had: his table manners had suffered from months of hard work and informal meals. Soon enough he was scraping up the last shreds of sweet potato and sopping up golden yolk with the crust of his bread.

Bethel was leaning on the windowsill, watching with happy pride as they ate. When Cullen's plate was clean she stepped in to take it from him even before he could raise his head. "You wan' more, honey?" she asked. "I could fix up a couple more them eggs."

Cullen shook his head, somewhat abashed. Beside him, Mary was still nibbling thoughtfully on her bread. His stomach had stopped its insistent snarling, but he was certainly not full. Nonetheless, he had no wish to send Bethel back down to cook for him when there was so much that needed to be done to care for his son. "It's fine, Bethel. Just what I needed."

The old woman grunted as though she did not quite believe him, but set the dish down on the tray nonetheless and gave him in its place a bowl and spoon. The bowl was filled with crescents of preserved peaches swimming in rich cream, and as Cullen opened his mouth to speak, Bethel grinned and patted his cheek. "I maybe didn' have much time," she said; "but I done my bes'."

"You're a marvel," Mary said earnestly. "I don't know how we would manage without you. But I want you to go down and have your own supper, and take a little rest. Cullen has promised to change his clothes, and then maybe I'll try to sleep a little. You should, too: it has been such a long day."

Bethel inclined her head obediently and was about to answer when a soft cooing sound rose from the child. Gabe's lips smacked drowsily and he sat the rest of the way up without even opening his eyes.

"I smells sumt'in' nice," he mumbled, smacking his lips again. He raised his eyelids at last, and looked first at Mary's dish and then at Cullen's. He scooted to his left, bottom sliding up over his legs as he moved to lean against his father's thigh. "I tink I smells _dat_, Pappy," he said matter-of-factly.

Cullen chuckled and handed him the spoon, holding the bowl low so that Gabe could reach. The small fist closed about the silver handle, and Gabe fished after a sliver of golden fruit. He snagged it with little effort and raised it carefully to his lips before opening his mouth wide to receive it. He munched enthusiastically, a blissful expression on his face.

"Yup," he said when at last he had swallowed. "Dat jus' what I smelled."

Bethel gave Mary her dessert and took the tray away. She returned in five minutes' time with a helping of vegetables, a slice of bread and a freshly fried egg for Gabe, but by this time the child had relinquished the spoon to Cullen and pronounced himself full. Mary shooed Bethel off to take her own meal, and tried to coax Gabe to take a few bites with only moderate success. When it was plain the little boy did not intend to eat any more, Cullen finished his supper for him gladly. Then he retreated briefly to the master bedroom to shuck his rumpled, sweat-stained Sunday clothes. He put on fresh drawers and an undershirt and deliberated between day clothes and his nightshirt before settling on a well-worn and comfortable old pair of trousers that were too shabby for best wear but not shabby enough for work clothes. Feeling better for the change and a hasty raking of the comb through his overgrown hair, he returned to the nursery to settle in for the long night.

_*discidium*_

Waking to the noise of Gabe's strangled whooping now held remarkably little terror for Mary. After the first jolt from the bower of repose she found her heart scarcely raced at all. It was nothing at all to pick her sore body up off of Bethel's straw mattress, the older lady stirring beside her, and to move to the bed. It was second nature now to settle a hand on Gabe's shoulder and reach for the handkerchief, murmuring consolations that she now knew her little boy both heard and comprehended, since he could parrot them so perfectly when Cullen coughed. All three of them moved with perfect orchestration around the child, Bethel bowing forward with the basin when he retched, or the tin cup when he finally gasped for breath and fell back against his father's arms. Cullen too knew his part to the finest detail, sitting the child up straight when he first began to cough, holding him more or less upright in the aftermath, and settling him back against his breastbone when it was time to settle back to sleep. Through the hours of darkness Gabe roused them all no less than eleven times, though it might have been more.

Truthfully Mary lost track, because the moment the crisis was passed she would return to her place on the pallet on the floor and fall back into a stuporous slumber as though she had never truly been awake at all. Last night she had been wakeful and anxious, electrified like a telegraph wire by terror of what might come to pass. Tonight she was too far gone in exhaustion even for fear, though the cough continued just as violent and twice Gabe began to choke on the phlegm that rose too swiftly for spitting. On both occasions a swift thump to the shoulder blades dislodged the mass without ceremony, however, and Cullen was not even obliged to turn the boy over his knee. As the hours stretched by Gabe grew tearful and miserable, but he too was so worn down that it took only the most cursory soothing and a few rhythmic pats of his pappy's palm to settle him into a drunken slumber.

Cullen himself fell to coughing twice during Gabe's fits, the first time just as the worst of it was passing and the second time so near the beginning that Mary was not certain which of her menfolk had roused the other. He did not struggle against the coughs as he had done the first time, though he made a tremendous effort to turn his head away from the child and to jostle Gabe as little as possible. The spasms left him pale and wheezing, hoarse of voice and unsteady of hand. Mary watched him anxiously, but it was Bethel who knew best how to offer him water and ease him back into himself. His skin was slick with perspiration, and when she touched him Mary could feel his fever – lower than that which held Gabe in its clutches, but still unmistakable. In a dim, distant way her exhausted mind wondered how bad the illness might get for her husband, and what they could possibly do for him if it took the turn that Gabe's had, but she could scarcely bear to touch upon those questions.

The last fit had taken Gabe in the gray glow of dawn, and when it abated Bethel had retreated from the room to dress for the day and see about breakfast. Too weary even to think of struggling with corset and petticoats, gown and hairpins and apron, Mary curled up alone on the straw bed and tugged the warm blankets up under her chin. Cullen was humming softly, for Gabe had begged plaintively for a song when the cough had passed and the child had only just fallen asleep. The low notes lulled Mary off into a muddled dreamland populated by old friends wandering gas-lit country roads and speaking, inexplicably, in drawling Mississippi accents. She and Ada Price were for some reason watching as a towering hayrick burned, sending up a pillar of thick black smoke that choked the air and stained their arms and ballgowns with soot. The silk would be ruined, but neither girl seemed able to tear herself away. Scolding, the wife of one of her father's business associates came flying down the lane, shouting her name over and over again while her voice grew deeper and huskier as the smoke coated her throat, and…

"Mary! _Mary_!" The cry was urgent, anxious, impossible to ignore. Reluctant though she was to look away from the flames, Mary turned her head. Her body came with it, rolling from one side to the other on the crinkling tick as she realized with a frightened jolt that she was awake, and it was not Hannah calling her name, but Cullen. "Mary!"

"What is it? What's wrong?" she moaned, getting to her knees and then struggling to stand. Her foot came down on the hem of her nightshirt and she scrambled across the floor on her hands, using the edge off the bedsted to lever herself up onto Gabe's mattress. Reluctant eyes opened, resisting the cool morning light. Cullen was sitting as she had left him, propped up by pillows so that he could support Gabe in the position that gave him the most relief while he slept. But his head was upright and his eyes were wide, both hands held rigid away from the child though his arm still supported Gabe's spine.

"He's wet. He's soaking wet," Cullen said breathlessly. The syllables grated painfully in his sore throat, and his cracked lips rasped together. "He's gone cold!"

Mary's hand flew to Gabe's forehead, slipping slickly over clammy skin. The shirt, handed down from his cousin and so far too large, clung to his arms and shoulder. She peeled back the bedclothes to see that it was plastered all down his body, soaked with perspiration. A broad damp patch was spreading over Cullen's front, too. Swiftly she felt her baby's cheeks, his hands and his feet and the backs of his knees. His skin was moist and slippery, pale as porcelain and cool as cream fresh up from the springhouse. Cool, not cold.

"It's broken!" she gasped, fumbling with the buttons so she could slip her fingers into each armpit. Again she touched his brow, first with the back of her hand and then with the palm. Her hands were trembling, and her heart pounded high in her chest. Without the wall of her stays to beat against it seemed as though it would burst forth from her ribs and rise floating heavenwards for joy. "Cullen, the fever's broken: he's come through it!"

"He has?" Cullen reached to place his own hand, first on Gabe's brow and then on his cheek. His eyes fluttered closed and a rapturous expression spread across his haggard face. The slow exhalation that followed seemed to deflate his ribs and drain the nervous tension from his shoulders. "It's broke. He ain't burning up."

It sounded like a prayer, and Mary followed it with her own. "Thank God, oh, thank God!" she sighed, fingertips brushing Gabe's chin, his lips, his wrist, his ankle. She could scarcely believe it; the fever was gone. There was not a trace of the pernicious heat to be found anywhere upon his little body.

Gabe stirred and his damp lashes fluttered open. His silvery eyes wandered vacantly for a moment before focusing on her face. "Mama? You's cryin'," he said.

Mary laughed, and the tears flowed still more freely. Cullen was grinning, too, eyes dry but very bright. Gabe lifted his head off of his father's chest and scratched at his scalp. "What so funny?" he asked.

Before either parent could speak, however, Gabe stiffened. His lower lip quivered and he let out a tiny groan of dread before the coughing started again. At once Mary braced him, and Cullen spread his palms to support the heaving little rib cage. The fever was broken and the crisis was past; they had come through the worst of it. But the cough still remained, and the road to recovery stretched out long and wearisome before them. Despite that knowledge and the immediacy of the present fit, Mary felt a weight fall from her heart. The fever had broken.

_*discidium*_

"That should be the worst of it behind us now," Doctor Whitehead said, coiling his stethoscope and tucking it back into his bag. Mister Gabe was sitting in the middle of his bed, soles of his feet pressed together so that his knees stuck out like wings to either side. He was holding onto his toes, rocking as he looked up at the man. Missus Mary sat beside him, her arm crooked protectively around his body so that her hand rested on his opposite hip. Mister Cullen, who had retreated from the child at the first sound of hoofbeats, was leaning against the wall in the far corner, watching silently with his arms crossed.

From her place by the door, Bethel had a clear view of every face but the doctor's. Mister Gabe looked gravely curious and just a little bit dreamy. Missus Mary was radiant. "Doctor, I cannot thank you enough," she said.

He shook his head and clapped the child affably on the shoulder. "It's yourselves you've got to thank, Miss Mary," he said. "And this brave little man, here. He's a fighter, and no mistake. He don't know the meaning of surrender, do you, Gabe?"

"What s'render?" asked the child, and the doctor laughed. Missus Mary's eyes were shining.

"All the same," she said. "I was so frightened, and you sat with us all through the night. I don't know how we would have managed without you."

She faltered in her radiant gaze to glance towards her husband, prompting him to speak. Mister Cullen evaded her eyes, staring resolutely down at the middle space beyond the neatly made mattress on the floor.

"Well, it ain't over yet," Doctor Whitehead said. "You can expect at least another four weeks of coughing, though the fits should grow less frequent and, eventually, less severe. We need to keep an eye on his appetite, and be sure he stays well-nourished even if he don't much feel like eating. He needs to be kept warm and cheerful. We got to watch in case the fever comes back. But I don't mind telling you, Miss Mary, that children who make it through the crisis most generally heal up in time."

The lady made a sound that was not quite a laugh but neither precisely a sob, and Bethel felt a hard lump in her own throat. When she had come flying up the stairs to the sound of raised voices giving way to the familiar barking cough, she had feared the worst. Instead she had found master and mistress almost jubilant despite Mister Gabe's hacking, the fever broken at last and the shadow of death gone from the room. She was still almost giddy with relief, and wanted to weep with gratitude. The good Lord had spared her one little boy, and held back the blow of fate that would have broken the other. It was a blessed day.

"Thank you," Missus Mary said again. "Thank you, thank you! Do you hear that, Gabe? You're going to get well again!"

"When?" Mister Gabe asked frankly, addressing himself to the doctor.

"With time," the man said kindly. "You got to be patient: you'll have that cough a while yet, and you may not feel better all at once. But you're my brave little man: I know you got the strength to bear up."

"Yassir, I's a brave li'l man," agreed the boy. "Dat bad ol' cough, he ain't goin' git me. Well, _sometimes_ he do, but I allus stop in de end. Don' I, Pappy?"

He looked eagerly to his father, and Mister Cullen raised his eyes swiftly. "You sure do, son," he agreed, his voice oddly flat. "That's my boy."

Gabe let go of his feet, bridling his shoulders a little and puffing out his chest as much as he dared without risking another coughing jag. "I his boy," he announced in a confidential manner, nodding at the doctor.

"You sure is," declared Doctor Whitehead. "Now, what do you say we get your pappy over here so I can have a listen to _his _chest for a change?"

"Yes!" Mister Gabe said eagerly, bobbing his head. "Pappy! De doct'r goin' listen to _your _chest!"

"That ain't necessary, son," Mister Cullen said, a grim note creeping into his words. "The doctor's here to see you. When he's satisfied you's improved, his job here is done."

Doctor Whitehead looked over his shoulder, frowning deeply enough that even with only a sliver of his face visible to her Bethel could see it. "I think I'd best take a look at you, Cullen. You sound awful hoarse."

"I'm fine," the younger man said coldly. "I won't have you wasting your time."

Missus Mary looked torn between deep dismay and utter bewilderment. Bethel understood both, for the mistress knew as well as she did that hard words had passed between the master and the doctor, and that Mister Cullen felt shamed and remorseful. What Missus Mary did not understand was that those feelings were bound to come out in only one way: belligerent refusal to make an apology. With his wife Mister Cullen was always tender and swift to heal what he had wounded, soothing her hurts and so allowing his own to be salved. With others, and especially with men, it was different. Mister Cullen might know he had done wrong. He might be ashamed of himself. But he had his pride, the staunch Bohannon pride, and his pride would not let him admit it.

It was worse than usual in this case, because Mister Cullen was not the only one at fault. Bethel had overheard enough of the quarrel and learned enough from her talk with Missus Mary to know that the doctor had expressly failed to break the news of the baby's death to its father. That Missus Mary had asked him to keep her secret was certainly a consideration, and one that Bethel respected. But Mister Cullen's position, that the doctor had left an ill and grieving woman alone in her sorrow, was equally understandable. The truth was that someone should have told him, and because he could scarcely turn his temper on Missus Mary the natural thing to do was to focus it on the physician.

"It won't be a waste of time," Doctor Whitehead was saying. "Sit down and let me have a listen. Gabe can listen, too: see what I've been hearing all this time."

"I can?" the child said eagerly, eyes wide. "Wid de listenin' snake?"

"Listening snake. I like that." The doctor nodded approvingly before beckoning to Cullen. "Come sit down and let your boy give the listening snake a try."

Mister Cullen scowled stubbornly, but before the delighted anticipation on his son's face he was powerless. He pushed off the wall with his shoulders and ambled over to the bed, thumping down against the board that supported the ropes hard enough to bruise his backside. Bethel shook her head disapprovingly, confident that the gesture would not escape his notice. That boy was as stubborn as an old ox, and twice as hard to shift when he set his mind to something. Try as she might Bethel had never been able to cure him of that, and sometimes she had to admit, abashedly, that he had learned some of his obstinacy from her.

Mister Cullen was tugging out his shirttails now, jaw set and a resentful look in his eyes. Missus Mary ran her hand up and down Mister Gabe's back, mouth quirked into a half-frown as she studied her husband's face. He slipped his thumbs around the hem of his undershirt and hoisted the garments to his armpits. Doctor Whitehead placed the ebony disc with care, and put the slender piece on the other side to Gabe's ear.

"Hear that noise?" he asked. "That's your pappy's lungs. Go on and take a deep breath, Cullen. Hear that?"

Gabe nodded. "It go _wssh, wssh_!" he said.

"Now breathe out slow," the doctor instructed. Irately Mister Cullen obeyed. "Hear that crackling? That's how we know your pappy ain't well. It's just the same thing I hear when I listen to your chest."

The boy bobbed his head and frowned thoughtfully at his father. "It crackin'," he agreed. "You's sick, Pappy. De bad ol' cough git you, too."

"How the… how'd you know it's crackling if you ain't had a listen yet?" Mister Cullen groused, remembering to mind his language in front of his boy but not even trying to sound polite for his friend. Inwardly Bethel was shaking her head again. Anger and pride could drive the manners right out of that child's head.

Doctor Whitehead merely placed the earpiece in his own ear and adjusted his hold on the cup. "Breathe in," he said. "And out slowly."

This time a shallow cough cut off the tail of the strained exhalation, the muscles of Mister Cullen's abdomen contracting visibly with the spasm. The fever-flush on his cheeks deepened with embarrassment.

"Like a crumpled newspaper," Doc said mildly. He moved the cup to the other side. "Breathe in again. And out."

He repeated the process twice more on the back, after obliging Mister Cullen to hitch up his shirt behind as well. Then he felt the glands of his neck and jaw, and looked into his throat. Gabe found it highly amusing when his father made the sound necessary to open up his airway for inspection, and was still repeating "aaaah!" to himself when the doctor stood back.

"As for you, I prescribe rest," he said. "No work outside the house of any kind. I don't even want you bringing in fuel from the woodpile, not for at least two days. Keep warm, get plenty to eat, and sleep as much as you possibly can. You'll be asking for trouble if you don't. You, young man." He turned to Gabe. "I'm relying on you to see that Pappy behaves himself. He should stay indoors with you and get some sleep. I'll leave some powders, Miss Mary," he added, reaching into his bag and taking out three little paper envelopes, which he pressed into her hand. "Mixed in with some coffee he'll scarcely taste them."

"I's sitting right here," Mister Cullen said sourly. He reached across Mister Gabe's lap and snatched the medicine from his wife, thrusting it back into the doctor's grasp. "I don't need no powders."

"If you say so," Doctor Whitehead sighed. "Cullen, I've warned you before about this. You might not have caught it at all if you hadn't been pushing yourself so hard." He braved the steely stare fixed upon him. "Son, you know it's just the same advice I gave when your boy first took sick. Rest, warmth, good nourishing food. You got folks you can rely on. Rely on 'em."

"I don't need you telling me who I can rely on," muttered Mister Cullen, but he dropped his eyes to his lap and his color rose again. "You said yourself this ain't so serious in grown folks."

"It ain't," agreed the doctor. "Unless you take a chill and come down with pneumonia. Then you'll be laid up for weeks, and might never recover all your strength. Young men can get took with fevers same as anybody else: look at Senator Davis."

Mister Cullen's head snapped up, eyes suddenly narrowing. "Speaking of senators," he said; "you got news of the election yet? It's been a week."

Doctor Whitehead nodded. Though he had borne Mister Cullen's hostility with aplomb, now he looked suddenly weary. "The Republican candidate took it; a hundred and sixty-nine electoral votes, just about every single one of them in the North or out West. Folks is saying it's an outrage and the Legislature ain't gonna stand for it."

Missus Mary was very white now, and her voice trembled as she asked; "Are they talking secession?"

"Never mind the President," Mister Cullen said dismissively. "What about sheriff?"

The doctor sighed. "Brannan's won for another turn, Cullen. I'm sorry."

Mister Cullen looked as though he very much wanted to curse, but before he opened his mouth he shot a hangdog glance at his son and subsided. He grunted tiredly and looked down at his hands. "Too much to hope for, I guess," he muttered.

Mister Gabe's brows furrowed worriedly, and he reached to pat his father's leg. "Don' be sad, Pappy," he said. "It goin' be awright."

Mister Cullen tilted his head to look at his boy. "What's goin' be all right, son?" he asked quizzically.

Mister Gabe seemed surprised by the question. "You know," he said shortly. "It. De ting dat makin' you sad."

"I ain't sad, just frustrated," Mister Cullen said. "You know what 'frustrated' is?"

"Yassir," said Mister Gabe. "It what happen to me when I tries to lif' a bucket full of water."

Mister Cullen was surprised into a chuckle, and so was Doctor Whitehead. Missus Mary laughed softly, and Mister Gabe beamed, conscious that he had somehow managed to cheer the adults a little. "I pulls an' I pulls, but it don' move," he elaborated. "Den my fingers jus' quit holdin', _fwump!, _an' de handle fall in an' make a splash!"

Missus Mary smoothed his hair and kissed the crown of his head, and Mister Cullen looked at the doctor. "How's the baby?" he asked.

"Baby?" Doctor Whitehead sounded bewildered; the conversation had turned too swiftly.

"Boyd's baby," Mister Cullen clarified. "I meant to ask yesterday, but… it slipped my mind."

Bethel watched him warily. He had done it: broached the subject of yesterday's quarrel by a roundabout means, giving the other man a chance to offer an apology. She waited, praying the doctor would see the opportunity and take it.

Instead he sighed. "She's got it, all right. Ain't so bad yet, but it will be. Miss Charity's hardly getting through an hour without coughing. I expect her crisis soon. Charlie and little Daisy ain't quite so sick, but their turns will come, and I think one of the nursemaids is coming down with it, too. Don't ask me how Leon ain't caught so much as a sniffle, but he hasn't."

Missus Mary's face was drawn in lines of mournful compassion. "Poor Verbena!" she sighed. "She must be at her wit's end. Is there anything at all we can do to help, Doctor?"

"No, ma'am, I'm afraid there ain't," Doctor Whitehead said gently, reaching to pat her hand. "They're just as worried about you all as you are about them. I'm grateful I'll be able to bring news that Gabe's fever's broke: that'll be a comfort. Cullen, Boyd asked me to remind you if there's anything you need – extra hands about the place or anything else – you just got to ask."

"Thank you," Mister Cullen said stiffly. "We're managing all right."

Doc inclined his head as if he had expected no other answer. He reached for his bag and closed it, but seemed reluctant to stray too far. Still, he was showing every sign of making ready to depart, and neither he nor Mister Cullen had made any earnest overture of reconciliation.

"Massa, may I has a word with you?" Bethel asked, reaching behind her to open the door. Mister Cullen looked up, frowning in surprise. "Nate an' Elijah," she explained. "They's goin' need instructions for the day."

He grunted in acknowledgement and stood up. "'Scuse me," he mumbled as he stepped around the doctor. Bethel hurriedly retreated into the hall, drawing the door shut as her master followed her.

He was frowning. "What d'you mean, Nate and Elijah need instructions? I told you to tell 'em to do what got to be done: you know they know that better'n I do."

"Yassir," said Bethel soberly. "I's jus' wantin' to check there ain't nuthin' in p'ticular you wants done diff'rent, now you gots you' own orders from the doctor."

His lips twisted irately. "You don't think I'm gonna lie abed for two days for no reason, do you?" he hissed, glancing at the closed door and modulating his voice. "Soon as Gabe don't need me, I'm going back to work."

"I 'spects you is," said Bethel; "but who goin' decide when Mist' Gabe don' need you? He still cain't lie down 'thout coughin', an' it don' do his neck no good tryin' to prop up on a pillor like he done with Missus Mary. Don' do her no good, neither, sittin' up straight like that in them corsets to hol' him."

She had in fact been stricken with relief when the child had proved able to sleep in any other position but lying on his pappy's chest, but she was not about to admit it now. Given the choice between Mister Cullen sitting up in bed, and Mister Cullen out plowing in the mud, she knew which one she would chose. She watched knowingly as he weighed her words, considered his own wishes, and put the good of his wife and child before his own pride. When he scowled, she knew she had won, and she was filled with quiet pride at his integrity.

"Fine," he said sourly. "I got to stay in today at least. He ain't had enough sleep in days. That all you got to say?"

"Nawsir," said Bethel stoutly. She fixed him with her sternest glare. "Chile, is you goin' let that man leave here without you two made peace over Missus Mary's baby?"

His eyes darkened to the tint of clouds before a twister, and the muscles of his jaw rippled wrathfully under his whiskers. "It was my baby, too," he snarled.

"Yassir. Yes it was," said Bethel. "An' you's hurt an' you' heart broke, an' that why you's so angry. But you cain't let that hurt drive you to push away folks as love you, honey, an' Doct' Whitehead, he love you. Ain' he tooked up for you even in front you' own pappy? Ain' he come runnin' ev'y time you need his help, whether it doctorin' you's wantin' or jus' a frien'ly ear? Ain' he paid up the money to git you out of jail so you could come back to you' people? He a good man, chile, an' he care for you like you's one of his own boys. Sure, he done sumthin' you don' think he oughta done. Sumthin' maybe he _didn'_ oughta done. But don' you know he were on'y tryin' to help you even then?"

She could see the turmoil in his soul, the warring emotions and the befuddled passions grappling together with shame and love and fondness. She waited, watching anger and resentment rise up, swelling over heartache and fright and friendship. Patiently she watched. She knew in the end the goodness would win out: it always did. In the heat of the moment, Mister Cullen could be harsh and even cruel. But when he had the chance to think thinks through, when someone stopped him in his wrath and _made_ him think things through, he always came around.

And there it was: abashment and sadness and determination. Mister Cullen exhaled softly, shoulders slumping a little as he nodded. "I know it," he muttered. "I do."

"Then go an' make you' peace," Bethel said. "'Fore the hurt gots a chance to set in."

Determined not to give him any quarter for hesitation, she let the door swing inward again. Mister Cullen turned, the motion stilted and uncomfortable. She gave him a tiny push in the small of his back, invisible to Missus Mary or Doctor Whitehead, and he stepped forward, halting at the foot of the bed and turning in towards his friend.

"Thanks, Doc," he said huskily, his voice rougher than his illness could explain. "For coming by, for putting our minds at ease. You know… you know you's always welcome in this house."

There was an unspoken question in the words. It hung in the air between the two men for a moment until, with a brief nod, Doctor Whitehead accepted. "I know that, son," he said gently. "I know."

Bethel felt peace in her heart again for the first time since Mister Gabe had fallen so ill. That was all that needed to be said.


	64. Mary, Persuading

_Note: "Mary had a way of talking me into things." - Cullen Bohannon, Episode 107, "Revelations"._

**Chapter Sixty-Four: Mary, Persuading**

At four o'clock that afternoon, while Gabe slept serenely on his father's chest and Cullen dozed awkwardly against the headboard of the little bed, Mary gathered up the scattered cups and medicine-stained spoons and slipped out of the nursery. Utterly enervated in the wake of the fever and finally able to settle comfortably without its twin torments of unbearable heat and intractable chills, the little boy needed no more than the passing of a coughing fit to slip into slumber. Almost as exhausted themselves, his caregivers had found it easy to drift off right after him. Even Bethel had only left the nursery and the comfort of the pallet on the floor to fetch something for dinner and just after the latest spell of coughing to bring food out to the field hands.

She was at the table when Mary came in, lean arms moving with crisp efficiency as she folded a towel, set it on a growing stack, and reached for another. The two big willow laundry baskets were on the bench, one heaped high and the other nearly empty. The whole kitchen smelled of sunshine and fresh air, and Mary stood for a moment in speechless wonder.

"How did you…" she managed at last, wanting to gesture broadly but unable to do so with her hands laden. Hastily she hurried to put the mugs down on the counter by the dishpan. "Where did you find the time?"

Bethel smiled mysteriously. "I didn'," she said with quiet pride in her voice. "Meg an' Lottie done it. Was Lottie got the notion; she a good chile. Dresses an' pants an' the like is still dryin'. I didn' let 'em do Mist' Cullen's good trousers, but there ain't no urgent need for them, is there?"

"I don't think so," Mary said, drawing near the table and plucking up one of Gabe's little nightshirts. It was clean and fragrant now, crisp from the clothesline and so unlike the limp, sour-smelling garment she had stripped off her son yesterday morning. She smoothed the growth-tucks with her thumb, quiet joy in her heart. She could still not help but feel a certain wonder that Gabe was sleeping peacefully, free from the fever at last.

Bethel was watching her, hands still working. "If'n you pardon me sayin' it, Missus, you looks a whole heap better fo' the rest," she said.

"I feel better," said Mary. She quirked the corner of her mouth into a half-smile. "Don't you?"

"Yass'm, I does," Bethel agreed. "Knowin' Mist' Gabe done turned his corner done more fo' me than a whole week of sleep. Now we jus' gots to keep his strength up 'til that cough go 'way. An' work out how we's goin' keep his pappy from makin' hisself any sicker than he got to be."

"I'm amazed he consented to stay in today," Mary said. "He didn't even try to argue. But Bethel…" She glanced over her shoulder as though she expected to see Cullen in the doorway, scowling indignantly at her for what she was about to divulge. "He said he intends to go out and tend the fires tonight."

"He won'," Bethel said confidently, plucking up the last handkerchief from the bottom of the hamper and putting it in the heap of clothes to be ironed. She dipped her hand into her apron pocket and brought out three envelopes, each only a little larger than a ten-dollar gold piece. "Aft' supper, you's goin' talk him int' takin' a cup of tea with you while I gives Mist' Gabe a bath. Then he goin' sleep the whole night through."

Mary's eyes widened, and her pulse skipped. "Where did you get these?" she breathed. "Oh, Bethel, you didn't… didn't _take _them, did you?"

Bethel tilted her chin indignantly. "I mos' surely didn', Missus!" she said proudly. Then she offered a sly conspiratorial smile. "Doct' Whitehead, he put 'em in my hand when I showed 'im the door. He know jus' as well as anybody what a diff'cult man we gots on our hands."

Mary frowned uneasily. Although the prospect of Cullen taking a proper night of rest, lying flat instead of propped up in a sitting position, was almost too much to hope for, she could not help but wonder whether it was worth the deceit. "Do you really think… I mean, _drugging _him without his knowledge…"

Bethel shrugged. "I done it b'fore," she said matter-of-factly. "When you raise a boy up you learn a thing or two 'bout how to cope with his ornery moods. If Mist' Gabe wasn' so good 'bout takin' that soothin' syrup, wouldn' you try an' hide it?"

"Well, yes," murmured Mary. "But—"

"'Cause it for his own good, even if he don' like it much. Ain' no diff'rent with his father." Bethel reached into the other basket and shook out one of the large bath sheets. "He cain't go out an' watch them fires, honey. Don' you 'member what the doct'r say when Mist' Gabe took sick? 'Bout keepin' him in where there be a stove, on 'ccount the smoke goin' make that cough worse? The tobacco barn be full-up with smoke."

"We should just tell him that," Mary said. "Cullen's a rational man; he'll understand."

Bethel gave her a quizzical look, snorted, and turned back to the laundry. For a couple of minutes the two of them worked silently, folding the sweet-smelling towels and rags and nightclothes. At last Mary spoke again.

"What shall we fix for supper?" she asked. "I've scarcely thought about food in days."

"I's thinkin' mebbe sumthin' special," said Bethel. "Ain't got no cinnamon lef', but there nutmeg an' ginger. If'n I starts straight away, I could make a nice yam pie. Won' have no crust, but it don' much need one."

Mary pressed her lips together, considering briefly whether she ought to speak at all. Lowering her voice, she said; "Are we terribly low on flour, Bethel?"

The old woman regarded her gravely, then nodded. "We gots mebbe eight-nine pounds lef'," she said. "I's goin' keep on makin' bread on Fridays, but we's goin' have to stop eatin' so many biscuits. I don' like to deprive the family, Missus Mary, but after that trouble 'bout buyin' flour on credit I don't hardly want to ask the massa to fetch so much as a sack of cornmeal. Ain't like we ain't got other things we can fill up with."

"But still no meat," Mary sighed, thinking of the men working day after day without it. "How long before the tobacco is ready, do you think?"

"Don' know. Couple weeks yet, I reckon. Take time to cure it all proper. Even then…" Bethel scooped an armload of linens into one empty hamper, and the garments in need of pressing into the other. "Who knows if Mist' Cullen goin' be well 'nough to travel down to N' Orleans an' sell it up? Might jus' have to take it to the buyer in Meridian."

"Won't that mean a lower price?" Mary asked with dawning horror. "Bethel, we can't take a lower price: we've lost enough value on the crop as it is!"

Dark eyes met hers, dour and filled with an anxiety beyond words. "Mebbe we cain't, but might be we gots to. If he ain't fit to travel, if he wear hisself out an' don' sleep an' fill up them lungs with smoke in the night air an' come down with pneumony… might be we gots to sell up in town an' take the loss."

Mary's mouth was dry and her mind was whirring with anxious estimates that were rendered completely meaningless by her ignorance of the tobacco market. Out of the flurry of nonsense came one irrefutable truth. "After supper," she said. "You'll bring Gabe down for a bath, and I'll suggest that Cullen and I take a cup of tea."

_*discidium_*

The last mouthful of meringue melted on Cullen's tongue as he leaned back in the armchair in quiet contentment. The untainted sweetness lingered luxuriously. Sorghum was no good for making meringue, and Bethel had had to spare some of the meager cache of store sugar to top the sweet potato pie, but the extravagance was well worth it. They were celebrating, anyhow. Gabe's fever was gone, and everyone had managed to sleep away the stupor of absolute exhaustion. A deeper weariness lingered, the fatigue that came from long days and broken nights. It would only be cured with time, and likely not until Gabe's coughing no longer roused them all every hour or two. But at least now it _was _only every hour or two, and between the little boy could find some peace without the constant torment of the fever.

He was sitting on Mary's lap in the middle of the bed, finishing his own piece of pie. He had been quiet since waking, still worn down and far from his usual merry self, but not a tear had appeared all day and he did not fuss or complain as he had when he felt wretchedly ill. Cullen, his own fever brewing discontentedly beneath his skin, was beginning to understand just how such an affliction could make a sweet child cantankerous. His head ached and his throat was hot and scratchy no matter how much cold water he drank, and when the cough rose up in his own chest he was seized with irrational frustration. He did not think that his own fits brought whooping, or Mary surely would have said something, but they left him feeling strangled and giddy for want of air. Already he had learned to dread the next recurrence. He could only imagine what Gabe had been suffering through these last two weeks.

The little silver fork squealed against the plate, and Mary bowed her head to kiss Gabe's ear. "Don't scrape, dearest: it isn't polite," she instructed gently.

The little admonishment was a balm for Cullen's heart. Mary really believed Gabe was recovering: she was back to instructing him in his table manners. If he was not the only one earnestly hoping they had started down the road to convalescence, maybe it really was true.

"But I wants de li'l bits," Gabe protested. "You says I ain't 'llowed to grab 'em. How's I s'posed to git 'em if I can't scrape?"

"You don't get them, dear," Mary explained. "You leave them for Bethel to clear away."

Gabe frowned. "But I wants dem," he repeated.

"You can't have them," said Mary patiently. "If you have not had your fill of a dish you may ask for more, but never, ever chase after the scraps that are left. It's in very poor taste."

"It a _good_ taste," argued the child. "Udderwise I wouldn' want more."

Cullen chuckled, and both his wife and son looked up at him. Mary's eyes glittered enticingly, and Gabe grinned. "Mary, don't you think that rule makes more sense in a house with plenty to spare?"

"We have plenty," Mary said quietly, the sparkle leaving her expression. "A loft full of yams, an abundance of eggs, more milk than we can possibly use. If Gabe wants more pie, he may have more pie."

Gabe twisted to look at her, eyes enormous. "I may?" he gasped. He peered down at his empty plate. "Where I goin' git it?"

The door opened and Bethel came in, carrying the silver tea tray. She set it on top of the bureau as Gabe hopped down out of his mother's lap and hurried to tug at his nurse's skirts.

"Bet'l," he said insistently. "Bet'l, Mama say I may have more pie. Where I goin' git it?"

The corners of Bethel's eyes crinkled into a smile. "Why, honey, I got's a whole half-pie still downstairs," she said. "Jus' you come 'long with me, an' you can et as much as you want. Doct' Whitehead say we gots to feed you up. Then you can have a nice bath an' I'll wash that hair."

Gabe considered the bargain and nodded. "Awright," he said. "So long as you promises I goin' git more pie."

Bethel bent, arms outstretch, and Gabe climbed up onto her hip. He hooked one arm around her neck and used the opposite hand to hold her forearm. "Lamb, you can et all the pie you wants to," she pledged.

"Never mind the dishes, Bethel," Mary said. "They can wait. Thank you for the tea."

Her voice arched a little as she said this, drawing Cullen's eye in her direction. But she was shifting to get off the bed herself, and he dispelled the uneasy sensation that something had just passed between the two women. Bethel bowed her head respectfully and carried the child to the door, slipping out into the corridor but leaving it ajar. A cool draft from the corridor disturbed the warmth of the nursery as Mary rose smoothly and went to the clothespress. She picked up one china cup and saucer and held it, watching him silently.

"What is it?" asked Cullen. He was trying absentmindedly to resign himself to enjoying his tea. The pie had left him craving coffee, but it was gone. He should have suggested Bethel put in a nip of brandy.

Mary's fingertip ran along the rim of the saucer. It was his tea: black and no doubt sweetened with sorghum. She took cream in hers. It seemed strange that Bethel would go to all the effort of pouring out in the kitchen, when it only meant more trouble in balancing the tray. Then again, taking tea in the nursery was a strange event and likely didn't have its own protocol.

"Cullen, I was wondering about the tobacco," said Mary in a deliberately steady tone.

"What about it?" He had given the tobacco almost no thought since Friday, except in passing when he had decided that tonight he would try to get back to doing some of his share of the farmwork.

"Is it nearly all cured?" she asked.

"Depends what you mean by nearly," he said. "Reckon we've got about a quarter of the crop still to put through the kiln. And the best of it don't get smoked; we air-cure that for the cigar-makers. That won't be done for another couple of weeks at least."

"And then?" Mary's body swayed almost imperceptibly, as though she meant to take a step towards him but thought better of it.

"Then I pack up what's left and we cart it into Meridian," he said. "Hire a freight car, maybe charter a little space in another one – ain't gonna have enough to fill two this year – and then I take it down to New Orleans and sell it."

"You mean to take it to New Orleans, then," she breathed, her shoulders sloping a little. The teacup rattled and she steadied it with her other hand. "You feel you'll be well enough."

"Well enough or not, I'm the only one who can do it," he said. "I ain't that sick."

"Not yet," Mary whispered. "It took weeks for Gabe to reach the worst of it. Who knows how you'll feel in a fortnight."

Cullen extended his palm towards her. "C'mere," he said. She approached timidly, taking tiny steps as though she feared to draw too near. She stopped just short of his reach, the hem of her skirt rippling in the lamplight. "Mary," he said; "you ain't got to worry 'bout me. I won't come down with no pneumonia: Doc's just being cautious. Remember when he said there was a chance Gabe wouldn't live through the crisis? Well, he done it."

"He very nearly didn't," she murmured. Her lashes fluttered low and she inhaled deeply through her nostrils. "I'm your wife, Cullen. I'm bound to worry about your health, especially at a time like this. You don't really intend to go out to the tobacco barn tonight, do you?"

"Course I do," he said. "Mary, I been sitting idle for two days now while everyone else worked. Gabe's had him some time to catch up on his sleep; he can do without me for a couple of hours, can't he?"

"It isn't Gabe I'm afraid for," she told him. Again the cup jangled against the saucer, and again she steadied it without breaking eye contact with him. "The smoke isn't good for you: Doctor Whitehead was very specific about that."

"Not with me he wasn't," argued Cullen. "That was our boy he was talking about."

"Why wouldn't it apply equally to you?" she asked. "You'll aggravate the cough, and you'll make yourself worse, and perhaps you _will _contract pneumonia and wind up bedridden for weeks. Cullen, please. I'm asking you to be sensible."

"I'm plenty sensible. I can't sit idle, Mary. There's too much needs doing, and none of the others has had a night off to sleep since the cough turned bad. We got to keep the slaves healthy too, or this place can't keep running." He sighed, tired and discouraged. "If it turns out Gabe's the worse for me being out for a couple of hours, I'll reconsider it tomorrow."

She looked at him, gauging his determination and seeming to measure it against her own. Then she bowed her head, no longer meeting his eyes, and stepped forward. "Drink your tea," she mumbled.

He took the saucer from her and hooked his finger through the slender porcelain handle. He swirled the dark fluid, still faintly steaming. "I know you only want what's best for me," he said. "I'm grateful I got you to take care of me. But I got other responsibilities too, Mary. I can't think about myself all the time."

Her eyes flicked up to his face again. "Do you ever?" she hissed.

Cullen put on his most rakish grin. "Sure I do," he said. "Once I get through thinking of you, and Gabe, and Bethel and the others, and the stock and the plantation and the money and the weather. If I ain't too tired for thinking after all that."

Mary's expression grew pained. "It isn't a joke, Cullen. I'm talking about your health."

"I know," he said fondly. "I'm grateful."

He raised the cup and was about to drink, more out of a desire for some excuse to tear his gaze from her tormented face. But her hand flew out, the soft bell of her sleeve tickling his wrist as she pressed her fingers to the base of his thumb.

"Don't," she gasped shallowly. "Don't. It's drugged."

Cullen lowered the cup to the saucer and turned very slowly to look up at her. "How's that?" he blurted hoarsely.

Her blue eyes brimmed with remorse. "Bethel put the doctor's sleeping powders in the tea," she said miserably. "So that you would drift off and sleep through the watch. She… we don't think it's in your best interests to go out tonight, Cullen. Tending those fires could kill you."

A strangled guffaw did not quite make it out of his throat. "It ain't goin' kill me."

"It could," Mary said fiercely. "Pneumonia _can_ kill a strong, healthy man, Cullen, and you know it!" She forced a steadying breath and tried to compose herself. "But I can't lie to you. I can't drug you without your knowing it."

He looked down at the cup again, mind working swiftly. Mary was watching him warily, waiting to see how he would react. From her rigid stance he knew she was expecting righteous anger, and at another time he might have felt it. But he was weary, still so weary despite the day's series of deep restorative naps, and his nerves had been strained past the point of swift ignition into a numb, impenetrable tiredness.

"I appreciate that," he said quietly, still staring into the dark nebula of the tea. He could see the ghost of the forget-me-not painted in the bottom of the cup. "We've always tried to be honest with each other."

"Yes." Mary's voice was very low, but there was an undertone to it as firm as bedrock. "So you know that I am speaking the truth when I say that I believe you will do yourself terrible harm if you tend those fires, and that I believe you should leave it to the others. Not because you are the master and they are your slaves, but because they are well and you are not. I cannot stop you, Cullen, but you need to know that I do not – cannot – approve."

He nodded slowly, still weighing his options. His own argument was strong, but Mary's no less so. He thought of the tobacco, curing slowly from yellowed green to a deep golden brown. He thought of the crates in the barn, so carefully packed and sealed and marked for sale. He thought of the debts to be paid, the stores to be bought, the seed for next year, the taxes. And he thought of Gabe, so delighted with the simple idea of having a second helping of pie.

His fingers closed again on the mug. Raising it to his lips, he drained it in one long quaff before handing it back to his astonished wife. Mary's lips parted, but no sound came out.

"No more for me, thanks," Cullen said, hefting himself up out of the chair. While he was still lucid, he had to get into his nightshirt. "I ain't much of a tea drinker."

_*discidium*_

On Wednesday afternoon the rain started again. Cullen had yielded to Mary's plea that he obey Doctor Whitehead's instructions and spend one more day indoors, and he was sitting on the rag rug with Gabe and the tin soldiers. The little boy delighted in his father's narratives of Revolutionary War battles that he had studied at university, and Cullen seemed equally enchanted whenever Gabe took the story off on an imaginative tangent. These were generally domestic in nature, and involved such twists as General Washington bringing in the yams or General Gates going to fetch "Mama's letters" in town in the midst of an engagement with the enemy.

Mary watched in quiet contentment from the armchair in the corner of the nursery. For the first time in weeks she had the opportunity to pick up her embroidery, and she was tracing the stems of the roses with a fine split stitch. It was almost as great a relief as the sleep had been, to sit down to do something she loved. Growing up, Mary had always taken her abundant leisure for granted, and even at times found it dreary to sit and sew. Now it was a luxury to be cherished, and the laughter of her husband and child only increased her happiness. She felt truly alive for the first time since the night Cullen had ridden for the doctor: alive as a complete person in her own right, and not merely an apparition combating crisis after crisis in a haze of terror and exhaustion. She pulled the slender strand of silk taut and slipped the needle through again, relishing the feel of skill and confidence.

"See this one here?" asked Cullen, picking up one of the little blue soldiers. "He's a scout. It's his job to sneak in 'round the enemy and find out what they's up to."

"I done dat!" Gabe said eagerly. "De day I gots lost. I was scoutin' redcoats in de woods, but dey all got away."

Cullen's appreciative chuckle crescendoed to a deep, rattling cough that he cleared by thumping his fist against his breastbone. "I remember that day," he said.

"On'y I wasn' _really _lost," Gabe said solemnly. "I was jus' in de tobacco. Pappy, when I's goin' go out an' play again?"

"Outside?" said Cullen. He cast a sidelong look at Mary, and she felt her good mood falter for a moment. As thankful as she was that Gabe felt well enough even to ask about playing outdoors, it plucked at her heart that he was still far too ill to even consider it. "Oh, someday, son. You don't want to go out now anyhow: it's raining."

"Yup," Gabe said. "It rainin'." He frowned pensively. "Pappy? Where do de soljurs go when it rain? Dey goin' git wet an' catch dere deff of de damp."

"Well, soldiers go to their camp when it rains," said Cullen. "They got tents and bivouacs, and sometimes they have a fort, too."

"What a fort?" asked Gabe.

"It's a bunch of buildings with a wall around 'em, and lookout towers to spot the enemy, and a big strong gate," said Cullen. "Sometimes they's made of stone or wood. The government's been building one down near the ocean to defend Mississippi."

"Who goin' attack Miss'ippi?" Gabe's eyes widened.

Mary shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She had not had the chance to speak with Cullen about the newly elected Republican president or what his victory might mean for the state, but she was haunted by Jeremiah's grim predictions. The fracturing of the national Democratic Party rose fresh and ominous in her mind as she waited to see how Cullen would answer this question.

But he only shrugged indolently. "You never know, son," he said. "Mexicans, maybe, or somebody else. Can't have a state with sea access and leave her unprotected. You don't want the French or the Spanish sailing up the river to Vicksburg, do you?"

"Nawsir," said Gabe stoutly. "I doesn' want dat! Is we goin' make a fort for de soljurs? How we goin' build it?"

"A fort for these here soldiers?" said Cullen in mock surprise. "Well now, let's think about this!" He cast around the room and reached out an arm towards Mary. "Here, Mama: gimme that book."

Mary tucked her needle into the edge of the linen and took _Tanglewood Tales_ from the bureau. She leaned forward in the chair to pass it to Cullen, and watched as he stood it carefully on end. "That'll be our south wall," he said. "Right over the water. Now you give me one of them shoes."

Gabe looked down at his feet. For the first time since Saturday Mary and Bethel had dressed him, and he was once more the picture of an ordinary little boy in his shirt and trousers, tiny suspenders and copper-toed boots. Studiously he began to untie the bow that fastened the right shoe, oblivious to the sound of knocking on the front door below as well as to the puzzled looks his parents exchanged as they heard it.

"Must be Doc," Cullen said. "He probably stopped to call at West Willows and figured he might as well look in here."

Mary nodded. Surely that was the most reasonable explanation, but since the disaster with Meg she could not help but fear something more sinister when faced with an unexpected caller. Though she picked up her needle again and slipped it through cloth and thread, she found herself unwittingly holding her breath as footsteps sounded on the stairs. When Bethel rapped upon the nursery door instead of simply coming in, Mary's heart rose to her throat.

"C'mon in," Cullen said, apparently unaffected. The door creaked and the slave peered in. "Doc come 'round to see how we're getting on?"

"Nawsir, Mist' Culllen," Bethel said. Her expression was somewhat bewildered but certainly not anxious. Mary tried to settle her fears. "It that Mist' Secrest from up Scooba way. He say you ain't 'spectin' him, but he thought he'd come 'n call seein' as he had business brung him to Meridian."

Mary's anxiety melted, replaced with the brisk courtesy of a hostess taken unawares. "Where is he, Bethel?" she asked.

"I's showed him int' the parlor, Missus," the old woman answered. "I 'ppoligized there ain't no fire laid, but I promised to go an' set one jus' as soon as I tol' you-all he's here."

"And his horse?"

"Awready in the stable, Missus, so he say. Took him the liberty of puttin' the horse up straight off, seein' as how it a cold rain an' he rode 'im hard. I tol' him he oughts to have waited fo' Nate to do it, but…"

"But he prefers to tend to Bastion himself," said Mary sweetly. "I remember. Go down and lay a fire, Bethel. We must think of something nice for supper. I wish we had some meat."

Cullen, who had been looking back and forth between them as they spoke, colored deeply. "I can go check Nate's traps, just in case," he muttered.

"Nawsir, ain't no sense in that," said Bethel. "I already asked Lottie this aft'noon, an' she say they's empty. Unless'n you's goin' go shoot us a possum, there ain't goin' be no meat."

"We could sent Nate to West Willows," said Mary, struck by sudden inspiration. "I'm sure if he explained Boyd and Verbena would be happy to let us have something to serve our guest."

"No!" Cullen snapped, so sharply that Gabe's eyes widened in consternation. He chafed his palm against his whiskers in a ghost of an apology and said more calmly; "No. I ain't begging from Boyd, not even for a guest. Secrest's a friend, and I'm proud to have him at our table, but he's just going to have to eat the same vittles as the rest of us been living on. Bethel's cooking's good enough for the Governor hisself, even if there ain't no meat."

Bethel cast her eyes down in shy delight at the praise, and Mary felt her own pride bolstered by her husband's words. Cullen was right. They had plenty to offer, even bereft of the customary main dish. "Will you need help in the kitchen, Bethel?" she asked.

"No, ma'am, not with you gots a guest to entertain," Bethel said. "I's goin' git that girl to help me with scrapin' yams an' haulin' water an' the like: Lottie be learnin' to be a good kitchen maid. Mist' Gabe, he can come sit with us an' mebbe she might play with him when she ain't needed, too. You know the doctor said he bes' off near a stove."

Cullen nodded and reached to ruffle Gabe's hair. "How 'bout it, son?" he asked. "You goin' go and help Lottie and Bethel put on a fancy supper for Jim?"

"Who Jim?" Gabe asked.

"Remember the nice man with the big, dark horse, dear?" asked Mary. She tucked her embroidery into her basket and stood up, smoothing her skirts and glad that she had put on one of her prettier work dresses that morning.

Gabe considered and nodded placidly. Then his face crumpled into an unhappy frown. "But Mama!" he cried. "My shoestring ain't tied!"

_*discidium_*

After hastily donning his gabardine vest and tucking his watch into the pocket, Cullen settled Mary on his arm and descended with her into the parlor. Bethel had done swift work indeed, laying the fire and lighting the lamp by the door to diffuse the gloom of a rainy autumn afternoon. Jim Secrest was settled comfortably in Cullen's armchair with a modest helping of whiskey in a tumbler and his long legs stretched out towards the hearth. As host and hostess entered he stood up, bowing gallantly.

"Good afternoon, Miss Mary. Cullen," he said courteously. "I hope I ain't intruding. Your woman seemed to think you'd be glad to see me."

"Sure I am," Cullen declared, reaching to shake his hand firmly. Mary extended her own, fingers curled elegantly downward, and Jim held it briefly. Then Cullen stood aside so that his wife could settle upon the couch like a butterfly alighting on a dark blossom. She had done something remarkable with her hairpins in the scant time it had taken him to dress decently for company, and the coils of rich auburn hair were simply and becomingly arrayed without a single errant strand.

"It's such a pleasure to have you call, Mr. Secrest," she said sweetly. "You are always welcome here."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Jim, his young face made younger still by a shy smile. "I confess I've been waiting for an excuse to come back, and I got one at last."

"Business in Meridian?" asked Cullen, moving to the sideboard to pour himself a small dollop of liquor.

Secrest inclined his head. "Well, errands, really. There's some things you can't get done in Scooba. I got appointments on Friday, but I thought I'd come down early. See if I couldn't persuade you to come out with me tomorrow morning."

Cullen seated himself beside Mary, keeping near the edge of the cushion and turning inward towards his guest. "Out with you where?" he asked.

"Hunting!" Jim declared, grinning broadly. "You said you'd be interested once you got the tobacco in, and your woman said you been done picking a while now. I know I said I wanted to get you up north, but I figured you might not be able to get away for more than a few hours."

The eagerness awakened by the other man's gleeful exclamation died in Cullen's chest at those last words. He slumped back a little, his elbow finding purchase on the armrest. "You're right about that," he muttered, taking a generous swallow of whiskey. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mary watching him. "Fact is, Jim, I don't know that I can spare even that much time. My boy's been sick, and I ain't put in a day's work around here since Saturday. I know you ain't a farmer, but you must understand it's the sort of business that don't wait."

Secrest's smile faded disappointedly. "Not even a morning?" he coaxed. "We could get out there with the horses. I been dying to see you ride one of them Morgans. It'll be cool tomorrow if the rain lets up: good weather for deer."

It was not the possibility of finding game that Cullen found so cruelly enticing, but the idea of riding off and leaving everything behind for a little while. The thought of being out in the backwoods with a good horse and a good friend and his trustworthy Sharps rifle was almost intoxicating. To be away from the plantation and its burdens, to escape for just a while from the worries of an empty pocketbook and a sick child, to leave behind the drudgery of the work left undone… it was a temptation almost beyond imagining. He did not know how he could find the strength to resist it, but he knew he had to.

"It sounds like a good time," he said slowly, fixing his eyes on the golden whiskey in his glass because he did not trust himself to look at Secrest's hopeful face or Mary's strained one. Jim wanted him to say he would; his wife needed him to say he would not. Whatever his own desires, the obligations of the master of the house came first. He had put himself in this position, chosen this life – if you could call it choosing. He had to make the honorable choice.

"I'm sorry, Jim," he muttered, forcing the words out steadily and with dignified regret instead of the desperate longing he felt. "I can't do it."

"Yes, you can!"

It took a stunned moment for Cullen to realize that the indignant exclamation had come not from the other man, but from Mary. She was sitting bolt upright now, instead of with ladylike grace, turned towards him with one hand gripping the edge of the cushion and the other balled into a fist in her lap.

"You can!" she cried. "Of course you can, provided it isn't raining." Seeing the astonishment upon his face, Mary reined in her dismayed defiance and continued with gentle dignity. "You've been trying to find time to go hunting for weeks: this is the perfect opportunity. Mr. Secrest has come all this way to invite you: of course you must go. Bonnie will be delighted to have the chance to ride out, and it will do you good to have some time to enjoy yourself. Besides," she added with a sweet little smile that neatly disguised this strongest of arguments behind the veneer of an incidental point; "you might have some luck. I know I would love a taste of fresh venison."

Cullen gaped at her, momentarily speechless. He had not expected this in the least. Unable to think of anything else to say, and painfully conscious of the silence stretching awkwardly to fill the whole parlor, he choked out; "Pike's a better hunting horse. He don't get impatient."

"There you are then!" Jim whooped happily. "The missus says you may: you got no excuse now! We can start out at dawn. There must be good hunting in them woods just north of your neighbor's land: I came through there last time and wished I'd brought a gun."

"There is," said Cullen, still a little mystified at the turn the conversation had taken. He glanced at Mary, who was beaming in jubilant triumph, and then turned to Secrest. "It's even better a few miles west of there: further from the rails and the cultivated country."

"Perfect," declared Jim. "We'll start out first thing. That is if you don't mind putting me up for the night, Miss Mary," he added, a little apologetically.

"Of course I don't!" Mary declared. "I'm afraid there's a draft in the front bedroom, but you may have our bed instead. You won't put us out in the least: we've been sleeping in the nursery since our son took ill."

Cullen's spine stiffened a little at this admission, and he watched to see how Jim would take it. He was not in the least ashamed of the fact that he had been passing his nights in comforting his son, and he didn't care who knew it either. But it was somewhat at odds with the notions of fatherhood that prevailed among the planter classes and the professionals who aspired to move among them. It would tell him a great deal about Secrest to see how he reacted to this.

"Well, if it ain't an imposition that's fine, ma'am," he said. "Though you don't need to worry on my account: I've slept in a draft or two in my time. What's your little boy come down with?"

"Whooping cough," said Cullen. In case the younger man had merely missed what Mary had said, he added; "Poor li'l man can't sleep unless I'm holding him."

Jim clicked his tongue and shook his head regretfully. "That's a bad one," he said. "I hope it ain't too serious."

"The doctor says he's convalescing," Mary said. Her voice held the ill-concealed fervor of one who longs desperately to believe the beautiful dream she seemed to be living. "He was up and playing happily today."

"I'm glad to hear it," Jim said. "I promise I won't keep your husband away more than a few hours."

"You may have him all day if you want him. It will do him good," Mary said earnestly. She turned her head and held Cullen's eyes with a gaze made almost painful by its loving sincerity. "It will do you good," she repeated, murmuring.

Desperate as he had been to accept the offer, Cullen could scarcely argue with the truth in that.


	65. Hunting

**Chapter Sixty-Five: Hunting**

Before dawn Bethel had a hearty breakfast on the table. Cullen and Jim Secrest ate hurriedly but with relish, keeping their voices low out of deference to the sleeping child upstairs. Gabe had passed a fairly peaceful night, awakening with the cough only five times. He was also finding it easier to sleep without sitting almost upright, and his father was therefore able to lounge back at a gentler angle to accommodate the little boy on his chest. Cullen's own cough seemed to be deepening, growing thicker with phlegm and increasingly impossible to control. Twice it had been he, not Gabe, who had roused the occupants of the nursery. Both times Gabe had started right in with the encouraging words, trying to hold Cullen's gaze. It would have been hilariously adorable if only Cullen were not so discomfited to be the cause of such disruption.

Jim professed to have slept through the night without interruption, so that was something. Cullen supposed that without a parent's instinct the muffled hacking and hoarse whoops might not rouse a man – particularly one who had ridden three dozen miles the day before. It seemed a long way to come, whether for hunting or for errands, but he did not question Secrest's reasons. He remembered the cathartic serenity of a solitary ride, just a man and his beloved steed out in the wild country or on a quiet road. Even the short trek into Meridian was a welcome change of pace from daily life.

The two men joined Nate and Elijah in the barn just before daybreak, hastening through the chores and giving Bastion and Pike only a light breakfast. They were eager to set out, and it was best practice to begin a hunt as early in the day as possible, so once the chores were finished they set about saddling their horses. Nate and Elijah, who had gone quietly about their work, muttered respectful good wishes before leaving the stable. Cullen caught a sidelong glance from Nate, unreadable but unsettling, and it stirred his conscience. He had been neglecting his work all week, first to care for Gabe and then at the doctor's command, but this was something else entirely. He was going off for a morning – perhaps longer – to do something he enjoyed. That he might bring home meat for all of them did not quite compensate for the fact that this was to be a pleasurable outing.

That was ridiculous, he thought in annoyance. He was the master, after all. In the old days he had thought nothing of riding off on such outings whenever the mood took him. Why should he feel guilty now?

When the horses were laden with saddlebags and feed sacks, leather canteens of water and hanks of rope and rifles in their slender leather holsters hanging at the right shoulder, the two men led them out into the gray glow of dawn. Cullen adjusted his hunting belt, which was hanging too low on his hips. He had fastened it at the usual hole, but it seemed he had shed a little flesh since spring. He snugged it properly, slipping the knife-sheath back to its proper place and settling the small cartridge pouch just behind the crest of his right hip. At Mary's insistence he was wearing his second-best topcoat, but he had left it unbuttoned so it would not hamper him. Though he was neatly dressed in some of his older day clothes, he had decided not to bring his watch. They would come back when they felt like it, or when they had a bit of luck. Time was meaningless on the trail.

"Ready?" asked Jim. He had been snugging up the straps that held his gun in place, and he slapped Bastion's flank fondly.

Cullen's lips curled into a broad grin. "More ready 'n you'll ever know," he said. Then in a single lithe motion he planted his riding boot securely into the left stirrup and swung into the saddle. Pike snorted eagerly, and from within the barn Bonnie gave an indignant whinny as she heard the jangle of the tack. She resented being left behind, and understandably so – but she just wasn't patient enough to be a good hunting horse.

Jim mounted too, more gracefully than his skinny frame would have suggested. His teeth showed bright in the gloom as he smiled. "Lead on," he said. "You know the land 'round here better than I do."

Feeling his blood rising hot and eager for a taste of liberty, Cullen tightened his grip on the reins and pressed his knees against Pike's flanks. The Morgan nickered triumphantly and started off at a proud trot down the lane and around the house, along the garden fence and out towards the pasture where Meg was settling the cows on their picket-lines. Flora, heavy in the last weeks before calving, trundled obediently after her trusted caretaker and halted patiently when Meg stopped to curtsy. Cullen waved to her, and she raised her hand in acknowledgment.

"Good huntin', Mist' Cullen!" she called, her voice ringing clear in the dewy air. She sounded more cheerful than she had since her misadventure at Hartwood – or perhaps Cullen's own high spirits were merely coloring her words. "You bring us back sumthin' nice, now!"

"I'll try!" he shouted back, but the horses were already cresting the rise and the woman soon vanished from sight.

"They all think mighty highly of you," Jim said, raising his voice over the whistle of the wind. "Your slaves, I mean. It ain't put-on respect they got: it's real."

"I try my best," said Cullen. "I ain't wealthy, but it don't seem to trouble 'em much."

"That's good." Jim shifted in the saddle, settling into a more natural stance. "Lot of times niggers can't see the worth in a man that ain't got money or two dozen hands about the place. My brother's slaves don't hardly respect him at all."

"That's a shame," Cullen said politely. He was enjoying the feeling of the cool air on his face, tugging at his collar and rippling through his overgrown hair. His hat sat comfortably across his brow, tilted up to the right at its favorite angle. He drew in a deep breath that filled lungs long stagnant with the heat of the sickroom, and for a glorious moment reveled in the sensation before his diaphragm contracted into a cough.

Pike did not break stride, but he slowed a little as Cullen's left hand dropped the tails of the reins to fumble for his handkerchief. He coughed again, deeply and productively, and reconsidered. He was outdoors and free of the fetters of gentility, in the company of a man who had proved remarkably disinclined to judge him. Instead of dragging out the little square of neatly pressed linen, he leaned right in the saddle, turned his head and spat out the copious mouthful of slick phlegm. He cleared his throat and urged Pike on.

"Sorry 'bout that," he huffed as they drew up beside Secrest and Bastion again. "Got me a bit of a cold."

"Might be what your little boy got," Jim said, undeceived. "You sure you're good to ride out?"

"Hell, yes!" declared Cullen, loosing the lines a little so Pike began to gather speed. "Can't stop me now!"

They were coming up on the property line, and the rail fence that divided the Bohannon plantation from Hartwood. The pasture land ran together here, just past of the stand of wild brush over which there had been such unpleasant wrangling. Even six months ago Cullen would have thought nothing of cutting across a corner of Sutcliffe's property, but experience had made him wary. Casting a long eye down to the southwest, he turned Pike sharply to canter along the fence instead of sailing blithely over it. Jim followed his lead, making a neat arc that brought Bastion's hooves artfully but not perilously near to Pike's. Coattails flapped and trailing reins jounced as the horses gathered speed. On they rode towards the north fence and the border of the far more tolerant Mr. Washburn's plantation.

_*discidium*_

Gabe's chest heaved, sore ribs burning fiercely as he choked up a mouthful of mucus into the handkerchief Mama held for him. The last awful effort was worth it, however, for it cleared his throat and made it possible for him to gasp in a real breath instead of one of the high, painful whoops that never gave him the relief they promised. Greedily he gulped again, wheezing feebly, and then fell back against his mother's body with a heavy sigh, eyes falling heavily closed.

"There, my brave little man," Mama applauded quietly, smoothing his brow with a cool, gentle hand. "All finished."

"Dat a bad one," Gabe huffed, still breathless in the wake of the fit. "Hurts me bad, Mama."

Her fingers moved to press his side, easing the cramping misery in the muscles that wrapped his chest. "I'm sorry, dearest," she murmured. "Perhaps we could bandage you a little more snugly."

Gabe nodded his assent, still reluctant to open his eyes. He felt safe and cozy and comfortable in Mama's eyes, even if he _was_ aching from his shoulders to his hips. It was wonderful to be able to snuggle in close without feeling too hot. His head didn't hurt him anymore, either, except right when he was coughing and he couldn't get any air. Just a couple of days ago it had pained him all the time, except maybe when he fell asleep cuddled against Pappy. He wasn't sure where Pappy had got too: they had settled down together after his last nighttime fit, but Gabe had woken up at the awkward angle formed when he tried to lie with his head on the pillow in Mama's lap. It kept the cough away, sort of, but it wasn't as nice as lying on Pappy's strong chest. And sooner or later the cough always _did_ come and catch him, and when that happened he wanted his pappy near.

Repentantly he reached, finding his mother's hand by touch alone, and petted her wrist. He didn't want Mama to think he didn't love her too, or that she didn't help to make the cough easier to bear. Because she _did_. But somehow Gabe didn't feel as scared when his pappy was there, too. This time Pappy hadn't been there, and Gabe had been frightened… because what if the yucky stuff got caught in his throat again and he started to float away and Pappy wasn't there to pull it out? Would he just keep floating and floating until he couldn't remember about Mama and Bethel and nice fluffy hotcakes for breakfast? Would the bad old cough carry him off where he couldn't find his way home?

But the yucky stuff _hadn't _got stuck, and he _hadn't_ floated away, and now Mama was holding him and rubbing his ribs and he felt better. Achy and tired, but much better than before. He opened his eyes again and looked up at Mama's face, her gentle eyes and the soft contour of her cheek and her beautiful nose. Pappy said that: Mama had a beautiful nose. So Gabe knew it must be true.

"What 'bout my med'cine?" he asked. "May I have my med'cine?"

"Not in the daytime, lovey," Mama said patiently. "You mustn't take it too often or it will make you costive."

Mama had used a new word, and it made Gabe curious. He sat up a little, eagerly. "What dat mean?" he asked.

Mama flushed, her cheeks darkening to pink, and she pressed her lips together regretfully. "Well…" she began, a little uneasy. "Do you remember the other medicine, and what it did to you?"

Gabe nodded solemnly. "I maked a mess in my pants," he said. Since Pappy had explained to him that the mishap was not his fault, he found it much easier to talk about. It felt good to say it like that, as if it didn't matter at all.

"Yes," Mama breathed. She was still blushing furiously. "Well, _costive_ is when the opposite happens."

He frowned. "An' what _dat_ mean?" he asked. "Oppy-sit."

"It means… well… it means exactly the reverse," said Mama. "_Hot _is the opposite of _cold_, and _dark_ is the opposite of _bright_. _Up_ is the opposite of _down._"

"An' co'tive is de oppy-sit of maked-a-mess-in-de-pants?" said Gabe curiously. He looked down at his lap thoughtfully. "Ain't dat jus' _not _makin' a mess in de pants?"

Mama sighed helplessly. "Not precisely," she said with a feeble half-gesture. "Never mind, dearest: it isn't important."

"But what it mean, den?" Gabe pressed. She had him wondering now, and he wasn't going to let her go until she explained herself.

"It isn't nice to talk about," Mama protested.

"Den why you talkin' 'bout it?" he demanded, flapping his hand in exasperation. Her helpless expression was so piteous that he relented and reached to pat her cheek. "Don' worry, Mama," he pledged. "I ain't goin' make a mess in my pants no more."

She sighed, shaking her head. "That isn't the point, darling," she sighed. Then she kissed the crown of his head. "The point is that you may have some soothing syrup at bedtime, but not now. I could put some liniment on if you like, before we get you dressed."

"Dat might be nice," Gabe conceded generously. Then a brilliant idea struck him. "I kin allus ask Pappy what co'tive mean." He shifted in Mama's lap, getting his feet under him. "I's goin' ask him right now!"

But Mama curled her arm around him and drew him back into her lap. The gentle pressure took the worst of the pain out of his ribs, and he hummed happily. "You can't ask him, dearest. Pappy's gone hunting with Mr. Secrest."

This was tremendously interesting; much more interesting than the nonsensical talk about medicine and opposites. Gabe perked up. "Wid his gun?" he asked. "Is Pappy goin' shoot a bear?"

"Maybe," said Mama. "If he happens to find one. I think they're looking for deer instead."

"Ooh! Deer be mighty fast!" Gabe told her. Ladies didn't know much about hunting. "He goin' take Bonnie?"

"Pike," said Mama. "Pappy says that Pike is a better horse for hunting, because he isn't so impatient."

"I's patient!" proclaimed Gabe proudly. "I's _real_ patient! Why ain't Pappy takin' me?"

Mama smoothed his hair, brushing it up out of his eyes. Gabe was glad: it was long and it tickled when it got in the way. "You're too small, dear," she said. "And you aren't well."

"Pappy ain't well, neider," Gabe argued. "De bad ol' cough get him, too. He coughed an' he coughed, an' he couldn' bree'd. Jus' like me."

Mama's brows furrowed and she suddenly looked sad. "Yes, I know," she murmured. "But I think it will do Pappy good to go hunting today. Much more good than cutting timber or making hay."

"But why ain't he tooked _me_?" Gabe pressed. "It goin' do _me _good, too!"

"When you're older, dearest," Mama promised. "When you learn how to ride a horse and shoot a gun, then Pappy can take you hunting."

"I's got a gun!" This time when he wriggled off of her lap Mama let him go. He marched over to his toychest and brought out his popgun, slinging it over his shoulder like one of the little blue soldiers. "See? It a good gun. If a bear come, I's goin' shoot it. I's goin' shoot de Redcoats, too."

Mama smiled proudly, and Gabe puffed out his chest. "It's a fine gun, darling, but it only shoots pretend bears and pretend deer."

"An' pretend Redcoats," said Gabe. But he knew all Redcoats were pretend Redcoats: there weren't any anymore. The war for Independence was over and the People were free.

"That's right," said Mama. "When you are older, Pappy can teach you how to shoot a real gun."

"How much older?" asked Gabe. "I's pretty old now."

"Perhaps when you're seven or eight," Mama declared. "Certainly you need to learn how to ride first, and for that your legs must grow long enough to sit on Pike."

"But I _does_ sit on Pike!" Gabe argued. Mama kept bringing up all these irrelevant points, like she didn't even want him to go hunting with his pappy. "My legs jus' sticks out."

"Well, they need to reach the stirrups," said Mama. She cupped her hand under his chin and tilted his face up towards hers. She was smiling tenderly. "Don't worry, dearest. You'll be all grown up in no time, and then you may go hunting. In the meantime, Bethel has made some wonderful hotcakes for your breakfast, and we need to get you dressed first so that you can go downstairs. It's churning day today: there'll be fresh buttermilk at dinnertime."

Gabe smacked his lips happily. He loved hotcakes, and he loved buttermilk, too. He flung his popgun carelessly on the bed and started rucking up his nightshirt. "Mama, you he'p pull it," he said, half asking and half commanding. She complied.

_*discidium*_

They reached the edge of the backwoods before the rosy glow had faded from the sky. The first thousand acres of this stretch of land belonged to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, bought up in anticipation of future growth, but no effort had been made to clear it yet. The forest was dense, old pine growth choked thick with birch and slippery elm. Cullen's own experience in cutting stovewood in the creek-bottom told him that it would be hard labor indeed to render this land fit for planting or other development. The hauling of the stumps alone would take dozens of mule teams and years of diligent work. For the time being, it was cheaper to leave the land untouched.

Beyond the railroad holdings, the woods stretched on. Here and there were small homesteads, carved out of the brush in isolated clearings just as the Bohannon land once had been long ago. But Cullen's grandfather had had money and slaves to aid him in his effort to shape civilization from wilderness: the green settlers and the trappers and woodsmen had neither. They scraped out their modest rings of land and they worked it as best they could, supplementing their gardens with the gains of gun or axe. Few of them owned slaves; still fewer could read and write. Theirs was a hard life, but not without its recompense. They owned little, and were therefore taxed little. They were spared the anxieties and strain of raising a cash crop. They might not see fifty dollars in a year, but neither were they burdened by debt.

Certainly they lived amid some of the richest game land in Lauderdale County. At this early hour the squirrels were chittering and the birds singing shrilly in the canopy. As the two horses trotted spryly through the undergrowth a raccoon, disturbed on his homeward journey, scampered off into a cluster of low-lying brambles. Cullen reined Pike close, slowing him a little. Jim did the same.

"Looks like the right sort of country," he said, keeping his voice low. The horses moved on, steady and calm. Bonnie would have been tugging at the bit, eager for the challenge of navigating the maze of trunks at speed.

"I've had luck out here before," Cullen agreed. Then for a long while there was amicable silence. There was nothing that needed to be said: two men out in the cool of a November morning, eyes sharp on the lookout for game. They understood one another perfectly, and neither wished to startle any deer that might be wandering nearby. The game in the county was still plentiful, but skittish. Human voices would spook them.

As they drew deeper into the woods, Jim slipped his gun out of its sheath and settled it across the horn of his saddle. It was a handsome Springfield, still with the factory shine on the muzzle. Powder burns on the hammer showed that Secrest was familiar with the weapon, but it was obviously a recent acquisition. Cullen reached for his own rifle and nodded appreciatively.

"Nice piece," he said. "Lawyering mustn't pay too badly."

Jim grinned proudly. "Mail-order from Massachusetts," he said. "Accurate to five hundred yards."

Cullen nodded appreciatively, slowing Pike to a walk as he checked his weapon. He had given it a thorough cleaning and inspection last night, but it paid to be meticulous. Everything seemed to be in order, and he settled the weapon comfortably, hand on the stock and butt resting against his thigh.

On they rode, staggered now so as to avoid any risk of Secrest's rifle firing with Cullen and Pike in the way. Privileged with the left-hand position, Cullen kept scanning the trees for signs of movement. They crossed several well-worn runs, and followed a trail of nibbled underbrush for a while, but found no fresh droppings nor any clear sign of game. The sun climbed higher, and with every passing minute the prime window was closing, but Cullen did not care. There was something exquisitely peaceful about moving through the trees with Pike's sturdy back beneath him. The light played upon the yellowing leaves of the birches and cast enchanting shadows in the pines. The air was clean, without the myriad smells of house and farmyard. There was no sharp pong of cow dung, no faintly bitter green scent of turnip-tops, no spice of smoke from a tobacco kiln, no reek of medicine, no sweet smells of baking… nothing but the pine pitch and the crisp autumn air and the damp of the forest floor.

Jim was a perfect hunting partner. He understood, as so many did not, that stalking was an opportunity for contemplation as much as for seeking one's prey. It was a time to be still within oneself, shriven of the burdens of daily life and simply present in the stillness of the woods. Now and then a few brief words passed between them, usually pursuant to some trail or faint sign, but for the most part they rode in silence. Pike and Bastion, as accustomed to one another's' presence as if they had been reared together, carried their masters with swift surety and responded to the faintest command or lightest touch. There was a primal glory to moving like this, united with his steed and severed from his responsibilities, that made Cullen feel as if years of care had fallen from his shoulders.

So it was almost a shock when Jim reined to a halt, removed the firing cap from his rifle, and said affably; "What's say we stop and have a bite to eat?"

Cullen looked around, momentarily dazed, and then shrugged. They were in a clearing where lightning had struck sometime last year: the ground was green with new growth, and charred trunks still canted here and there against one another. He nudged Pike forward another few steps to where a sturdy sapling stood stretching towards the sky, and dismounted. Jim did the same, and they tied off the horses. Each was given his nosebag, and settled happily to feed. The men wandered on a little farther, where a patch of convivial sunlight met a fallen log, and sat.

Bethel had packed a plentiful dinner, and soon they were eating. Cullen was surprised to find that a morning of leisurely riding raised just as much of an appetite as a day in the fields, and for a while made no attempt to engage in conversation. Jim appeared to feel the same way, and it was not until Cullen was peeling his second hard-cooked egg that he broke the silence.

"You got a fine seat in the saddle," he said. "What's say after this we find somewhere to do a bit of jumping?"

"There's a creek somewhere northeast of here," Cullen said. "On the other side it's hilly: meadows and blackberry thickets. Think that beast of yours can jump a wild blackberry?"

"Depends what's on the other side," Jim chuckled. "I know we ain't likely to find fences out here, but if we get a bit of open country we could race."

Cullen shook his head ruefully, swallowing the urge to counter this with a boast about Pike's speed. He felt like he was twenty again, tearing around the county in the company of the other young men without a care in the world. "Sure, we could race," he said. "Hunting's just about done for the day."

"Sorry 'bout that," said Jim. "I think Miss Mary had her heart set on you bringing home some game."

"I could always bag a couple of squirrels," Cullen said, only half-joking. He shied away from tallying up the days until butchering time. He was away from the plantation: couldn't he let its worries go for a while?

"He seems like an obedient horse," Jim remarked, nodding at Pike. "You train him up yourself?"

"Some," said Cullen. "He was carriage-broke when I bought him. Three years old. I taught him the finer points of taking a rider, how to ground-tether, how to jump. Mary's got him accomplished in carrying a lady, too. Mary's a good rider. Not just by city standards, neither."

"I believe it," said Jim. He was still studying the Morgan thoughtfully. "What's his endurance like?"

"Takes the six miles to Meridian at a good gallop without breaking a sweat," said Cullen. "Full speed wears him a little harder, but so far as I know he can trot all day without tiring. Ain't had the chance to get either of the horses out as much as I'd like to this year, but maybe when harvest time is over I can put that right."

There it was again; the plantation and its constant nagging list of labors creeping into his thoughts. Cullen grimaced and turned his head away from the other man as the belligerent cough reared up again. It rose this time into a full-fledged fit that jarred his bones and filled his vision with black spots. When at last he was able to breathe again and to make sense of his surroundings, he found Jim Secrest looking at him in anxious alarm.

"You ain't consumptive, is you?" he asked.

Cullen shook his head, still wheezing shallowly. "You had it right before," he croaked. "It's the same thing my boy's got. Whooping cough. Doc says it'll be over in a couple weeks."

He was stretching the truth a little, but after all a man had his pride. Secrest offered a sympathetic half-smile. "Sounds painful," he said.

"It ain't, not for me," said Cullen. "Now, my boy, he says it hurts him in the ribs. Ain't surprising. In a kid that age they're just as skinny as slate-pencils. He's a brave little man, though. Don't hardly complain at all."

"I'd like to have me a boy someday," Jim reflected. He grinned and shrugged. "Guess I'd best look for a wife first. Now my mother's dead there ain't no one to needle me 'bout getting married."

"Didn't have no one to needle _me_," Cullen said. "One day you'll just wake up and realize you're ready: that the girl you been flirting with is the right one after all."

"How'd you know she was the one?" asked Jim. "I mean, you must've had one or two local belles swaying their petticoats in your direction. Why a Yankee?"

"Mary was special," Cullen said inadequately. He closed his eyes, drawn back through the years to the spring of 1855 and the dinner party at the Tate home. He had been paired with one of Mary's Howard cousins, a silly girl with bashful eyelashes and an unfortunate habit of tittering behind her fan. Her practiced coquetry had lacked even the polish of the Mississippi girls, and it had irritated him thoroughly. But Mary's clear eyes and forthright smile had enchanted him, drawing his eye first up the table and then across the ballroom and finally into matrimony.

He broke the spell of the memory and clapped the younger man companionably on the shoulder. "Don't worry," he said. "When you find the right woman, you'll know. The trick then is to do something about it without acting a fool."

"Well, anyway I got more pressing business than courting these days," said Secrest. He helped himself to another spear of roasted parsnip and munched ponderously. "What's his nerves like?"

For a moment Cullen was perplexed by the pronoun, but then he realized the man was looking at Pike again. "Steady as steel," he said. "Him and Bonnie both. Even the train don't worry 'em."

"Fire your rifle right off his back?" asked Jim.

"Wouldn't be much of a hunting horse if I couldn't," said Cullen. He grinned lopsidedly. "If you's looking to buy him, I ain't selling."

"Doubt I could afford him," Jim said cheerfully. "No, it's…" He twisted his shoulders to look at Cullen. "You ever given much thought to the defense of this state?"

Cullen took off his hat and dusted it on his knee. He supposed the whole county was abuzz with talk of states' rights and Northern arrogance, but in two weeks he had scarcely seen a soul but Doc Whitehead. Even his Election Day conversations had seemed to revolve around more personal matters: Brannan's election, Gabe's illness, and the situation with Boyd's children. To a town lawyer like Secrest, politics had probably taken on a vast importance.

"Can't say that I have," he said.

"Well, I been doing a lot of thinking," said Secrest; "and so have a lot of the other boys 'round Scooba. Do you know Mississippi ain't got a proper militia? Oh, there's the garrisons at Vicksburg and Natchez, and the detachments of the army in Jackson—"

"And the soldiers overseeing the construction at Fort Massachusetts," Cullen added. "I was just talking to my boy about that when you showed up yesterday."

"Right," Jim agreed. "But those are all federal troops. Mississippi-born, some of 'em, but a lot of 'em ain't. And we ain't got an organized state militia at all."

"What about the Hundred and Fifty-Fifth?" asked Cullen. "Don't they count?"

"They's part of the United States Army," said Secrest. "And they's a hundred and fifty miles away. If trouble comes, are you going to leave the defense of your home and family to some federal regiment based a hundred and fifty miles away?"

"If trouble comes, I'm going to defend my home and family myself," said Cullen, reaching to pat his rifle where it lay propped against the log.

"I hear that," Secrest said. "And I'd lay good odds on you against a couple of Indians or some no-'ccount thief, but what about a whole platoon? What about a battalion? What then?"

"You think the US Army is going to attack Mississippi, then?" Cullen asked. "I ain't been keeping abreast of the news out of Jackson: are we going to secede?"

"They're debating it now, so far as I know," said Jim. "The papers are full of talk. It's an outrage, the way this election came out. Do you know Lincoln didn't get a single electoral vote in Mississippi? Not one. There ain't a county in the state where he got a popular majority, and it's the same all over the South. A lot of places his name weren't even on the ballot, or nobody bothered to hand out Republican tickets!"

"Nobody bothered because there were thugs waiting outside the polling offices to beat the Republican sentiments out of anyone fool enough to try it," Cullen scoffed. "Anybody fool enough to want an abolitionist vote down here ain't quite fool enough to make a show of it."

"All the same, we got us an abolitionist president," said Secrest; "and folks ain't going to stand for it. Why should we have a man in power that not a one of us voted for? Why should we be a part of a Union that don't value our say? The cotton states, we got four-fifths of the agricultural wealth in this country. Northern industry couldn't run without us. Northern politicians couldn't line their pockets without our tax money. We got some of the richest land in the world. We got the country's greatest thinkers, her great statesmen. We got most of the oldest families in the nation. Hell, Washington was born in Virginia!"

Cullen was beginning to feel that stir of pride again, the same pride he had felt on Election Day, reading the Senator's statement to the press. He flung the crust of his bread into the grass and sat up straighter. "That's true," he said levelly. "All of that's true. Don't seem like we got any choice but to secede, if this is how they's goin' treat us. Senator Davis hisself said we got to put Mississippi's honor first, before her pledge to the Union."

"'Be true to thyself, and to thine own self be true'," Jim declared vehemently. "It's going to happen, Cullen: it's just a matter of time. The Legislature will vote to secede, and when it does, Mississippi has to be ready. We got to be prepared to stand up for ourselves, maybe even to stand alone if Alabama and Georgia and the Carolinas ain't got the backbone. You know the blood gets thinner the further east you go."

"You watch yourself," Cullen said playfully. "My mother came from Charleston."

"But you know what I mean!" cried Jim. "We're a young state, a brave state! We took this land from the Indians, and we made it our own. We ain't about to let it be trod under by some Republican nobody who ain't never been south of St. Louis! What's he know 'bout our life here? 'Bout the way our people get on? 'Bout what it takes to build something up in this country?"

"Nothing," spat Cullen, thinking of his brother-in-law. Jeremiah Tate didn't even understand how his own sister lived, never mind every man in the South. He didn't know a damned thing about Mississippi or Mississippians. All he knew how to do was turn up his nose in a show of false piety and pick at the faults of others while his own went untended. There was something in the Bible about that, but he couldn't remember the verse. Bethel would know it. But Cullen didn't suppose a Northern Republican president would know any more or judge any less than one of his partisan followers.

"Exactly!" Secrest was warming into his speech now, exhibiting a furor that had been markedly absent in his political discussions at the Ainsley party back in August. In his flashing eyes and his vehement gestures he was Mississippi personified: convivial and compromising for too long, now pushed past reason into passion by the extremity of this outrage.

Cullen's own pulse was hammering hard in his ears and the arteries of his neck. "We can't stand for it," he said, his voice taking on a low and dangerous lilt that he could not hear. "We got to make ourselves heard."

"Yes!" cried Jim. "_Yes_! And when we do – 'cause we will – we got to be ready to be an independent state. That means a militia. A _real_ militia, with companies in every county. We ain't going to make it with one infantry regiment. We need foot-soldiers, cavalry, artillery, and we need 'em _here_. That's why I come down to talk to you, Cullen."

"You want me to help you organize a militia?" Cullen asked.

Secrest shook his head. "It's already happening. There's been talk since the election; really, since the Democrats split, but I didn't truly believe that Republican ape would have a chance. Nobody did. Nobody'd even heard of him before: some state politician from Illinois. I heard his father was just a poor farmer."

Deep in Cullen's mind the unsettling thought rose that someday people might say the very same thing about his own son. He buried it beneath a wave of jingoistic indignation. It was easier to rage against the injustices of politics than the miseries of daily life. "So there are going to be companies mustered," he said.

"Yes," Jim declared, jerking his head in a terse nod. "Robert Perrin – he's one of our local planters, about your age – he's talking about organizing a cavalry company. Only the best riders, with a real knowledge of horseflesh. Only the best men. Thing of it is, we'll be lucky to get thirty. I want you."

Cullen could not help but chuckle. "Jim, you don't hardly know me."

"I's seen enough," he said fiercely. "You got courage, you got a solid seat in the saddle, and if everything you say 'bout them Morgans is true, you got two first-rate mounts. If we do come across a buck, you can show me how you are with that rifle, but I ain't never met a Mississippi man couldn't shoot what he was aiming at."

From the trees ringing the clearing came the shrill chatter of a squirrel. The debate about a wasted cartridge scarcely lingered in Cullen's mind. His hands were empty and his gun was ready. He had the sharps on his shoulder and levelled at the knotty elm, its near branches barren and scorched by the heat of last year's fire. The noisy visitor was sitting on the branch, turning something in its tiny forepaws. Left eye closed, right eye keenly focused, Cullen adjusted his weapon slightly to the left of the target to account for the breeze, and pulled the trigger. A hundred and fifty yards away, the squirrel fell like a stone.

Jim whistled his approval. "Wouldn't have put money on that shot," he said. "Weren't more than five seconds from me closing my mouth to you pulling that trigger, and the thing wasn't even in your hand."

Cullen shrugged. "You got to be quick," he said. "Ever hunted snipe?"

"Sure," said Jim. "With my gun at the ready. I knew you was just the sort of man we're wanting."

"Maybe," said Cullen, unable to quite keep the smirk from twitching at his mustache. "But you ain't got no proof that I'm brave."

"The hell I don't," Jim laughed. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands dangling between as he fixed Cullen with an earnest look. "The day I met you, you was at Mr. Axeworthy's party—"

"Ainsley," Cullen corrected reflexively. The younger man scarcely seemed to have heard him.

"—in a watered silk vest and an evening coat three years behind the fashion," he went on seamlessly. "You was smiling and making conversation, walking around like you owned the place. And every single one of them old-money hundred-hand entitled landowners and their wives knew you'd been out working your own tobacco. Didn't stop you from sitting at that table like you had a silver spoon in your mouth, or taking over the dance floor with your beautiful wife. You didn't give a damn what they thought of you, and you didn't give a damn what they might say. That's real courage, and let me tell you I ain't got it."

Cullen chuckled, waving his hand self-deprecatingly. "Courage in the face of the county peahens ain't the same as courage in the face of a cannon," he said. "Might be I ain't made of what you think I am."

"Might be," said Secrest. "But I'd be willing to take the chance."

There was nothing but sincerity in his voice, and nothing but admiration in his eyes. It was a curious thing to experience, this complete confidence in his abilities from one who scarcely knew him. Every virtue the man had enumerated was something Cullen could chalk up to either habit or necessity. He was a good shot because he liked to shoot, and from early boyhood had delighted in honing his skills. He was a good rider because he had good horses and expected the best from them. And if he had been courageous at Boyd's anniversary party, it was because his obligation to his friend and to Mary had forced him to carry off the evening with whatever aplomb he could muster. Cowardice had not been an option, however uncomfortable and humiliated he had felt.

Yet before Jim Secrest's assurance, Cullen felt his own self-doubts fading away. There was a not-insignificant part of him that longed to believe what the other man was saying, and all of him felt obligated to rise to meet his expectations. Still, he could not accept the other man's invitation without one further caveat.

"I don't know much about cavalry maneuvers," he said.

A waft of Jim's right hand blew that objection away. "None of us do!" he laughed. "Nobody except old Ezekiah Hoskins. He was a farrier's boy in the Mexican War, and he's all the military experience we got. But we got Perrin and his determination, and we got a baker's dozen of young men willing to try their best. We'll get more, too, and if I get you at least I know there'll be one level head in the bunch. Say you'll do it?"

The temptation was extraordinary, and a few minutes before Cullen might have pledged himself wholeheartedly. But the ghost of his own failings, both personal and financial, had dimmed his patriotic ardor somewhat, and brought him down from the dangerous heights of passion into the valley of sober second thought.

"Let me have some time to think about it," he said. "I assume you'll be mustering at Scooba? That's a long way to go to attend meetings."

"Thirty-six miles," Jim said dismissively. "You can make it in a morning on horseback. Two hours by rail. You'll be able to board with me if you got to stay overnight. Think about it if you have to, but just you remember I asked you first. I don't want no Lauderdale County upstart poaching you away."

"I'll give you my word," said Cullen. "If I do join up it'll be with you." He offered his hand and Jim shook it vigorously. Cullen returned it to his lap, staring down at the calloused palm. "Then you think they'll be mustering troops 'round here, too," he muttered.

"I'd be surprised if it ain't started all ready," said Jim. "Ain't you heard nothing?"

Cullen shook his head. "Might as well be living on the tip of Florida, I been that buried," he said. "Sick child don't leave much time for catching up on the county gossip."

"Well, I'm relieved I got to you first," Jim said. "I half expected to hear you'd started up your own company."

Cullen threw back his head and laughed, a deep, cleansing laugh that should have – but did not – awaken a fit of violent coughing. "Who in their right mind'd follow me?" he asked good-naturedly.


	66. A Fortunate Man

_Note: Once again, period sensibilities prevail. I do not recommend this approach to feeding your dog, and I ESPECIALLY do not recommend this treatment of loaded firearms in a house with small children._

**Chapter Sixty-Six: A Fortunate Man**

The hay crackled beneath Meg's feet as she trampled it down in the bed of the buckboard, dancing out of the way as Nate flung another forkful on the growing heap. The mules, standing indifferently in the traces, were grazing without regard for the two slaves. The afternoon sun was bright and the air was warm. With last night's rain Meg had expected the day to prove too wet for haymaking, but by midmorning the dew had vanished and Elijah had gone to hitch up the team. Now he was in the tobacco barn, and Nate had taken over the pitchfork. He was working in sullen silence, and that troubled Meg. Tossing hay was a task that demanded a rhythm, and rhythm was an invitation to song, but Nate was silent. For the first hour Meg had tried to sing alone, moving from melody to melody, but without someone to call back the responses or ground the swinging spirituals with a strong bass line it was pointless. Then for a long while she had tried simply working in silence, spreading and packing the hay with bare brown feet and feeling the sun on her hands and face. But now they were on their third load, and she could bear it no longer. When Nate turned to gather another heap of hay she moved to the side of the wagon, gripping one of the poles lashed to its sides to support the mound as it rose above the level of the box.

"You been stewin' like a toad all day," she said, in a stern no-nonsense tone she had learned from Bethel. "You tell me what been eatin' at you, or I's goin' go an' fetch Elijah an' let him cope with your sulkiness."

"I ain't sulkin'," Nate muttered, thrusting the tines deep into the demolished haystack and flinging his load high over his head. Most of it sailed in a clump, but loose straws rained down in an arc, falling on the shorn ground and Meg's shoulders. One brushed down the length of her nose and she snorted, ostensibly to dislodge it.

"Sure you ain't," she said. Her feet were sinking deep in the hay, and she flung her leg over the side of the buckboard, lowering herself carefully to sit with one foot dangling low and the other knee up near her chest. Her skirt stretched perilously, rucking up over her lower ankle, but she didn't care. It was only Nate, after all, who could see her. "You's jus' been scowlin' an' quiet-like on account you hates haymakin' so much."

He glowered at her indignantly, looking remarkably like the stubborn young man her mother had pointed out to her as a nigger looking for trouble. As a girl Meg had enjoyed teasing him, because he never failed to bridle against it. The other boys, the ones long ago sold away for debts, had only ever laughed at her like she was nothing but a child. There had been a curious power in her ability to get a rise out of Nate, and ashamed though she would have been to admit it she felt that same girlish glee right now.

"You rather go an' shovel out the dung-heap int' the tobacco fields?" she asked sweetly. "We surely could do that. Or maybe you'd like to get a start in on the plowin' all on your own? Maybe you doesn' like bein' out in the clean air an' sunshine?"

"I likes it fine," said Nate without a glimmer of a smile. "Beats breakin' my back pickin' them leaves, or standin' knee-deep in the muck diggin' yams."

"Then why you so black-eyed an' bitter today?" Meg cajoled. She swung her hanging foot so that her instep brushed the smooth, weathered edge where the wagon box met the bottom. "You wants me to take a turn pitchin', an' you get up here an' dance?"

Nate shook his head, and his expression of displeasure softened marginally to one of grim concern. "You's goin' tear open them hurts if'n you tries that," he said. "Strains the skin of _my_ back to do it, an' I ain't marked up."

Meg's cheeks burned hot and her playful mood dissolved. For the first time in many weeks she had felt young and cheerful again, her own troubles forgotten and the larger worries allayed a little. Mister Gabe was not so sickly now, and Bethel said the worst was behind him. No one else but the master had shown any signs of coming down with the kink cough, and the harvest-time labors had all been proceeding smoothly since the panic to save the yams. Best of all, Mister Cullen had rode out this morning to go hunting. Meg hoped he would bring home a great big buck to feed them all for a fortnight or more, but even if he didn't it had cheered her to see him galloping off on Pike with the visitor beside him. When they had passed her as she led the cows out to pasture Meg had caught a good glimpse of Mister Cullen's face. He had looked eager, joyful, and free from care for the first time since transplanting – maybe since last harvest. Seeing him like that had made her believe that everything was going to be fine after all.

But now Nate had said _that_, and she was thinking again of her scored, scarred back. The whip-wheals had healed, all but one that still wept thin pus now and then from beneath a scab that never quite seemed to harden. The fresh scars itched from time to time, and there were a couple that pained her if she lay the wrong way in bed or hefted something onto her back without care. Physically they were not much of an impediment, but there were times – like this – when suddenly she could feel every stripe as if it were raw and fresh once more, and she seemed lost in the terror and shame of that awful night and the bitter dawn that followed. Meg felt her stomach shrivel, and she clutched the rim of the wagon box with one quaking hand while the other tightened its grip on the post and made it rattle.

Suddenly the pitchfork was on the ground and Nate was reaching up to her, coarsened fingers gripping her elbow while the other hand braced her hip. "Here," he said, voice at once so gentle that it hardly seemed to belong to the same sullen man who had been speaking a moment before. "Here, I didn't mean to talk 'bout it. Come down from there, Meg. Come down: you's goin' fall."

"I can't," she gasped shallowly. A band of hot iron seemed to be squeezing her chest, and her vision was blurred. She knew that she was quaking like a pine needle in a hurricane, but she could not stop it. "I can't."

"Sure you can," Nate soothed. His hand had migrated down her arm somehow, and he was working her fingers loose of their death-grip on the board. They scrabbled, searching for something else to grasp, and he guided her wrist so that they closed on his shoulder. "Good girl," he murmured. "Now the other one. Come on."

He could not reach her other hand: she was too high up. Somehow this thought was enough to give her the strength to release her clawing digits, but she almost toppled to the ground in her haste to reach for him. Her hand closed on the hard muscle of his upper arm, digging in fiercely but making scarcely a dent. He had a hand on either side of her waist now, and the right one moved to guide her higher leg over the box. Then, strong and sure as a bachelor boosting a belle down from a carriage he held her as she alighted. Meg shrank back against the wagon box, needing its firm support to keep her upright, and clung desperately to his arms as her knees buckled and trembled and then finally stiffened and were still. For a long while she seemed to subsist there, clinging to Nate and fighting for control over her mind as she had fought for control over her body.

Then at last her breathing grew deep and level again, and the pounding in her temples quieted, and she could see again. And what she saw was Nate, kind and faithful Nate, standing so near to her that the front of his shirt very nearly brushed her basque, and watching her with anxious concern.

"Is you sick?" he huffed at last. "Does you wan' go back to you' cabin an' lie down?"

"No," sighed Meg, trying to settle her composure into its usual quietude. Her hands released his arms as if of their own accord and moved to smooth her skirts. The gesture was made awkward because his hands were still firm upon her waist, buoying her up lest her own strength should fail her again. "No," she repeated, taking hold of his wrists and pushing them away. With the cuff of her sleeve she blotted the cold sweat from her brow. "I just… I think I need to set down a spell."

"Course," Nate mumbled. "Course you do"

He offered his hand bewilderedly, but Meg shook her head. Carefully she arranged her skirts, lowering herself down right where she stood. The shadow cast by the wagon was lengthening as the sun slipped down towards the western horizon, and the closely cropped grasses were cool and prickly beneath her. Nate took an awkward step backward as she sat, but he hovered close as though begging her to tell him how he might help.

"Could I… a dip of water?" she said vaguely.

Nate understood, of course, and his eyes snapped keenly as he hastened up to the front of the wagon where the drinking pail stood on the seat board. He brought the dipper carefully and she took it, drinking deeply and forcing herself to focus on each minute sensation: the tepid wetness on her lips, the warm flooding of her mouth, the rolling of her tongue as she swallowed and the comfortable, familiar trickle down into her stomach. She closed her eyes, thinking of water and only water: nothing but water. Water and haymaking; just an ordinary day.

"What gone an' put you in such a mood?" she asked when she felt able to look up at Nate again. "Why is you sulkin' today?"

Nate's expression darkened shamefacedly and he cast his eyes away. "Don' matter," he said. "Reckon it foolish aft' what you gots to cope with."

"Never mind me!" Meg cried, more desperation than she had intended flooding into her words. She screwed her eyes closed again. Water, haymaking, and Nate in a sulk. These were easy things to think about. Painless things. "Tell me," she begged, praying he would understand. "Please, you gots to tell me."

"Well…" Nate plopped down in the grass, long legs crossing as he descended. He planted his elbows on his knees, hunching forward and frowning thoughtfully. He studied her face for a moment, eyes searching hers deeply. Then he shook his head. "I's angry," he admitted.

"'Bout what?" Meg pressed, grateful for the distraction. All she wanted was to think of something other than her own haunted memories. Nate's own turmoil made a welcome distraction. Besides, she thought belatedly, it might do him some good to unburden himself to a friend.

"'Bout this business today," Nate grumbled. He looked ashamed, but still resentful. "Mist' Cullen goin' off huntin' with that up-county friend of his."

Meg's little laugh startled her, so unexpected was it in the wake of her fit of terror. "What you got to be angry 'bout that for?" she asked. "Ev'body been sayin' fo' weeks if he could jus' up an' shoot us some game we might be able to keep meat on the table!"

"I know," muttered Nate. He was glaring at his hands now. "I jus' didn' think it'd be like this."

"Like what?" asked Meg.

Nate shrugged. "He ain't been out to work in days. I know Mist' Gabe been sick," he said hastily; "an' I know a sick baby need his pappy. I ain't 'grudgin' him that, an' I ain't 'grudgin' Mist' Cullen fo' setting up with him instead of takin' his turn in the tobacco barn. I don' know much 'bout sick childern, but I knows 'nough to know the folks as is carin' for 'em don' get no sleep doin' it. Hell, I ain't even mad he been up in the house these las' two days on 'ccount he sick himself. But huntin', that sumthin' diff'rent."

"But we need the meat," Meg reasoned, puzzled. Nate had always harbored a private bitterness towards the master, at least as long as Meg had paid attention to such things. But in recent months he had softened, having no doubt come at last to the realization that Mister Cullen was a better man than his father had been, and just as invested in their mutual survival as anyone else on the plantation. This sudden turn to old hurts was strange, especially now when their situation was so precarious.

"It ain't 'bout the meat!" said Nate, eyes blazing briefly before going dull again. He sighed. "He gone out ridin' with a frien' when there be work need doin'. When there be a sick boy in the house, healin' up or not. When the massa hisself ain't well. All them other things he ought be doin', an' he go ridin' off with some man he don' hardly know."

"Firs' he a frien', then he someone Mist' Cullen don' hardly know," said Meg, clicking her tongue. "You's talkin' like a fool."

"I's _feelin'_ like a fool," Nate groused, running his hand through his sun-scorched hair so that the curls stood on end. "I know it don' make no sense, but seein' him ride off this morning… it jus' like the ol' days, Meg. I don' hardly know if you 'member what them days was like."

"I 'member Mist' Cullen insistin' ol' Mist' Bohannon git Peter an' me a real preacher fo' our marryin'," said Meg. "I 'member him havin' to come home from school so his pappy didn' have to sell up me an' my chile to keep him there. I 'member him comin' home from his wild tears an' allus havin' a piece of candy fo' Lottie."

Nate snorted softly and shook his head. "You allus had you a sof' spot fo' him," he said. "You wan' know what _I _'member? I 'member pickin' that damned tobacco year aft' year to pay fo' that schoolin'. Gittin' out bed in the middle of the night aft' workin' all day in the sun, jus' to rub down a horse been rode too hard an' too far by a spoilt fool out drinkin' with other spoilt fools. I 'member when he didn' even know folks was workin' themselves sick jus' so's he could run off whenever he want an' make trouble."

"He ain't like that no more," said Meg gently, thinking fondly of her determined and hardworking master. "He done growed up."

"Sure," said Nate. "Ten years aft' the res' of us got to. I ain't sayin' I don' respect it: ain't hardly a white man in the county coulda done what he done, whether he got the farmin' blood or not. But this mornin'… all I could think was he gone an' slip't right back t'the way things was, as if nuthin' else been changed."

The dipper slipped from Meg's fingers, rolling off of her lap into the stubble of bleached grass. She reached for Nate's hand, stretching far enough to strain the broad scars bisecting her shoulder blade. Her fingers curled around his, feeling the heat of conflicted discontentment beneath his skin. She smiled for him as he looked up at her, but she knew her smile was sad.

"I know it weren't never so easy for you as it been for me," she said softly. "Not the life you's had to life, not the work you's had to do, not the load you's had to tote. But you gots to forgive them hurts, Nate. Lord Jesus say you gots to forgive."

"I cain't," he said hoarsely, shaking his head. "I cain't forgive wrongs that ain' been put right. I ain't… ain't bitter like I was, maybe. Not all the time. An' I knows the massa ain't to blame fo' it all. But it wrong, Meg. It wrong, an' nuthin' goin' change that while we ain' free. 'Til the day come I's 'llowed to decide I's goin' ride off huntin', there ain't goin' be no real forgiveness."

Meg felt the crawling itch in the web carved into her flesh, and she understood.

_*discidium*_

Gabe was lying on the récamier in the kitchen, half-asleep after an exhausting coughing fit that had cost him the contents of his stomach. He had a cool cloth upon his brow, and his little booted feet were tucked up under his bottom. The orange light of sunset stained the room in vivid hues that reminded Mary of the glory of autumn in New York State. She missed the lingering glory of Indian summer and the rich smoky scent that came before the first real snowstorm. There were compensations for these losses, of course: living in Mississippi, she never had to trundle out to the necessary house through four feet of snow, or feel the bite of sub-zero winds in her eyes and nostrils. She shuddered at the thought of Cullen and the others going out in a Northern blizzard to see to the stock, and repented her nostalgia immediately.

Bethel was mixing dough for buttermilk biscuits, for despite her intention to be more sparing with the flour there was a guest to feed tonight. The question of meat was still unresolved, the men not having returned from their hunt. Ordinarily venison was left to hang for a day or two before butchering, but Mary knew that if he did have luck Cullen would not want to wait. She did not want him to, either. The thought of fresh meat made her mouth water. She had not realized how much she had truly appreciated Nate's rabbits.

Mary had just put the finishing touches on a blackberry cobbler, and it was now beginning to bake. The sweet smell rose above the familiar wood-smoke scent and made her mouth water. Gabe had taken some food at four o'clock when Lottie came in to fetch the basket for the field hands, but Mary had not thought to eat herself. Now she was fairly ravenous, and the constant tantalizing possibility that Cullen might bring home a deer was only making it worse.

"I'll go and set the table, I think," she said, plucking at the edge of the apron that guarded her best work-dress from wayward splashes. "I don't know quite when the men will be back, but I would prefer to have it done before they arrive."

"No need fo' that, Missus," Bethel said, shaping a biscuit expertly and settling it on the baking sheet. "I kin manage the table myself."

"Let me," Mary pleaded, eager to be out of the kitchen for a while so that her stomach might settle. It was unbecoming to filch leftovers from the pantry between meals, and she was determined to resist the unladylike impulse. Some standards, after all, had to be upheld even in extraordinary circumstances. She had not kept regular meals all week, but she was determined to settle back into her usual routine now. She paused by the récamier and reached down to stroke Gabe's hair. "You lie quietly, dearest, and mind Bethel," she murmured.

Gabe nodded his head sleepily, lips parting ever so slightly. Heavy eyelids blinked slowly, rising less than halfway. His hand crept up towards his mouth, but his thumb remained furled. He pressed his loose fist against the side of his jaw instead, and Mary felt a twinge in her heart. For a moment he looked so much like a grown boy.

The dining room was cool and quiet, free of the alluring fragrances of supper. Mary took a fresh cloth from the drawer in the sideboard and spread it over the table, smoothing the fold-lines with her thumb. There was no need to press it: the marks were shallow and would settle out on their own soon enough. She returned the lamp to its place in the center of the table, and began laying the napkins. She made a swift foray back into the kitchen for the silver, and spent a luxuriously peaceful fifteen minutes polishing away stray water-spots and laying out the service. She was about to return to Bethel's domain for plates and bread-saucers when her ears perked to the sound of thundering hooves on the front drive.

For the first time since Meg's abduction the noise stirred no apprehension in Mary's breast. It could mean only one thing: Cullen and Mr. Secrest were back from their hunting.

She sped into the front hall, untying her apron-strings as she went. She lifted the halter over her head and flung the garment over the chair by the door as she reached for the left handle, and sailed out onto the porch with her narrow hoop swaying beneath her dress. Vanity had yielded to practicality that morning, out of deference to the presence of a guest, and now she was glad. She halted at the top of the veranda steps, one hand daintily curled around the pillar, and watched the riders come in.

Cullen was in the lead, half a length ahead of Mr. Secrest on Bastion. Pike's mane was whipping with the speed of the gallop, his dark eyes glittering with elemental joy as his strong, slender legs danced. Clods of earth flew from beneath the horses' hooves as Cullen urged Pike into a sharp turn that carried him off the drive and into the overgrown indiangrass that rolled up to the rise to Mary's right. Jim Secrest followed, wheeling neatly, and Mary watched in quiet awe as the two exquisite animals bore their riders away. Such was the simple glory of the scene and the joy of seeing Cullen so free and languidly beautiful in the saddle that she felt only the smallest pang of disappointment when she realized neither horse had a carcass lashed to his rump.

They were coming back now in a wide arc, and Jim had slowed his horse a little to lengthen Cullen's lead. Pike was moving at something less than full speed, but still galloping fast enough that his tail fanned out and Cullen's hair rippled over his collar. Together they were bearing down on the whitewashed fence of the paddock, Cullen's eyes fixed intently ahead. For a moment Mary's heart skipped, fearful that her husband had forgotten the obstacle, and then she realized that he meant to jump it. Her pulse quickened in anticipation, for as exhilarating as it was to watch him she knew the stunt was not without danger: the fence was four feet high and the space on the other side rather too short for Pike to slow down gradually after landing. It was, after all, built to discourage the horses from jumping out on their own.

Inside the paddock Bonnie was now cantering to and fro, whinnying eagerly as she roused to the exultation of the other horses. The two mules who had not been taken out with the wagon to the hayfield seemed indifferent to the spectacle and unaware of the Morgan and the man bearing down upon the fence. Mary watched as Cullen lifted himself in the saddle and bent low over Pike's neck, taking twin fistfuls of his mane so the lines would not draw too taut when the force of the landing jolted him. His eyes were twin pinions of quicksilver focused between Pike's ears, and his body moved sinuously with the rhythm of the horse. Then swiftly, so swiftly that even Mary – who had seen him try this same jump many times before, though not in over a year – could not discern the precise signal he gave nor the moment he gave it, Pike's forelegs rose into the air and he sprung. The long bay body rose upward at a graceful angle, carrying Cullen with it, and Mary felt her own stomach lifting high into her ribs as though she were the one flying.

Over the rails Pike sailed, hind legs tucked close to his body. Cullen let out a cry of sheer triumphant delight, a sound such as Mary had not heard from his lips in months, and the front hooves landed. The mules reared, alarmed at this disturbance of their quiet paddock, and Bonnie tossed her head in glee. Then all of a sudden Pike was running again, slowing sharply to a canter and then turning clear around before clattering to a tight halt at the far side of the paddock. He took two dainty steps out of the way as Bastion cleared the fence after him, but Mary was not interested in watching Jim's jump. Her eyes were on her husband, drinking in the broad grin visible even at this distance.

"Beautiful!" cried Secrest, reining in to a halt.

Cullen nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but his smile vanished abruptly and his shoulders tensed. Mary scarcely had time to rationalize what was happening before he was bowed double over the horn of the saddle, hacking painfully as a series of sharp coughs tore through him.

Bastion took a step back, neck arching warily, and Jim did not seem to know what to do. Pike's head turned, trying to look back at his master, but he stood still and very steady while Cullen coughed. Mary found herself flitting down the steps and down the drive towards the paddock. She fumbled with the latch on its gate, unwilling to tear her eyes from her husband even to see what she was doing, and ran as swiftly as her swinging skirts and corseted sides would allow her.

She reached Cullen just as Bonnie did, coming up on his right while the mare nudged his left thigh with her nose and nickered querulously. Unable to answer, face florid with the strain of the fit, Cullen glanced in her direction before lolling his head towards Mary. His hands were curled into fists tangled with the leather lines and the silken hair of Pike's mane, and beneath his topcoat his ribs were heaving and jerking with every cough. He struggled to draw in a breath, and then it happened; the air caught sharply high in his airway and he whooped, the hateful noise impossibly shrill in a man's throat. Mary's whole body stiffened at the sound, the same awful sound that plagued Gabe when he fought to breathe. She reached up, one hand splaying over Cullen's flank and the other reaching for his far elbow to brace him. His eyes, rolling wretchedly, fixed upon hers and she held his gaze steadily. She kept her silence, sparing him the litany of consolations that she longed to offer. Behind her she could feel Jim Secrest watching, dumb with dismay. She was determined to preserve her husband's dignity as best she could before his friend.

Finally it ended, though not before a ghastly purple tint appeared around Cullen's lips. His torso heaved with the effort of swallowing shallow lungfuls of desperately needed air, and he raised the back of his hand to his mouth to wipe away the trail of phlegm trickling into his beard. Turning apologetically from her he spat copiously on the ground, coughing once more, feebly, as he did so. He drew another unsteady breath and his hand guided hers down off of his arm.

"Serves me right for hootin' like a savage," he wheezed thinly, trying to dredge up a saucy grin. He straightened in the saddle, and Mary brought her other palm down to rest near his knee, still looking up into his face with anxious concern. "Guess you beat me after all."

She did not know what he was talking about, but apparently Jim did. He chuckled. "Naw, you made the jump beautifully," he said. "The speed you had, I wouldn't have given much odds on halting up in time, but you done it. Could have turned nasty, and with Miss Mary watching, too!"

"Heck, no!" said Cullen, still short of breath but warming once more into joviality. "Pike just woulda jumped the other fence!"

Bonnie shifted out of the way as Elijah nudged past her, having come from the barn. There were wisps of straw in his hair and beard, and he brought with him a smoky sunshine scent. He reached up and slipped the reins from his master's hands, lifting them over Pike's head into a leading position. Cullen looked sharply at him, but the dark old eyes with their milky film were calm and unflappable.

"I's goin' see to them horses, Massa," he said; "on 'ccount Nate still up in the lof' spreadin' hay."

Mary could see the argument rising in Cullen's throat, rippling through muscles already strained by the coughing jag. Sweetly she smiled. "Thank you, Elijah," she said. She turned a courteous smile on Jim Secrest as she added; "It will give you gentlemen the opportunity to freshen up before supper. I trust you had a pleasant day?"

"Glorious, ma'am," Jim said, handing off his own reins and swinging down out of the saddle, reaching as he landed to lift his rifle from its sheath. Cullen sat for a moment longer before doing the same. "You got some beautiful country 'round here. Only a shame we didn't have much luck."

Mary caught a hangdog look from Cullen, and her throat grew tight. He felt guilty for lavishing a whole day in enjoyment and coming home empty-handed. The carmine light of the setting sun deepened the ruddiness left in the wake of the coughing fit, and made him look positively florid with discomfiture. She deepened her smile. "Well, you mustn't expect to find game _every_ time," she said, offering her arm to the guest as custom demanded. "It seems to me that both of you are much the better for the chase, game or no."

Cullen's eyes narrowed a little and he fumbled with his hat, but he offered her a small grateful grin as they drew near the gate. Together the three of them moved up towards the house, Cullen stopping only to fasten the latch. Elijah was leading the two stallions off to the stable, while Bonnie marched imperiously behind. She looked almost indignant, evidently still feeling all too keenly her exclusion from the expedition.

The entryway was dim now that the twilight was coming on, and Mary halted near the foot of the stairs. "I think we are about a half-hour from supper," she said. "We decided we might take it early today, as you are surely both hungry after being out in the wild."

"Ravening, Miss Mary," said Jim Secrest earnestly. "Racing this man of yours is hungry work."

"Were you racing?" she exclaimed, her voice rising girlishly. Her gaze darted eagerly to Cullen, who offered an abashed little shrug. She smiled radiantly. Her husband had a fierce competitive spirit that received too little nourishing in his daily life. The thrill and the challenge of racing with his friend had surely raised his spirits tremendously. "Who won?"

"I think it's a draw, my dear," said Cullen modestly. "Bastion balked at the blackberry hedge, but I didn't exactly deport myself impressively on that last jump."

"You had the lead on me coming into the drive," Jim pointed out. "I didn't rein in 'til we took the curve on the hill."

Mary was familiar enough with Southern courtesy to know that this game of polite demurral might continue all day. She fixed her smile graciously and slipped her arm away from her escort. "May I suggest you both take the opportunity to take your ease before supper?" she asked. "I shall just go and see how Bethel is getting on."

"An admirable suggestion, ma'am," Jim said, bowing and moving to mount the first two stairs. "A nice scrub behind the ears would feel mighty good just about now."

He started up, and Mary felt Cullen's arm slip around her waist. His whiskers tickled her jaw as he kissed her just next to her left ear. "I'm sorry I didn't bring back nothin' worth catching," he murmured.

"You brought me back a smile," she whispered; "and that happy shout. It's all I could have wished for."

Cullen chuckled ruefully, shaking his head. "I'd take a haunch of venison over a happy shout any day," he said.

She did not argue with him, because she knew he could not understand. He did not know what it was to see the person you loved with all your heart grinding on through the daily drudgery of a hated occupation, and to know all the while that he was miserable. He did not know what a burden it was to watch as a joyful, high-spirited man became quieter and grimmer day after day. And so he could not comprehend the delicious relief of seeing that man restored, even briefly, to his old playful self. The day was well spent, game or no, for bringing that grin to his face and that gleeful cry to his lips.

Cullen squeezed her fondly in a half-embrace. "I'd best get on upstairs," he said. The gun tucked under his other arm, barrel safely turned down, wagged a little as he shifted, and he offered her a sheepish grin. "But first I'll get the cartridge out. No sense taking the chance of a faulty discharge in the bedroom: I only just got that window fixed."

Mary laughed, knowing that Cullen would no more slip in discharging his gun than he would drop their son. He was entirely too sensible and too careful, and the rifle too well-tended, for such accidents. She patted his breastbone. "Go on," she said. "Supper in about half an hour."

He inclined his head as he released her, and managed to take a whole step towards the stairs when an eager little voice stopped him.

"Pappy!" cried Gabe, slithering around the parlor doorjamb and bouncing eagerly on his toes. "You's back! You been huntin'! What you bring me? You shoot a deer? You shoot a bear? You shoot a _dragon_?"

Cullen turned, grinning broadly. "Heck, son, everybody knows there ain't no dragons in Mississippi. They's all out in California where the gold nuggets are."

"Dey is?" Gabe asked, wide-eyed.

"Sure," said Cullen. "Dragons love gold, don't they?"

"Oh, Cullen," Mary said in a playful imitation of a long-suffering wife. Gabe was beaming happily, half believing the story and half knowing that his pappy was telling him a tall tale. It was easy enough to recognize it: Cullen had a particular playful glint in his eyes that even the child could not mistake. Gabe was obviously as keenly attuned to his father's mood as she was, for all signs of malaise seemed to have fallen from him and he was positively beside himself with delight.

"So what you bring back?" he asked. "A deer, den, or a bear?"

Cullen's smile faltered, but he reached into his pocket. "This here's all I shot today, son," he said, trying to hide his own disappointment. He drew out his handkerchief, stained with little pink splotches and wrapped around something only a little bigger than Gabe's green wooden ball. He handed it to the child, and Gabe lifted one corner, eyes growing enormous in his round little face as he revealed the pale body of a little animal, skinned and deprived of paws, head and tail.

"What _dis_?" he asked in wonder. "It a _baby _bear?"

"Naw, a baby bear's bigger 'n you," said Cullen. "That there's a squirrel."

Gabe studied it and frowned. "It don' look like a squirrel," he said. "Where its tail got to?"

"I took it off," Cullen told him gravely. "Squirrel tail ain't good eatin'."

"But squirrel body good?" asked Gabe, puzzled. "We goin' get Bet'l to fry 'im up for supper?"

Mary watched for the shadow of self-recrimination and regret, but Cullen buried it under an amused grin. "You think that squirrel'd feed all of us?" he asked. "You and me and Mama and Mr. Secrest?"

"An' Bet'l an' 'Ottie an' Nate an' dem?" Gabe asked. He gnawed his lip and shrugged his shoulders. "Mebbe we can all have a li'l taste."

"Maybe," Cullen agreed solemnly, resisting the urge to laugh. "But I think Jeb'll get more good out of it, don't you? It's just about the right size for a good old possum hound."

"Yes," Gabe agreed matter-of-factly. "Yes, it jus' 'bout right for a good ol' hound. Is you goin' give it to him, Pappy? May I watch him et dat squirrel?"

"I'll do you one better," said Cullen. "You can give it to him yourself. How's 'bout that?"

"Dat good!" Gabe exclaimed gleefully, dancing from one foot to the other. The neatly-dressed little carcass wobbled in his cupped hands, and he steadied his hold. "When I goin' do it? Soon? Today?"

"Right now, if you want to," said Cullen. "I'll come and watch." He laid his rifle carefully on the narrow hall table, barrel pointed towards the corner behind the door. He cupped his hand behind Gabe's head and turned him. "Let's go: he didn't get to come along, so the least we can do is give him a treat."

"Why he didn' come 'long, Pappy?" asked Gabe as they stepped into the dining room. Mary followed quietly, admiring the charming portrait of the tall man and the lanky little boy moving side by side. "An' why ain't you taked me?"

"Because Jeb's too old, and you're too young," Cullen said simply, pushing open the halfway-ajar door to the kitchen. Bethel looked up from the thin slices of yam she was frying, and smiled.

"Home safe an' sound, Mist' Cullen," she said fondly. "What you brung me?"

"A squirrel!" Gabe declared proudly, holding it aloft in its little linen shroud. "We's goin' feed it to Jeb!"

The corners of Bethel's eyes drooped, but no other sign of disappointment touched her face. She turned her fond expression on the child. "That nice, honey, but you ain't 'llowed to go outside 'til you's all better."

"Aw, Bethel, he can step out on the stoop for a minute," said Cullen, wheedling good-naturedly. "It's a warm night and the sun ain't quite gone yet. I'll have him back in a flash."

Bethel put her hands on her hips in a pantomime of exasperation, then wagged her finger at Gabe. "Awright, then," she said; 'but don' you go runnin' off! Jus' feed that dog an' get back in where it nice 'n cozy!"

"Yass'm," Gabe said soberly, bobbing his head. Then his face broke into a grin again and he went careening towards the door. He looked at the knob and then at the plump little burden in his hands. "Pappy!" he commanded. "You come an' open dis-here door! Can't you see I's got my hands full?"

At this Mary could not quite help but laugh. It was one of Bethel's favorite exclamations, more often than not directed at one of the children. Cullen restrained himself with his usual adroitness, opening the door with a neat half-bow and letting Gabe march out onto the stoop.

"Here, Jeb!" the child said cheerfully, toddling out of Mary's sightline towards the place where the old dog customarily napped. "Look what Pappy brung you! Here, eat it!"

Leaning on the door, Cullen grinned. "Put it down for him, son. He knows better'n to take food out of a little boy's hand."

There was a dull _plop_ as Gabe dropped the squirrel carcass, and a moment later Cullen nodded. "Go on, Jeb. Eat up," he said, doubtless in response to the hound's querying look.

There was a sound of hungry munching, and Gabe squealed in delight, his booted feet drumming on the boards beneath them. Cullen grinned and pushed himself off the door, shambling back towards the women.

"You got enough on the table without meat?" he asked Bethel, brows furrowing. "I know you was hoping I'd shoot something more substantial."

"Hope don' fill empty bellies," Bethel said. "I gots plenty. Fixed up a nice egg pie fo' the main course, an' there's fresh collards an' roasted turnip an' onions, biscuits an' these here yams an' Missus Mary's cobbler to finish. I's thinkin' it might be bes' with the last of that bottle of fancy white wine, unless'n you gots a cravin' for the red stuff instead."

"The white is fine," said Cullen. From the doorway they could hear Gabe laughing and eagerly urging Jeb on as he tore into the meat. The noise of crunching bones and contented slavering accented the child's happy exclamations. "Should be enough for a glass each." He looked at the stove and frowned. "What 'bout for the others?"

"They's eatin' the same, 'part from the cobbler," said Bethel, briskly efficient even in her words. The knife rose and fell smoothly beneath her skilled palm. "It gots store sugar in it. Meg still gots a half-jar of apple butter down the quarters: make a fine treat on a slice of bread."

"Give her some of the peach preserves or something instead," said Cullen. "They all been working hard this week while I rested."

"I would hardly call it rest, love," Mary said. "Sitting up night after night holding a sick little boy?"

"Ain't like I don't sleep some myself," said Cullen. He turned aside as a phlegmy cough rose up and broke forth from his lips. It did not set loose a chorus of followers, thankfully, but it sounded thick and unhealthful nonetheless. "I didn't ought to have gone hunting at all."

"Don't say that," Mary scolded, placing her fingers in the crook of his elbow. "It was the best thing you could have done, and the fact you had no luck doesn't change that."

"I can't imagine why we didn't," Cullen muttered. "It was the perfect morning for it, Mary. _Perfect_. Ain't had hunting weather like that in ages, but we didn't see a thing bigger than a badger, and they ain't worth shooting."

"That isn't your fault," Mary said. "You know hunting can be like that, and… Gabe, dear, you're meant to stay on the stoop."

Her gaze had flitted to the open doorway, and her little boy once more visible through it. He was standing spraddled awkwardly with one foot on the first step down and the other on the ground, making his knee approximately level with his navel. His right hand gripped the support-post, and his arm was stretched straight as he leaned to his left, staring off with avid curiosity around the corner of the house. He did not seem to have heard her at all.

"Gabe," Mary said, a little more firmly; "come back up and into the house."

Still he ignored her, intent upon the view before him.

Cullen cleared his throat pointedly. "Gabe, get back in here," he said.

This the child heard, or could not bring himself to ignore, but he did not turn to look. "But Pappy," he protested; "dat—"

"Don't you give me no 'but Pappy's," said Cullen. "Come back inside and get warm."

"But Pappy!" Gabe protested, tossing the protest back over his shoulder almost without moving his head.

Cullen's indulgent expression grew stern. "Son, I expect you to listen to what your mama tells you, and I expect you to mind Bethel's rules. Now you get back in here before I got to come and get you."

Mary was about to protest that their child was just starting to feel better after a terrible crisis, and they ought to be patient with him, but Gabe shook his head. "But Pappy!" he said again, his voice fairly quaking with excitement. "Dat li'l horse be munchin' all de turnips!"

Mary's eyes flew to Cullen's face, questioning, and Cullen glanced at Bethel. Then he was striding across the floor to the doorway, gripping the same post Gabe was clinging to and looking out. His jaw slackened and his hand closed swiftly on the child's shoulder.

"Son," he said in a voice hoarse with disbelief; "that ain't no horse. That's a deer."

Gabe looked up, a question on his lips, but Cullen was already kneeling hurriedly down, his left leg stretching to trail behind as he leaned back to grab hold of the dog. Jeb came trundling patiently towards his master, Cullen's fingers closed firmly on the scruff of his neck. He nudged Gabe over his boot and gave him a little push. "Go in and stand by Bethel," he whispered. "_Mary_! Get down here and hold the dog."

Mary hastened past her child, who was walking backwards to obey his father while still watching him intently. He collided with Bethel's skirts and she reached to put her hand on his collarbone in case he got it in his mind to run Back out. Mary knelt as swiftly as she could, wrapping one arm around Jeb's ribs to grip his far foreleg while her other hand braced the base of his throat.

"Hold him tight," Cullen hissed, rising deftly and speeding back into the house on silent feet.

From where she crouched on the edge of the stoop, Mary could just see the edge of the garden if she craned her neck to the left. There, sure enough, a tall graceful doe was picking her way daintily between two rows of turnips, head bowed to nibble the luscious greens. She was proud and lovely, and her tail stood alert like a little flag behind her. The last glow of the setting sun illuminated the right side of her body and face so that she seemed to be wearing a piebald mask of orange and black. Watching in awe Mary could understand how the sight had so transfixed her child.

The board beneath her knees vibrated as Cullen came back out of the house, leveling his rifle at his shoulder. He brushed past her and Jeb stiffened into sudden alertness, recognizing the weapon and no doubt remembering his days as a hunting hound. Belatedly but not too late, Mary clamped finger and thumb on his muzzle, holding his jaw shut so that he could not bark and startle the wild creature that had invaded his domain. Jeb bucked a little against her hand, but he was a good dog and he had been well-trained from puppyhood by a just but exacting master. He did not struggle.

Cullen did not use the stairs, instead stretching to step right down into the grass that abutted the path. His boots rustled in it and the deer raised her head, ears perking with sudden wariness. Her enormous brown eyes fixed upon him, blinking once with impossible slowness. Then her haunches sank as she prepared to spring into a run. She was a large target, and scarcely a hundred yards away, but the light was fading fast and it seemed impossible that Cullen should fire with enough accuracy to fell her with the one round in his weapon.

With a _bang_ that rattled the kitchen windows the rifle discharged, filling the air with the acrid smell of black powder. The graceful limbs buckled all at once and the doe fell, a dark wound oozing sluggishly above her right eye.

"Pappy!" Gabe exclaimed, wriggling free of Bethel and charging out the door. He barreled past Mary and careened down the steps so quickly that he lost his balance. His right leg crumpled beneath him just as the deer's had done, but unlike her he bounded up straight away, seizing a fistful of Cullen's trouser leg and tugging insistently. "Pappy, you shoot it?" he cried delightedly. "You shoot dat li'l hor… dat _deer _right now?"

"Yassir," Cullen exhaled, smiling faintly and still staring ahead as if he could scarcely believe he had done it. "I shot her, and you found her. Good work, son: looks like we's going to have meat tonight after all."

Mary was about to protest that it was too late to think of butchering tonight, but she caught a sidelong glance from Bethel and held her tongue.

"Jus' you gut it an' cut a couple nice ribsteaks, Mist' Cullen," she instructed. "Leave the res' hang to cool an' cure up a bit 'til mornin'. I can fry up some steaks jus' as quick as you please, if'n you an' Nate don' take much time 'bout gettin' 'em."

Cullen tore his eyes away at last, looking back into the kitchen to nod his acknowledgment of these instructions. Then his eyes moved to Mary, shining almost as brightly as those of the proud little boy beside him.

"I told you that you're a fortunate man," she murmured lovingly, petting Jeb's bristly head.


	67. Give and Take

**Chapter Sixty-Seven: Give and Take**

Gabe was sitting up in bed, waiting patiently for Pappy to come upstairs. He had gone out with Nate to check the garden fence and see if there was a weak place where the deer had managed to get in. The rails were supposed to be high enough to discourage game from leaping into the garden, Mama explained, but sometimes a hungry deer would jump them anyway. She did not seem in the least bit perturbed at this possibility, any more than Bethel had been inclined to mourn the loss of a few turnip-greens. They were both just so happy to have meat in the house again; happy, and proud.

Gabe knew that he had done the right thing, and that made _him_ proud, too. He had not shouted or laughed, and he had minded his pappy when Pappy ordered him to go stay by Bethel. If he had _not_ minded Pappy, he might have scared the deer away before Pappy could fetch his gun, and then there would be no nice, juicy meat to eat with their egg pie and buttermilk biscuits. Furthermore Gabe gloried in the knowledge that he had been the one to see the deer. Pappy had told him at the supper table that spotting game was the hardest part of hunting: he and Mr. Secrest had been out all day and they hadn't even done it once! Gabe had sat tall and proud on his pear box at the dining room table, eating politely and using his very best manners while the grown folks ate and talked about the extraordinary and ironic luck of the evening. Gabe wasn't sure what "ironic" meant, exactly, but Mr. Secrest had said it and it had made Pappy chuckle and shake his head, so it must be something funny.

Bethel was downstairs tidying up after the meal, and Mr. Secrest had gone to bed. He was going to Meridian tomorrow, he said, and he would likely go straight home when his business was done. He lived in a place called Scooba, so far away that the train went there. Gabe didn't know of many places the train went, apart from Jackson and New Orleans and far-away Mobile at a place called the End of the Line. Now he knew another one: Scooba, away up north in Kemper County.

Mama was brushing her hair, perched on the edge of his bed in her long ruffled nightgown. Mama's hair was very long, tumbling over her shoulders and down her back almost to her bottom. Gabe was glad that his hair was not so long, because he thought it would get in the way. He guessed that was why Mama always pinned hers up in coils during the daytime, and twisted it into a plait at night. Just now, though, her hair was all loose and wavy, crackling beneath the bristles of her brush as she stroked it again and again and again. There was a soft, thoughtful look on her face, distant but lovely, and Gabe watched her wondringly.

Finally he could not remain still any longer. He climbed over the roll of bedclothes drawn back for his knees, and crawled towards her, palms sinking deep in the feather tick. Cautiously, lest he should startle her, he reached out and ran his hand down the silken smoothness that rippled over her spine. Mama turned her head a little, the brush pausing above her ear, and smiled. "Do you want to try?" she asked.

"May I?" Gabe breathed, awestruck. When Mama put the heavy silver brush in his hand he could scarcely believe it.

"Go on and bring it down gently, just like you do when you're brushing Pike," said Mama. "Don't push the wrong way, or you'll make tangles for me to comb out."

"I won'," he promised. "I won' make no tangles 't all!" Carefully, one fist curled about the handle and the other cupping the back of the brush, he got up onto his knees and reached, settling the bristles against Mama's head and drawing the brush gently past her neck, over her shoulder and down her back. The silken auburn strands drew taut as he brushed, sliding smoothly under the bristles and settling in tiny straits, one upon another upon another until they made a whole river of beautiful hair.

It smelled a little like the good things Mama and Bethel had cooked for supper, sweet and spicy and wholesome, and it smelled a little like lilacs. That was from Mama's sachet, and it was a magical scent that Gabe had never encountered anywhere else. Lilacs did not grow in Mississippi, and no one else wore them: not Bethel or Lottie, not Meg or Charlie Ainsley's mother or anybody else. Only Mama wore lilacs in the little pouch she tucked under her corset cover in the morning, because Mama was from New York State, and she had grown up with a lilac tree right underneath her window. Gabe remembered that story.

"You smells so nice, Mama," he said. The brush had reached the bottom of her hair, almost at the place where her hip sunk into the mattress, and he had to wiggle it a little for the last few tresses to come loose. He looked at the underside of the brush, and the loose hairs matted around the bristles, and he wondered whether he was allowed to try again.

"Thank you, dearest," Mama said, flushing prettily. "What a charming thing to say."

"You smells like my mama," he added, trying to explain. He held out the brush to her. "Is you goin' twist it all up, now?"

"That's right," she said. She took the implement and ran it over her head twice more, very quickly, then set it on the coverlet and divided her hair into three thick sections. Reaching up behind her head with both hands she coiled them, folding one over another again and again. Magically the plait took shape, slithering between her fingers.

"How you do dat?" Gabe asked. He tried to watch carefully, but she was moving so quickly.

"I'll show you another time," Mama promised. "It's already past your bedtime: you should be asleep."

Gabe sighed. It had been such an exciting evening. He did not even want to think about sleeping. "But Pappy ain't here yet," he said. "I can't sleep 'til Pappy come. How I goin' lie down?"

"You were lying down this afternoon, you know," Mama said gently. She tied off the end of her plait with a piece of thin white ribbon and dusted her hands against the lap of her nightgown, then got up and went to put the brush down on the nightstand. She had moved some of her things in here because Mr. Secrest was sleeping in the room she shared with Pappy. Ordinarily Gabe would have taken affront to such an invasion, except that he was happy to have his parents in his room with him. It was good to know they were right at hand when he woke up choking and coughing in the middle of the night.

Mama turned from the washstand, smiling. "You were lying down all by yourself and you didn't cough. Maybe you're well enough to try sleeping without Pappy holding you."

This was an awful prospect, and not one that Gabe had considered. His backbone stiffened and his eyes grew wide. "I ain't," he said hastily. "I's goin' cough! Pappy gots to hol' me, or de bad ol' cough goin' come!"

"But wouldn't it be nice to let Pappy lie down?" Mama asked. "You've slept a couple of times just lying with your head in my lap. I don't think you need to sleep sitting up anymore."

"I does!" Gabe protested. "I really does! Dat udder time, dat was daytime! I needs to sleep on Pappy, Mama! I needs to!"

The door creaked open, and Pappy came in. He was grinning quizzically, and as he entered the room he asked; "What's all this uproar? I thought it was bedtime."

Gabe turned, anxious to win his father to his side, but Mama spoke first. "Was there anything wrong with the fence?" she asked.

Pappy nodded. "Rotted-out rail down by the henhouse," he said. "The end split and it fell. We replaced it all right: won't be no more uninvited dinner guests coming in that way."

"And you've strung the carcass nice and high?" Mama asked. "We don't need to worry about bears?"

Pappy laughed softly, cupping her elbow in his hand and leaning in to kiss her cheek. "You worry too much. I been hanging game my whole life, and I ain't never left it low enough to tempt a bear."

"You could shoot a bear," Gabe suggested, his concern forgotten in his fascination with this subject. "You could shoot it wid your gun, _pfft_!"

"That's so," said Pappy; "but a bear ain't something you want on the property. It might worry the chickens or try and go after the hogs. What would Elijah do if he got up to go watch the fires and walked straight into a big old bear?"

"What _would _he do?" Gabe asked worriedly. He had not thought of this. Pappy had a gun, but Elijah didn't. Gabe didn't even know if Elijah could shoot – but all men knew how to shoot a gun, didn't they?

"Lie down and wait for it to get bored and go away," said Pappy. "That's the only thing to do 'round bears, son: you remember that. Lie down and cover your eyes and just wait."

Mama shivered. "Don't speak of such things, Cullen," she murmured.

"Boy's got to learn sometime," said Pappy with a shrug. He hung his coat on one of Gabe's closet hooks and began to unbutton his vest. "I still can't quite believe how he spotted that deer."

Gabe felt his chest swell a little with pride, and instantly suppressed the impulse. He did not want to do anything that might make him cough. He didn't feel so ill anymore, but his ribs hurt worse than ever. They even pained him when he wasn't coughing. When he did, the agony was just about unbearable. He might have screamed with it, except that he needed all his wind just to ride out the fits.

"It was wonderful luck," said Mama. She took Pappy's waistcoat and smoothed it carefully, fingers lingering over a worn place under the left armhole. "And a wonderful shot."

Pappy shot her a quick, quizzical look, but did not comment. He was stepping out of his trousers now, and Mama picked up his nightshirt. It reminded Gabe of the other matter to be resolved.

"Pappy," he said quietly; "is you goin' sleep in wid me again tonight?"

Pappy's dark eyebrows knit briefly together. "Sure I am, son. Why wouldn't I?"

"We were just discussing how Gabe might not need to sleep sitting up any longer," said Mama. "He was perfectly comfortable on the récamier this afternoon."

"Yeah, but it's got a tilt to it," Pappy said, loosing his hold on a shirt-button to demonstrate with a flat hand angled up. "His bed don't."

"He can nap with his head in my lap," said Mama. "I think you could both try lying down."

"I's goin' cough!" Gabe warned her. He did not understand why Mama did not see this. He scooted up to the top of the bed and flung himself down on the pillow. "See?" Loudly he made a coughing sound, sticking out his tongue and barking as realistically as he knew how.

Mama and Pappy exchanged an amused and strangely knowing glance, and Gabe felt cross. Why didn't they believe him? He would cough if he had to lie down like this, he knew he would. Resting on the récamier or napping in Mama's lap was different. The cough was always worst at night, _always_! Without Pappy to hold him, he would cough and cough until he could not breathe anymore. Without Pappy to hold him, he would be too scared even to try to sleep.

"Gabe, you mustn't fib," Mama said gently. "That was a make-believe cough. Pappy will sleep in your bed, but you are going to lie down beside him instead of on top of him tonight."

Left cheek still pressed deep in the pillow, Gabe gave a long-suffering sigh. "But Mama," he mumbled, trying one last time to explain his terror; "de bad ol' cough…"

Then as if he had called it, it seized him. He felt his chest jolt sharply, and his throat tighten. The tickle rose up from his gullet and he could not resist it. The first hacking tremor sent sharp little pains along his ribs, and the second one shook him with an awful fiery burst of hurt. His small arms strained as he pushed himself up off of the pillow, trying to sit up straight but forgetting to move his legs. He bent sideways at the waist, but he could not sit up. In that moment of breathless panic his feet seemed tangled in the bedclothes, and he felt hot tears flooding up to blind him. Another cough tore into his belly, burning behind his tonsils and ripping at his ribs. He whimpered, or tried to whimper, and coughed again. He heard the rush of feet and felt strong hands on his arms. Then Pappy's shoulder was bracing his bobbing head, and Mama's palm stroked his cheek. He could hear them saying all of the brave, wonderful things they said when he coughed, reminding him even when he was too far gone to listen that they were there, and he was safe, and the cough would somehow finally stop… however impossible it seemed at that moment.

When the last whoop faded into a deep thirsty gurgle and his lungs stopped twitching and clenching, Gabe turned in towards his pappy with a shallow little sob. Tears were running down his face, wetting the front of his nightshirt and splashing against Pappy's chest. Gabe reached to take a handful of Pappy's undershirt, only to find that he wasn't wearing one: he must have been taking it off when the fit started. Instead he spread his hand, a plump little starfish, over the ridge of muscle beside Pappy's breastbone. He could feel the warmth of Pappy's skin and the rhythm of his own big lungs, and if he pressed his cheek hard against him he could hear Pappy's heart.

Mama was stroking his hair, the curls tugging at her fingers. "There, dearest. There, there," she whispered. "I'm sorry. You needn't lie down. I'm sorry."

"Hey," Pappy said. Gabe twisted a little to look up, perplexed. Then he realized Pappy was not talking to him: he was looking at Mama instead, and as he did so he reached to hook his finger under her chin. "Hey," he repeated gravely. "This ain't your fault. He's going to cough, whatever we do. It ain't your fault."

Mama closed her eyes, tilting her head against Pappy's hand for a moment. Then she straightened up and tried to smile. She petted Gabe's cheek and said with unsteady cheer; "Let's get you two to bed, then," she said. "You need your sleep."

Mama picked Gabe up and held him while Pappy put on his nightshirt and stepped out of his drawers. Then he settled in bed, one pillow in the small of his back and the other clamped between his shoulders and the headboard, bunched down to support his neck. When he was ready he patted his lap, and Gabe climbed down into it. He nudged his left him close to Pappy's stomach and settled down on his side, not quite sitting and not quite lying down. He rested his head just beneath Pappy's collarbone, and nuzzled cozily against his chest while Mama drew up the blankets.

"That's my li'l hunter," Pappy murmured fondly, adjusting his arm against Gabe's back and settling his hand, heavy and comforting, on his leg. "Go on and sleep, now."

Gabe slept.

_*discidium*_

The night was cool, and a mild frost struck before dawn. In the morning, after seeing Jim Secrest off on the road to Meridian to discharge his other errands, Cullen went down to the scaffold by the smokehouse where the doe hung waiting. He and Nate had made quick work of removing the organs and paring off a couple of choice cuts for Bethel to cook for supper. The meat, though not as gamey as the later cuts would taste, had seemed a glorious delicacy after so many days without, and the satisfaction of eating something he had caught himself had added to Cullen's enjoyment. It was in the pleasing afterglow of that triumph that he set about the messy business of butchering the animal.

First there was the hide to remove, once the deer was lowered to working height by the winch that had hefted it out of the reach of scavengers. The hooves and head had been removed the night before, and so this was work for one man. While Cullen went about it Nate and Elijah headed down to the creek bottom in search of a hickory tree to cut for smoking fuel. With a few judicious cuts and a great deal of energetic hauling Cullen managed to skin the animal smoothly and without tearing the hide. He put it aside to be salted and tanned, then began the laborious chore of washing down the carcass. He made four trips to the well, returning each time with two buckets brimming with cold water. In the chilly morning air he was soon shivering, shirt and pants splashed liberally and bare forearms and hands stiff and red. But the meat was cleansed both inside the body cavity and out, washed of lingering blood or stray clumps of hair.

About the time he finished the other two came back with the buckboard, a hickory trunk and branches in its bed. Elijah unloaded and split wood while the two younger men took the carcass down and laid it on the broad butchering block for quartering. They worked in practiced silence, heavy knives crunching through bone and flaying the tough meat with ease. It would have been ideal to leave the deer to cure for a few more days, both to tenderize and to improve the flavor, but it was too early in the season for that luxury. The sun was climbing high and the day already growing warm: meat left long in this weather would spoil. That was why hog-butchering waited until December.

They took a few more cuts to bring in to Bethel: brisket and backstraps to roast for supper, and the lower bones of the forelegs for stewing. Butchering was one job Cullen knew just as well as Nate: divvying up his kill was a man's prerogative, and Cullen's father had taken great pride in teaching his son these skills as part of his education in hunting. For Nate's part, the killing and dressing of the hogs was traditionally slaves' work, and a deer was not all that different. They split the ribcage, cutting off two broad sides like wings. They cut strips of the neck and the hocks, and divided up the meat of the hams into steaks no more than an inch thick. All the while they packed the meat with salt, rubbing it deep into the muscle. When he was finished with the wood, Elijah joined them to help with this task.

At ten o'clock Lottie came out with a jug of hot tea and the biscuits left from yesterday's supper, and she lingered for a while, watching curiously. She offered eagerly to help with the salting, but Cullen sent her back to the house with the fresh meat for Bethel instead.

"She a fine beas', this one," Elijah said, grabbing another handful of salt and attacking a thick strip of venison. "What you reckon she weigh?"

"Maybe a hundred and sixty, alive," said Cullen. His fingers were gritty with the salt, pink-tinged by the juices oozing from the dark meat. It was tedious work, rubbing each piece vigorously instead of merely sprinkling them all and leaving them to sit, but this too was a necessity of the weather. If they left the meat to salt over several days it would get slick and slimy and unfit for eating. "Woulda been proud to bring an animal like that back."

"Funny thing, comin' home with nothin' to find her right in you' own yard," Nate remarked, a strange oblique note to his tone. He was trimming a roasting haunch around the left femur, leaving enough meat for a generous dish while still cutting it near enough to allow for proper preservation. "Look like the good Lord wan' us to get by aft' all."

"Course he wan' us to get by!" Elijah said stoutly. "The Lord loves bes' them that works hard, an' I don' know many folks works harder'n we! He wan's that boy healed up good, too, an' he ain' goin' git well without good meat."

At this Nate looked up from his work, meeting Cullen's eyes squarely for the first time all morning. "How that boy, Mist' Cullen? Bethel say he ain' so poorly now."

"He ain't," Cullen promise. "Got no fever now, and he sleeps just fine so long as the cough lets him. He—"

He was cut off when his own lungs contracted, as if the mere mention of a cough was enough to arouse it. He turned hastily from the table, choking and wheezing and finally whooping as he struggled for air. He wanted to brace himself against something, but there was nothing to hold on to. Nor could he touch his face to wipe away the trail of slimy phlegm that clung to his lips when he spat, for his hands were crusted with salt and blood. He could feel the eyes of his darkies on him, anxious but helpless, and his cheeks burned with humiliation even as his sides burned for want of air.

Just as he was beginning to grow dangerously lightheaded he managed to take an unsteady breath. He gulped avariciously on the next one, and the third filled his lungs and eased the ache in his flank. Still he stood there for a minute, heaving quietly and blinking to clear his smarting eyes. Then he turned back to the table, picked up his knife, and got back to work.

"What you staring at?" he asked crossly, casting a cursory glare at the other two men. "Time's wasting: mind your work."

It was almost noon when the last of the meat was trimmed down and salted. They loaded the gobbets into two oaken tubs, dusting each layer liberally with still more salt, and stopped to rinse their hands of the parching grit. Then they carried the tubs into the smokehouse and back towards the small door in the dividing wall that led to the smoking chimney itself.

The Bohannon smokehouse had been designed with the needs of a large plantation in mind. The squat, square building was split into two chambers. The front one was for storage of the cured meats, where they could be easily and conveniently accessed even while smoking was in progress in the back room. Neither Cullen's grandfather, who had built it, nor his father, who had furnished it with modern iron fixtures and a patented grinder for sausage-making, had envisioned such a year as this: a year when the stores would be depleted before butchering time came again. Toting his side of the heavy tub past the table and the empty hooks, the bare shelves and the disused little table, Cullen could taste the bitterness of his failure to provide adequately for his family. He grunted as he and Nate ducked down to pass through the four-foot doorway into the other room, and set their burden down. Elijah came in after them, carrying a lantern. The smoking room was carefully chinked on the outside walls, and the boards of the dividing wall were fitted so snugly that no light came through.

The space itself was six by a little more than four feet, with the sloping roof so low that Nate had to stoop even under the ridgepole, and Cullen everywhere but. Elijah set the lamp in the corner and stepped out to allow them more space to work. Driven into the walls were dozens of sharpened hooks, and more hooks still hung from rails that ran under each eave. Setting to work with silent determination, they hung a cut of venison from each hook, piercing the meat with the iron barbs. When they were finished, a little less than a quarter of the small hooks were used. From the large hooks on the rails they hung the sides of ribs and the trimmed femurs, using the bones to keep the weight of the venison from tearing through the flesh. Then they dragged out the empty tubs and stepped back while Elijah moved in to lay the fire.

He made it on a grate laid over a pit dug in the floor, building it up with care. The green hickory smoldered and raised a thick, fragrant smoke even before Elijah was able to bank the fire and close the tightly-fitted door upon it. Ordinarily Cullen loved the smell of a hickory fire, but today his chest grew tight at the first wisp of smoke and it was only his determination to supervise the proceedings that kept him from hastening out into the sunlight at once. When he was finally able to step out into the clean air again he found himself gasping shallowly and struggling not to cough.

The smokehouse vented through a small chink right at the apex of the roof. When the men closed the door and looked up it was already leaking its fine tendril of dark smoke. For the next week while the meat cured, it would be the responsibility of everyone on the place to keep an eye out for that ribbon of smoke. When it faltered or grew sparse, someone had to go in and build up the fire with fresh wood again, to keep the little room choked with smoke to season and preserve the venison. The smokehouse was not the fire hazard that the tobacco barn was, and did not require the same constant attention, but it did need careful tending.

While Nate and Elijah carried the remainder of the felled tree inside, to pile where it was convenient to the door to the kiln, Cullen scrubbed the butchering board. It was another chore that should have been considered beneath the dignity of the master, but he was anxious for any excuse to keep from going into the smokehouse again. His chest still felt tight from the smoke, and he knew that Mary and Bethel had been right to keep him from resuming his share of the night-watches. He was certainly not fit for such work.

Then he and Nate scraped the deer hide, cleaning away every scrap of flesh. They spread it over the table and packed it with salt, then left it to sit. Each time they passed it that day and then next, they would add more salt where needed to prepare the hide for tanning. By then it was dinnertime, and Elijah went to relieve Meg of her shift in the tobacco barn while the others went up to the house to eat. The butchering of a deer was something of an event, and it was not without its luxuries. Taking the noon meal indoors was one of them.

_*discidium*_

Doctor Whitehead arrived at two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, just as Mary and Gabe were heading up the stairs for a nap. The knock sent Gabe twisting with his hand still clasped in his mother's, begging to be allowed to be the one to answer the door.

"Go on then, dearest," Mary said indulgently, watching as he transferred his grip to the bannister and marched purposefully back down. She followed him, hanging back just enough that he might feel he was being independent while still hovering close enough to swoop in and gather him into her arms if it was not the doctor after all.

Gabe grabbed the doorknob with both hands and hauled with all the strength in his legs. The door swung easily, and the child looked up into Doc Whitehead's sudden smile. "Good aft'noon!" Gabe said stoutly. "You come to see me? I's feelin' pretty good."

"I see that!" Whitehead said, turning his gaze briefly to Mary and then back to his small patient. "Still coughing, I imagine?"

"Yes," said Gabe with a regretful little shrug. "But de rest of de time, I's feelin' good. I catched a deer! Well, I see'd it an' Pappy catched it. He shoot it! It was munchin' de turnips all up!"

"How 'bout that!" Doc said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Son, why don't you step back a little and let me come in?"

Gabe complied, trying to bow gallantly the way he had seen his father do it. He did not quite manage to capture Cullen's lazy grace, and instead bent sharply at the waist while losing his grip on the handle and sending the door flying back against the wall with a _thump_. Mary pressed her lips together over her laugh, and the doctor managed to keep his confined to his twinkling eyes.

"Where's my other patient?" he asked, stepping over the threshold and reaching to close the door himself. "I suppose it's too much to hope for that he might be in bed with a nice mug of warm milk."

"He's packing tobacco," said Mary. "He likes to do the sorting himself when he can, as then he knows just what is in each crate when he takes offers it to a buyer." The explanation was out even before she could consider that it was not really necessary. Those artful little excuses that she and Cullen had both used in prior years were pointless now, especially with Doc.

The man hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose there's worse things he could be doing," he said. "How has his cough been?"

"Worse every day," said Mary. Gabe had wandered over to take a handful of her skirt, and she rested her palm on the crown of his head. "I don't know how often he coughs when he's working, but in the evenings it seems to be every few minutes, and he was up four times last night. That's in addition to the times we were up with Gabe."

"I woked up an' Pappy coughin'," Gabe concurred solemnly. "He coughin' an' coughin' an' he couldn' stop, but I holded his hand an' I he'ped him feel better."

"That's good, son. That's real good," Doctor Whitehead assured him. "What about you? How many times did you cough?"

Gabe frowned, a calculating look gripping his eyes and bunching up his mouth into a little knot. "More dan lee-leven," he said at last. "Lots 'n lots."

"Six times during the night," Mary translated. Gabe had been trying to tally up each individual cough. "He's had four fits since he's been up today, but they don't seem to be quite as awful as they were. Or perhaps I've just grown accustomed to them." She said this with a little deprecating smile, for she knew it was not so. The coughing fits were still terrible, but they were not as severe as they had been. Not once in days had Gabe come near to choking on his own mucus, though he still coughed it up abundantly.

"He's still a mite pale," said the doctor. "Where would you like me to examine him; kitchen or nursery? Or perhaps you're back to entertaining him in the parlor?"

"No, there's been no chance to have Nate clean the chimney," Mary said. "We're doing our best to follow your instructions: keeping him warm and well-dressed, keeping him away from smoke. We _should_ keep him away from smoke, shouldn't we, Doctor? To protect his lungs."

"Yes indeed," he said. "Smoke, dust, anything of the sort. If you lived in town I'd caution you about the lumberyards and the trains, too. Anything that might clog the nose or throat should be avoided."

"Perhaps you could remind Cullen of that," Mary suggested. "Just incidentally, as though it's part of your routine advice. If you tell him I asked you to he'll only get irritated."

Doc smiled. "You having trouble getting him to watch out for his health?" he asked.

"It's the tobacco fires," said Mary. "They burn day and night, and they have to be watched – a stray spark, you understand, could be disastrous. Cullen was taking his turn with the others, up until this last week. Bethel and I had to talk him out of doing so on Wednesday, and though he hasn't said anything since I'm afraid he might try it."

"I'll be sure to put a word in his ear," Doctor Whitehead promised.

"Thank you," Mary said. She used her light hold on Gabe's head to guide him as she turned. "We might as well go into the kitchen. You'll be able to put him up on the table, and I'm sure that Bethel will be interested in what you have to say."

They moved into the dining room and Mary stopped with her hand on the kitchen door. "Doctor, how are the little Ainsleys?" she asked softly. In her relief over her own child's transition into convalescence she had almost forgotten the calamity brewing up the road.

Doctor Whitehead's kind eyes grew sad. "Miss Charity's suffering, I'm afraid, and I expect Daisy and Charlie will be having their crises soon. The baby is awful ill: she's having trouble feeding because of the cough. I don't know what to do for her beyond what's been done already. Poor Miss Verbena's beside herself. You know the store she puts in her little ones, Miss Mary. There's mothers in her position in life that hardly seem to notice they got children, but she ain't one of 'em. Every cough tears at her heart, just as this little man's tear at yours, and I fear she ain't as brave as you are."

"Ladies can be brave?" Gabe asked avidly, sparing Mary from trying to think of something she could say without weeping. He looked up at her as if taking a measure of his mother with fresh eyes. "My mama brave?"

"Why, sure she is!" Doc Whitehead said. "Your mama's a mighty brave lady. Why, your pappy married her, didn't he? You think he'd marry somebody who wasn't at least as brave as him?"

"Nawsir, I reckon he wouldn'," said Gabe earnestly. He grinned at Mary and reached to pat her hand. "I guess we's all brave, den, Mama."

"Yes, darling, I guess we are," Mary murmured as she opened the door and herded him into the kitchen. He held out his arms obediently so that she could boost him up onto the table with ease.

"My, but something smells good!" the physician exclaimed, his voice rising a little to betray his deliberate attempt to dispel the gloom of worry. "Bethel, who you expecting to supper?"

"No one but you, Doct'," Bethel said in the shy deferential voice she always used with guests. To Mary's surprise she added; "Time you gets done arguin' with Mist' Cullen 'bout takin' care of hisself, it be pretty near time to eat."

"Bet'l makin' deer stew," Gabe announced proudly. "She makin' it wid de turnips dat got deir tops munched up! De rest of de deer in de 'mokehouse, 'mokin'. We's goin' have lots'n lots of meat now!"

Mary's instinct was to hush him, thinking of how Cullen would feel about the implication in the child's words, but she refrained. She would only draw more attention to the remark if she tried. "We don't call it deer stew, sweetheart: it's venison stew," she said. "Just like hog meat is called pork."

"Venny-sun," Gabe said, tasting the new word. "Den what you call rabbit meat?"

"We just say rabbit," said the doctor, opening his bag and taking out his stethoscope. Seeing it, Gabe began unbuttoning his vest. "Now tell me, son, do you feel tired in the daytime?"

"A li'l bit," said Gabe. "I's too tired to go 'sploring. An' I's too tired to wash behin' my ears."

Bethel snorted, and Mary smiled. "You can't fool the doctor," she said. "He knows that Bethel washes your ears for you."

Gabe shrugged sheepishly and wriggled out of his waistcoat as Mary drew it gently back. Then he grabbed his suspenders and pushed them off his arms, hoisting his small shirt to admit the listening device. Doctor Whitehead shifted the cone with practiced precision, eyes vacant as he focused on the sounds. Then he straightened and began to coil it up.

"May I listen again?" Gabe asked. "When it time to hear Pappy's chest?"

"We'll see," said the doctor. He looked around. "Someone ought to go and fetch him, Miss Mary."

"That a job fo' Lottie," Bethel murmured, wiping her hands on her apron and walking to the back door. She stepped out onto the stoop, leaning forward. "_Lottie_!" she shouted.

"She may be in the tobacco barn," Mary ventured. "I could go and fet—"

She fell silent midsentence as the child came running around the corner of the house into view, drawing up sharply at the foot of the steps and looking obediently up at Bethel. "Yass'm?" she said. "You need more water?"

Bethel shook her head. "Go out an' tell Mist' Cullen the doctor here, an' he wanted in the house," she said. "You tell 'im not to keep 'im waitin' none, neither. He lookin' at Mist' Gabe, an' he gots news from West Willows, an' Mist' Cullen gots to come down straight 'way!"

"Oh, don't say it like that," Mary protested, leaving Gabe's side to draw up behind Bethel. "He'll think there's been something disastrous at the Ainsleys'. Lottie, just tell him that the doctor is here and wants to speak to him."

Lottie curtsied. "Yes, Missus," she said crisply. "Mist' Cullen, he say he allus wan' know when the doctor here, on 'ccount he wan' know how Mist' Gabe be. He—" She swallowed whatever she was about to say as her body stiffened in a noisy sneeze. It was followed rapidly by two more, and she sniffled. "Beggin' you' pardon, Missus Bohannon," she murmured.

Bethel's jaw had tightened at the sound, and Mary felt her own pulse quickening. "Lottie," she said, keeping her voice very low in an attempt to keep it from rising anxiously. "Lottie, are you feeling ill?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders. "Not so ill, Missus," she said. "My nose jus' a bit plugged up, an' now'n then I gets a tickle in my throat."

"Go on and fetch Mr. Bohannon," Mary murmured vaguely, fighting a rising tide of exhausted dread. "Tell him to come at once."


	68. Duties of Friendship

_Note: Excerpts from "Tanglewood Tales" by Nathaniel Hawthorne._

**Chapter Sixty-Eight: Duties of Friendship**

Gabe knelt up on the curved head of the récamier, elbows planted on the edge of the kitchen table so that he could lean forward to watch his father. Pappy was sitting in the middle of the bench with a stack of dried tobacco leaves to his right and his penknife in his hand. A small pot of paste and the shallow cigar mold were set just beyond the clear workspace before him. Carefully he lifted one leaf and spread it on the table, taking a little nick at the base of its split stem with the knife. Then he gripped the narrow, brittle shaft and lifted, peeling it slowly away. The veins separated from the leaf in a limp, straggling little tree, leaving the tobacco fragile but intact upon the table.

Pappy's lips curled into a small smile of triumph as he brushed the side of his thumb delicately over the groove where the center vein had been. Gabe pushed himself a little higher on the couch and grinned. It was so nice to see Pappy smile. He watched, entranced, as his father repeated the process until he had four leaves stripped and stacked. He trimmed them carefully to size, pausing twice to turn away his head and cough. Both times Gabe waited anxiously to see whether Pappy would go on into a full-fledged fit, but he did not. Gabe thought it was because he was sitting up and not moving around too much. He had found that he could stretch out the time between his own coughing jags by playing quietly, trying not to run or climb or even laugh, and of course by staying upright. Sooner or later the cough always came back, but the longer it stayed away, the better.

Now Pappy was rolling the leaves into a cylinder, neither too tight nor too loose. He trued the edges as he went, flicking the sharp little knife without pausing. When he came to the end he spread a thin film of paste with a little brush and pressed the end of the last leaf to the roll, smoothing it. The resulting stick of tobacco was then put into the mold with the others, filling one of the cigar-shaped impressions. There were ten little rods in the mold now, and two empty places. Pappy reached for another leaf and began again.

"What you goin' do wid all dem li'l bits?" Gabe asked, pointing at the growing pile of trimmings by Pappy's left hand. He had been watching silently, like a good boy, but his curiosity had finally gotten the better of him.

"Give them to Nate and Elijah," Pappy said, eyes still intent on his work. "They can put 'em in their pipes. Don't need to waste so much as a scrap: I wish everything we did 'round here was as efficient as cigar-making."

"Is you goin' roll up _all _de tobacco?" Gabe asked, thinking of the vast green field full of large, squat plants.

Pappy grinned. "Naw, just what we got to spare," he said. "These here ain't the best leaves: they're from high up on the plant. The best leaves come from the middle, and I mean to sell as much of that tobacco as I can. Any odd weight I'll keep, but I won't know that 'til it's all packed."

"Ah." Gabe nodded soberly to show that he understood. Selling the tobacco was very important. That was why Pappy went to New Orleans every year. A troubling thought struck the child. "Pappy, when you goin' go sell dat tobacco?" he asked.

"In a couple of weeks," Pappy said, and coughed again. "We still got a couple more batches to cure. Wet as it's been, it's taking its time."

Gabe breathed a little easier. Two weeks was a long, long time, and maybe if the weather stayed wet it would take even longer for the tobacco to be finished. There had been thunder and lightning last night, and a heavy rain that drummed on the roof and woke Gabe from a deep sleep even though he hadn't been coughing. Today the sun was shining, but even from the window the world still looked wet and cool. Gabe wished he were well enough to go out and splash in the puddles, but he knew he probably wouldn't have been allowed to anyway. Today was Sunday, and he thought maybe Bethel would deem such a messy game unsuitable for the Lord's Day.

Pappy tucked the edge of the last cigar bunch and laid it in the mold. He drew the wooden form to him and picked up its other half. Very carefully, mindful that he did not catch any of the slender cylinders between the pieces, he lowered the top of the mold into place. Then he picked it up and took it over to the counter where the other three molds were already stacked. He put the last one on top, and then went to the door to fetch the heavy stone that he had brought in that morning. He settled it on the pile, weighing down the molds to press the tobacco into the perfect shape. Tomorrow night he could open them up, and he would have four dozen small cigars ready to be wrapped in the best smooth and whole leaves for smoking.

"You all done?" Gabe asked hopefully. He twisted around so that he could slide down the curved top of the récamier onto the seat cushion. He had brought down _Tanglewood Tales _from the nursery, and he hoped that Pappy would agree to read to him. He drew the heavy book into his lap and watched as his father scooped up the scraps of tobacco into a little leather bag and put away the paste-pot.

"All done," Pappy agreed, picking up the stems and tossing them into the slop-pail behind the door. He dusted his hands and looked down at his fingertips. They were stained again, not the inky black of the green sap but a jaundiced yellowish-brown. He shrugged his shoulders and sat down next to Gabe, stretching one arm out along the back of the couch and patting his knee. Eagerly the little boy climbed up and settled in his lap. Pappy settled his palm against Gabe's ribs with consoling pressure that eased his breathing.

"Now, then," he said; "there something you want to ask me?"

Gabe nodded and hefted up the book. "Read to me?"

Pappy chuckled and lowered his lounging arm to take the book, balancing it on Gabe's lap and thumbing through it. "I guess I could do that," he said. "Which story d'you want?"

"Dragon Teef," Gabe answered promptly, snuggling down more comfortably and reaching to hold the edge of the book as Pappy opened it. He had already found the right page, having known what the answer would be. Clearing his phlegmy throat, he began to read.

"'_Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, the three sons of King Agenor, and their little sister Europa (who was a very beautiful child),_'" he began; "_'were at play together near the seashore in their father's kingdom…_'"

Gabe listened raptly to the story of the remarkable white bull that carried off the little princess, and the quest of the princes and their mother to find her. He frowned disapprovingly when Phoenix abandoned the search to found his own kingdom, and sighed when Cilix did the same. When at last the queen could go no farther and Cadmus buried her before going on alone, Gabe gasped as though he had never heard the story before. On Pappy read, his beloved drawling voice bringing out the familiar story. He used different pitches to bring out the words of the dialogue of the various characters, and Gabe's favorite was the high haunted tone Pappy used for the Oracle of Delphi.

"'_Seek her no more! Seek her no more! Seek her no more!'_" he sang out, and Gabe shivered deliciously. He felt as if he were the one before the ancient seer.

When Pappy came to the part where the brindled cow lay down and poor wandering Cadmus at last made himself a home, Mama sailed into the kitchen. She was wearing her blue tartan frock and her small hoop, and she had her silk bonnet in her hand. It was the one with the embroidered ribbons, the one she usually wore to town, and the sight of it made Gabe stiffen.

"Mama?" he asked worriedly. "I t'ought you wasn' goin' go to church today! I's sick, an' Pappy sick."

Mama smiled sadly and perched on the foot of the récamier, reaching to stroke his hair. Gabe leaned into the caress, but kept his wary eyes on her face. Pappy, who had been interrupted mind-sentence, put his thumb in the book and closed it. He too seemed puzzled, but not concerned.

"No, darling," said Mama. "It's too late in the day for church. I thought I might call on the Ainsleys, and see whether I might be any help to Verbena."

She addressed this last to Pappy, but Gabe did not care. He knew who the Ainsleys were, all right, and a visit to their house was much more interesting than Mama and Pappy leaving him to go to church. "May I come?" he asked. "I wants to come. I wants to see Charlie 'n Leon."

Mama sighed. "Oh, lovey, Charlie's ill. He has whooping cough, too: you couldn't go to see him even if you were well yourself. You need to stay here with Pappy and rest."

Gabe was disappointed that he was not going to see his friends, but the idea of staying home with Pappy was certainly alluring. They were still reading their story, after all: they hadn't even got to the part about the dragon's teeth yet! And then afterward maybe they could play with the tin soldiers. Pappy was the best person to play soldiers with, because he knew all sorts of things about them that Mama and Lottie did not. Placated, Gabe nodded.

Pappy, however, was frowning. "You ain't meaning to go alone?" he asked. "You can't ride dressed like that."

He nodded at Mama's good gown and the dainty bonnet, and Mama pursed her lips in a fondly indulgent manner. "Of course not," she said. "I intend to walk. It's only a mile, and it's a lovely afternoon."

"It's wet out there," he argued. "The road'll be thick with puddles, and the mud can suck off a shoe. It ain't fit weather for a lady to be walking."

Mama smiled indulgently. "Really, Cullen. I grew up in New York. I'm no stranger to mud."

Gabe giggled, more because of Mama's tone of voice than because he really understood what she meant. Pappy's lips stretched wryly, and he shook his head. "It ain't like city mud, Mary. It's got no bottom."

"But it's less aromatic," Mama pointed out with an impish little smile. "Don't worry about me; I'll be quite all right."

"I don't want you walking," Pappy said tiredly. "I don't think it's such a good idea to go calling over there at all. Verbena ain't goin' want to see you: she got four sick children to look after."

"That's exactly why I ought to go," said Mama gently. "If there is anything I can do to help this is when she will need it, and if there is nothing at least I can offer a little comfort. You know how hard it has been for us. Now that Gabe can spare me for a few hours, I must go."

Now Pappy's eyes were pained, and his hold on Gabe's flank tightened marginally. "Mary, she ain't goin' want you," he repeated, very quietly.

"Cullen, she's my friend. Even if she does decide not to accept my call it will be a consolation to know that I made the gesture." Mama smiled again, but a little sadly this time.

Pappy sighed wearily, his chest spasming as he swallowed a shallow cough. "Mary…" he groaned. He closed his eyes and slipped his hand out from under Gabe's arm to scrub at his beard. "Mary, you might be a friend to her, but she ain't no friend to you."

Mama's lips parted and her back stiffened so that she drew back a little. Her eyelashes fluttered rapidly and the color left her cheeks. It was as though she had been suddenly awakened to some awful truth that she had never suspected but saw now that she should have known all along. "But she has always been so kind," she whispered.

"She was brung up with manners," Pappy said. "She don't just let folks know what she thinks of them, particularly when it ain't flattering. She's polite with you, earnestly polite, but it don't go much farther than that. It ain't a reflection on you; it's just that she's never going to be friends with a Northerner, not really."

When he fell silent, Mama said nothing. She looked so desolate that Gabe climbed out of his father's lap and knelt up on the cushion so that he could reach to pat her cheek. "It awright, Mama," he said uncertainly, wanting to comfort her but not understanding how to do it.

She lifted her bonnet out of her lap and curled her other arm around him, hugging him close. Then she fixed her eyes steadily on Pappy. "Then I _must_ go," she said. "I must show her that our differences do not matter. There is no room for regional prejudice at a time like this. Her children are ill; I must go and offer my help. It's the Christian thing to do."

Gabe looked back over his shoulder to see how Pappy would respond to this. He was staring at Mama in awed disbelief, and after a moment his lips curled up in a tiny, wry smile. "Sometimes you's too good to be true, Mary," he murmured. Then he exhaled a hot huff of air that ruffled the hair behind Gabe's ear. "If you've made up your mind to go, I'll take you. We can hitch up the buggy and travel in style."

"What 'bout me?" Gabe asked. "If Pappy goin' go, why not me? I ain't _so_ sick, Mama, an' I'll be good."

"I don't think that's fitting, dearest," Mama said, tucking her chin to look down at him as she rubbed her hand in tender circles on his back. "The house will be in an uproar, and everyone will be busy. Charlie is sick and he won't be able to play with you, and I don't think you are well enough to go riding in the buggy. We can't take the risk of you catching a chill."

Gabe frowned his disapproval, but did not argue. He was sore and still perpetually tired, and the thought of the fever coming back was frightening. He did not want to go back to huddling in the nursery, the world indistinct and muzzy around him while he alternately shivered and sweltered. He turned and sat down on Mama's lap, letting her crook her arm around him and wrap her hand under his knee. "What 'bout Pappy?" he asked softly. "Pappy sick, too."

"He has a point, Cullen." Mama sounded amused now.

"You don't really think I'll take harm driving out to West Willows when I been working outside the last few days?" Pappy asked.

"No," Mama said fondly. "But I do think it wouldn't do you any harm to stay here in warmth and comfort and spend the afternoon with your child."

"Dat a good idea, Mama," Gabe piped up eagerly. "Pappy, Mama gots a good idea."

Pappy chuckled and ruffled his hair. "We'll be back in a couple of hours, son, and then we can finish our story. In the meantime you can stay here and play with Lottie. Where _is _Lottie?" he asked, eyes flicking to Mama.

"Down in the quarters, I think," she answered. "She said she was going to have a little lie-down. I'm… I'm afraid she might be falling ill too, Cullen." Her lips trembled worriedly.

"Dammit," Pappy sighed. He looked down at the book still clamped around his thumb, and tossed it onto the table. "This thing's spreading like the plague. What next?" Then he hoisted himself to his feet. "Give me a couple of minutes to make myself presentable, and I'll go and hitch up the horses. You're right about the gesture being a comfort, whatever Verbena might feel about you, and it'll mean plenty to Boyd."

He left the room, and Mama smoothed Gabe's disheveled curls. Her hands slid down to cup his cheeks and she smiled sweetly. "You know it's best you stay here, darling, don't you?" she asked. "You aren't strong enough to go driving yet."

"Yes, Mama," Gabe recited, knowing that was what she wanted. He wished he could go, even if Charlie wasn't well enough to play. They could still talk, couldn't they? They could talk about being sick! He wondered if the doctor had given Charlie the yucky medicine. But if Mama said he wasn't well enough, then it must be true. Mama was always truthful.

From above came the ratcheting echo of a string of harsh coughs that made them both stiffen. Pappy had managed to climb the stairs before the fit took him, but it sounded like a bad one. Gabe looked expectantly at his mother, waiting for her to whisk him on up the stairs to comfort Pappy. Instead she only gave a tiny, sad sigh and said; "Let's go and see what Bethel is doing, lovey."

She stood gracefully and Gabe let her lift him up onto her hip. He didn't need to be carried, but lately the grown folks seemed to prefer it. Maybe it was something Doctor Whitehead had told them to do, like keeping him near one of the stoves or making sure he wore his shoes when he was up and out of bed. Mama bore him through the dining room and the parlor to where the door to Bethel's room stood ajar. She knocked lightly on the post and Bethel, who had been kneeling by the bed with her hands folded on the counterpane, climbed to her feet.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your prayers," Mama said quietly, hitching Gabe a little higher.

"Ain' no cause to be sorry," Bethel said earnestly, dusting off her skirts and smiling. She still had almost all of her teeth even though she was old, and Gabe thought she had a very pretty smile. "I's jus' giving thanks. We's had a heap this week to be thankful for."

"De deer!" Gabe declared proudly. "I's t'ankful for de deer!"

"Yassir, Mist' Gabe," agreed Bethel. "An' you' fever done broke, an' Mist' Secrest come an' lif' you' pappy's black mood a li'l, an' the weather been 'greeable, an' the work gone on without trouble. It been a week full of blessin's."

"It has," Mama murmured, turning to kiss Gabe's brow. Her eyes fluttered closed. "It has been a week full of blessings."

"What you wantin', Missus?" Bethel asked. "Is this li'l rapscallion hungry fo' an aft'noon snack?"

"That's a lovely idea," said Mama; "but I wanted to ask if you would mind him for a couple of hours. Cullen and I are going over to West Willows to see if we can be of any help to Mr. and Mrs. Ainsley."

"Aw, Missus Mary, you know you don' never need to ask that!" Bethel sang, holding out her hands to Gabe. He disentangled his arm from behind Mama's neck and reached for his nurse, letting her take him from his mother. It was easier to sit on Bethel's hip, because there was no hoop-wire to bend and buckle under the weight of his bottom. Gabe rested his chin against Bethel's breast, secure as only a beloved child can be. "I's been meanin' to roast up some apples, honey. Mebbe you kin help me with that."

This was an enticing prospect, and almost complete recompense for missing out on the journey to Charlie's house. Gabe grinned. "I can do dat," he declared proudly. "I's a _mighty_ good apple-roaster!"

Mama looked tremendously relieved.

_*discidium*_

Pike and Bonnie took the turn onto the Ainsleys' drive with their usual high-stepping finesse. Nestled on the dark leather seat behind Cullen, Mary was glad that he had insisted on accompanying her. The laprobe was splattered with mud almost to its thick turned-back border, and the ruts and gullies in the road behind them were flooded with standing water from last night's storm. The grime would have been the ruin of her dress, at a time when everyone in the household had to take particular care of their clothing. She could have borne with equanimity the embarrassment of turning up at the neighbors' with a hem soaked six inches high with dirty water, but it would have exhausted all of Bethel's not inconsiderable skill to restore the garment to a wearable state afterwards. Mary hastily shut away the phalanx of worries that arose whenever she thought about the business of keeping everyone clothed this year. There was no sense in fretting yet, she told herself. Not yet.

As they approached the front of the house, the rangy young carriage-boy came trotting around to greet them. He offered a crisp bow and a respectful; "Aft'noon, Mist' Bohannon. Miz Bohannon."

Cullen handed him the lines and climbed down to help Mary alight. Arm in arm they mounted the broad graceful steps of the plantation house, and Cullen's hand hovered briefly over the door-handle before he remembered himself and knocked instead. Mary smiled up at him, a wordless approval that made the corner of his mouth twitch apologetically. When a decent interval had passed with no answer from within, he knocked again with greater vigor.

This time the door opened with smooth decadence. Silver-haired Matthew greeted them, bowing smoothly with the air of an accomplished house-servant. "Good day, Mist' Cullen. Missus Bohannon," he said.

The formality of the latter address stung Mary now as it had never done before. She was not a fool. She had known from the first that she would always be an outsider in Lauderdale County. But she had come to believe over the years that West Willows was the exception: that here, where Cullen had been from boyhood almost a member of the family, she might be welcomed as a true friend. She had taken Verbena's earnest politeness and her extraordinary kindness for friendship. Now she knew it was only a façade, perfect and lovely but still no more than skin-deep, that covered the coolness and habitual disapproval with which the other planters' wives treated her. Verbena was merely more adept at disguising her feelings, and perhaps merciful enough to exert every effort in doing so.

And even Matthew treated her as a stranger. "Good day," she said sweetly, smiling for him. Her gloved hand tightened a little on Cullen's arm so it would not tremble. He curled his fingers over it and squeezed.

"We've come to see if there's anything we can do to help," he said. "How's all the little Ainsleys?"

The door closed with an audible _clack_, and all pretense of formality melted away. Matthew's shoulders sagged and the crevices of age deepened around his mouth. Mary noticed now that his livery was untidy; not precisely disarrayed, but poorly pressed and inattentively worn. The waistcoat was slightly askew and he had put his collar studs in backwards. A flutter of anxiety took her.

"They ain't so well, Mist' Cullen," the old slave sighed, shaking his head. "Miss Charity, she been d'lerious since las' night. Mist' Charlie don' hardly never stop fussin'. An' Baby…"

Cullen reached to grip his shoulder bracingly. "I can ride for the doctor," he offered. "If your boy can lend my mare a saddle, I'll be back within the hour."

"The doct'r be here awready," said Matthew wearily. "He up there now, doin' what he can. Mammy say it ain' much, but it better'n nuthin'. Miss Verbena, she be beside herself, an' Mist' Boyd ain' hardly sleepin'. He jus' pace in the library all night long, list'nin' fo' the coughs. He in there now, waitin' to hear."

"You should go to him," Mary said softly to her husband. It was painful to witness the misery on the old man's face, and to hear the ghost of despair in his voice. She could only imagine Boyd's turmoil, of course, but her heart was with Verbena. Her own fear and exhaustion and misery had been dreadful, but through it all she had had Cullen to lean on. He had not retreated from the sickroom, waiting for news as so many men did in times of sickness. He had been courageous enough, dedicated enough, to weather the storm with her. With one last squeeze of his arm she released him. "Matthew, may I go up to the nursery? Perhaps I can be of some help."

The valet's face crumpled uncertainly. Such calls were commonplace in the North, when one young matron might visit another to offer aid and comfort, or a more experienced mother come to help a new one. Surely the same was true in Mississippi, but Mary was an outsider. She could see the debate in Matthew's eyes. His mistress needed support, and he knew it, but he was not certain that this was the woman she would have chosen to offer it.

"My boy has been ill with the same affliction," Mary said firmly. "I am sure I can be useful. I shall just go up and see what may be done."

She started for the stairs, graceful despite the bone-deep tremor that took her as she stepped beyond reach of her husband. Catching his eye as she took the first step, she saw frank admiration upon his face.

Matthew, momentarily petrified, fluttered into sudden action. "Nell!" he called, and almost immediately a little kitchen maid came popping out of the dining room. "You show Missus Bohannon upstairs now, that a good girl. You 'nnounce her proper, jus' like I teached you. Mist' Cullen, go on through. Mist' Boyd goin' be glad to see you, that I know!"

Mary stepped aside, her hoop collapsing against the bannister to allow the girl to slip past her. She was certainly no more than two years older than Lottie, but clad in a grown woman's dress of becoming russet brown with her hair concealed under a neatly-knotted headscarf. She curtseyed awkwardly, her feet on two different steps.

"Jus' this way, Missus Bohannon," she said shyly. The awe in her eyes told Mary that this was not her customary duty, and furthermore that – whatever the mistress and the valet might think – in Nell's eyes she was a proper Southern lady.

She followed the girl through the elegant upper hall and past the carved double doors that surely concealed the master bedroom. A little further along the same passage they came to a door that stood ajar on a playroom in disarray. A fire was burning in the hearth, but in every other respect the chamber gave off the impression of having been suddenly abandoned. A wooden train with brightly painted passenger cars, boxcars and flats lay derailed upon its wooden tracks. Tin soldiers, similar to Gabe's but not so well-made, were scattered over a vacant battlefield. Soiled linens had been flung over the backs of chairs, and one hand towel was smothering the rocking horse. A wax doll lay forgotten in one corner, her legs akimbo and her ruffled petticoats exposed to the air.

Nell hurried through this wasteland as though she could not even see the chaos, and rapped upon the inner door. A distracted Negro voice called from within, and the girl opened the door just far enough to peer inside. "Missus Bohannon to see you, Missus," she stammered unsteadily. "She come to see if'n she kin help."

Something was murmured from within, and Nell bobbed another curtsey as she backed up, drawing the door with her. "You kin go in, ma'am," she said softly.

"Thank you," Mary murmured as she stepped past the child into the nursery. She scarcely remembered to move far enough into the room that the door could close behind her, so overwhelming was the spectacle before her.

In times of health it must have been a charming room: bright and airy, spacious despite the four little beds each with a chest at its foot, the canopied cradle and the baby bath, the washstand and the two large clothes-presses. The curtains were of best muslin, thickly ruffled and festooned with red ribbons. On the walls were framed prints from nursery rhymes, Miss Muffet and her spider hanging beside Jack Spratt and his rotund bride, with Mother Goose in pride of place above the mantelpiece. The braided rugs coordinated with the quilts on each of the beds, and the high windows looked out over the rose garden. But the beds were tangles of rumpled blankets and sweat-soaked sheets, the rugs were obscured by heaps of cast-off linens, the windows were closed tight against the cool afternoon, and the chests hung half-open where nightclothes had been hurriedly snatched out of them. The nursery had the close, stuffy sickroom smell that Mary knew all too intimately: stale baby sweat and misery, camphor and the bitter tang of soothing syrup, a faint metallic pong of vomit and the sickly-sweet scent of phlegm and dampness.

The bed nearest the door was empty, but unmade. In the next lay Charlie, curled on his side and clutching a fistful of blanket while one of the nursemaids bathed his head. His eyes were screwed tightly closed, and he looked positively wretched – nothing like the high-spirited boy who was wont to tear about the house like a hellion. On the next bed sat another of the maids, her apron creased and stained with smears of food and medicine. She had little Daisy in her lap, and was trying to ruck up the toddler's ruffled nightgown. Doctor Whithead was seated on the other side of the narrow bed, leaning in to be near the child. His brow was furrowed worriedly, but he was smiling kindly.

"Now then, Daisy-my-girl," he said; "I need to take a listen to your chest. Do you know what one of my other patients calls this thing? He calls it a listening snake. Ain't that funny? Will you let the listening snake see what he can hear in your lungs?"

The little girl had been twisting petulantly in her nurse's arms, whimpering in fear and trying to reach for the young woman's neck. Her eyes were glassy and her cheeks flushed with fever, and her breath caught thickly in her throat. Despite this she was now still, looking curiously at the physician. "'Nake?" she asked. "Wattle 'nake?"

"No, honey-lamb, a garden snake," said the nursemaid. "See? Jus' like the one you found down the yard. _Hisss…_"

"_Ffff_," Daisy imitated wetly. She sniffled and reached for it. "My 'nake."

"Well, sure," said Doc, drawing the chest cup to and fro so that the spring in its silk sheath appeared to slither. "Here he comes in for a quick li'l listen, old Mr. Listening Snake."

For a moment Mary was entranced, knowing which of Doc's small patients had coined the name and delighted to think that Gabe's imagination was a help to another suffering child. Then the commotion from the last bed, the one nearest the fire, drew her eyes and she forgot all about Daisy.

Charity Ainsley, naked but for a bath sheet folded over to preserve the last vestige of modesty, was thrashing against the feather tick. Her mammy and the senior nursemaid had been giving her a bed-bath with water that, though decanted into a porcelain ewer, had surely been brought straight up from the well. Now the sodden sponges were cast aside, one on the floor and the other soaking into the pillow, as the two darkies tried to calm her. Charity shouted something unintelligible. Her hair was coming loose of its twin plaits in wiry tangles, and stray strands were plastered to her brow and neck. Brilliant roses of fever stood out garishly against her gray-hued face, and there were red blotches on her chest and arms as well. She struggled against her mammy's arms and would have rolled right out of the bed if not for the nursemaid on the other side. Then her whole body stiffened as if in the throes of an epileptic fit, and the first horrible cough tore from her lips.

Verbena had been sitting in the rocking chair by the hearth. Now she was on her feet and rushing towards her eldest daughter. Her hair, too, was replete with flyaway tendrils that told how long she had gone without redoing her coiffure. Her china silk gown was rumpled and stained, dark crescents showing under her arms where perspiration had soaked through. Most startling of all was the change that had come over her face, ordinarily so placid and pretty with its flawless complexion and lingering blush of youth. Now she was haggard, almost gaunt, and her eyes were wild. She held baby Lucy, swaddled in a sheet and a thick flannel blanket. The load seemed too heavy for Verbena's slender arms, particularly now when it was clear she wanted nothing more than to reach out and console Charity.

The coughs were coming faster now, and the girl bucked painfully against a high, awful whoop. Hearing it, Daisy began to cry and Charlie whimpered. Doctor Whitehead was on his feet now, stethoscope cast aside as he rushed into the fray. Mammy was crying out anxious words that were obviously intended as consolations but came forth only in half-panicked wails. She was older than Bethel, and clearly worn down for want of sleep. Watching, Mary tried to remember if Doc had said just when Charity had entered her crisis. She could not.

But she could not stand here helpless, either. Lucy, who had been sleeping peacefully in her mother's lap, now awakened with a keening cry of bewildered fright. Her breath hitched high in her little throat and she coughed also; just a little, preemptory cough, but enough to make Verbena's body startle against her. Then Charity whooped again, and Verbena's head whipped back in that direction. Already the terrifying purple tint was spreading across the girl's lips, and her ribs strained visibly beneath her transluscent skin as she coughed and coughed.

"Make her stop! Make it stop!" Charlie wailed, clamping his hands over his ears and thrashing in his bed. Fat tears squeezed from his eyes. "Mother, _please_ make it stop!"

"Mudder! Mudder!" cried Daisy, wriggling against the nursmaid's arms and trying to reach for Verbena. The call made the lady twist again, and again her hold upon the baby seemed to strain perilously. As a harsh, breathless sob tore from Charity's throat, Verbena whirled back.

Mary took four swift strides to close the distance, and was digging around the cluster of bunched cloth even before Verbena's wild eyes could focus on her face. "Let me hold her," Mary said, as calmly as she could. She had her hand under Lucy's bottom now, and she lifted her gently out of her mother's disordered grasp. "I'll hold her: you see to Charity. Don't worry, dear: I'm here to help you."

Verbena's flabbergasted expression flitted briefly over something that might have been gratitude, but another whoop from Charity sent it reeling into anxious concern. She released her trailing hold on the hem of Lucy's sheet, and flew in to join the flock around the older girl.

"Hush now, darling, that's a good girl," Mary murmured, not really expecting the baby to obey her. She could feel the heat of Lucy's fever through her little muslin gown as she settled her palm on the baby's back. She glanced once more at the epicenter of chaos in the little bed, and decided that there was nothing she could do to ease it. Doctor Whitehead had the matter in hand: she could hear him giving quiet, firm advice to the fearful caretakers and offering calm reassurances to the patient. But Mammy was still fussing, and the nursemaid was trying not to weep, and Verbena was calling out to her daughter in strained desperation, and all the uproar was clearly upsetting the baby. So Mary moved off to the far side of the nursery, where there was only Charlie begging petulantly for someone to make it stop.

It was remarkable how the skills of new motherhood came back of their own accord. Mary had not held a baby except in genteel play since Gabe had graduated to short gowns, but she found that her arms knew just how to support the arcing, twisting little body within them. She braced Lucy against her shoulder and held her with one arm while the other hand disentangled and shook out the sheet. The blanket she dropped onto a chair as she smoothed the infant's nightgown and wrapped her neatly, then picked it up again to replace the outer layer. Now she could cradle Lucy in her arms, careful to keep her almost upright while still easing her head back to an angle that allowed the little girl to see her face. Mary smiled radiantly for her, and felt a warm burst of love as the baby began to settle.

"There, my girl, my good girl," she cooed, swaying from side to side. "You remember me, don't you? That's my good girl."

Later she knew she would feel Lucy's weight in empty arms, and smell again the soft milky scent that was a blessed counterpoint to the sickroom odors, and her heart would ache for her own lost little one. But in this moment there was room in her heart only for Lucy, who was sick and frightened and who needed her. A rattling cough parted the tiny pink lips, and Lucy stiffened, but Mary continued to rock her gently. The spasm quieted.

Daisy was coughing now, too. The nursemaid had her up against her shoulder, patting her back steadily as the child whooped and struggled to breathe. Each high, whistling wheeze should have filled Mary with terror and remembered pain, but she was extraordinarily calm. She settled Lucy more snugly into the crook of her arm and sat down on the edge of Charlie's bed.

"Make 'em stop! _Please _make 'em stop!" he moaned.

"I cain't, Mist' Charlie; I _cain't_!" cried the nursemaid. She was no more than sixteen: just an overgrown child herself. She tugged at the knot of her headrail nervously. "I's sorry, chile, I jus' _cain't_!"

"It's all right," Mary said soothingly. She freed her lower hand from Lucy's wrappings and reached to pet the boy's cheek. Though he was six, and already showing his father's impressive height, she saw nothing but a frightened little child, just like her own dear boy. She comforted him accordingly. "Charlie, it's all right. They'll stop soon, just as soon as they can. Their coughing can't hurt you; it's all right."

He twisted in bed, dragging tangled bedclothes with him, and pushed himself up on one elbow. He was staring at her in consternation, as though he could not understand how she had read his innermost fears. "But they don't hardly never stop!" he protested. "It's always one or another one coughing! I's tired! I wants to sleep, an' they don't hardly never stop! Blame fool girls!"

"I know," Mary said. "It's hard when you want to sleep, and something wakes you up. I know you don't feel well yourself, either, but you've been such a brave boy." Beneath her hand his skin was hot and dry. Uneasily she reflected that his own crisis could not be far off. "You must try to keep on being brave. Now, why don't you get up out of bed for a minute and wash your face? That will help you to feel better, and then…" She looked up at the girl. "What is your name, dear?"

"Hettie, Missus," said the maid with a tiny bob.

"Hettie," Mary repeated, fixing the name in her memory. "Hettie, you could straighten out the bed while Charlie washes his face. That will help you to feel better, too, won't it?" she asked the boy.

He nodded, sniffling thickly. Mary stood up with remarkable grace, burdened as she was, and held Lucy one-handed as she guided Charlie over to the washstand. Thankfully he was old enough to shift for himself, for she would not have been much help, and after the first splash of water he seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing. He washed thoroughly, even remembering to wipe behind his ears with a corner of the towel, and then fastened the loose buttons on his nightshirt. He looked up at Mary for approval.

"Very fine," she applauded. "Don't you feel more like a little gentleman now?"

"Yass'm," he agreed. Then he stood on the tips of his toes, trying to peek at his sister. Mary bent her knees to bring Lucy down to Charlie's eye level. He slipped his finger between her chin and the collar of her gown in a tentative gesture of fondness. "Poor baby," he said. "She pretty sick, Missus Bohannon."

Beneath the matter-of-fact tone Mary could feel his fear. She wondered what had been whispered among the women concerning Lucy's prognosis, and she studied the listless little body in her arms. Despite the weight of the blankets and the fact that she was almost motionless, Lucy felt lighter today than she had on the day that Mary had brought Frances to visit. Surely that was nothing but a flight of fancy born of anxiety, but still it made her uneasy. She remembered Doctor Whitehead saying that Lucy could scarcely feed for coughing.

Hettie had finished making the bed, and was just plumping up the pillows. Mary straightened and steered Charlie back towards it. "I think you're well enough to sit up for a while and look at a picture-book," she suggested. "Would you like that? Just until the furor dies down in here."

Charlie shrugged. "I guesso," he sighed. Then his aspect perked considerably and he looked up at her with eager eyes. "Did you bring Gabe? I could use me some comp'ny!"

Now despite the soundness of her decision Mary regretted it. She had gauged that the good of a new environment outweighed by the risks of the drive, but she had not considered that a small visitor might comfort the Ainsley children. "I'm sorry, Charlie, I didn't," she said with genuine remorse. "Gabe has the whooping cough, too."

Charlie's shoulders slumped. "Oh." He scowled bitterly. "Stinkin' old whooping cough."

A shattering gasp sounded from the far side of the room, followed by a series of desperate breaths as Charity stopped coughing. Daisy's sympathetic jag was over already, and she was cuddled exhaustedly against her nurse. Then there was a thin, quivering sob as Charity began to weep with weariness and fright. Her mammy was embracing her and Verbena slid in nearer to offer her own consolations. Doctor Whitehead stepped back with a sigh and came to lay his hand on Daisy's back. His eyes passed over the shoulder of the Negro nursemaid as though she were not even there, and settled on Mary. For a moment he did not seem able to place her. There were shadows under his eyes and thin lines of strain dark about his mouth and temples.

Then his gaze softened and he sighed. "Miss Mary," he murmured. "You come here to help?"

"As much as I can, Doctor," she said softly, drawing back the covers with her free hand so that Charlie could climb back into bed. In her other arm, Lucy stirred and coughed again, thinly. It was followed by a shallow wheezing rattle that stirred Mary's heart with dread. She forced herself to ignore the impulse, and put on a sad little smile. "As much as I can."


	69. Human Kindness

_Note: For those of you interested in the evolution of neurology, the distinction between aphasia and agraphia is a relatively recent development. Preliminary observations indicating differing rates of recovery for speech and writing skills had been made by some clinicians, but the idea had not gained widespread acceptance in 1860._

**Chapter Sixty-Nine: Human Kindness**

A distant cacophony of coughing and anxious voices rumbled down through the timbers of the house from the second floor, punctuated periodically with the brief thunder of feet. Cullen took another swallow of Boyd's excellent whiskey, watching his friend's pale face intently. Thin lines of strain tugged at mouth and brow, and there were faint brownish crescents beneath his eyes. More telling was the precarious way his ordinarily languid body perched on the edge of the armchair, shifting skittishly as the noises above waxed and waned. His long fingers clenched the cut-glass tumbler so tightly that his knuckles showed white, and Cullen wondered absentmindedly how much pressure the cup could take without cracking.

Boyd shook himself, trying to break away from the inexorable urge to strain to hear what was going on upstairs. By Cullen's count there were at least two children coughing; the whoops were too tightly space to come from one throat. He managed a thin smile as Boyd croaked; "What 'bout your boy? You said he's better?"

"Improved, anyhow," answered Cullen. "He don't have a fever now, and he's more cheerful than he was. Still too quiet, though: all this is wearing on him."

"And his crisis?" Boyd pressed breathlessly, cringing again at a distant whistling wheeze. "How'd he… was it… I mean…"

"It wasn't easy, but we got through it." Cullen took another sip of liquor to give him a moment to filter through the truth for the less terrifying morsels. He had to remember that Boyd had four little ones all likely to go through the nightmare Gabe had only just survived, and if he was going to keep his composure for them and for his wife he didn't need any borrowed horrors clawing at him. "Nobody got much sleep for a few days there, but when the fever broke we knew it straight away. All at once he started sweating – soaked in it. And after that he slept peaceful again, in between coughing jags."

"He's still coughing, then," sighed Boyd. He slumped wearily against the back of the chair. "Doc says the coughing might last six weeks or more."

"He told us the same thing, and I don't doubt it," Cullen said. "My boy don't gurgle so much now, but he's still hacking hard enough to hurt his ribs. He's up four or five times in the night with it, but that's better than ten. And without the fever, at least he's getting some good from his sleep."

"Charity ain't been talking sense," Boyd whispered. From above came another series of rapid choking spasms, and he straightened so swiftly that a little of the whiskey sloshed over the edge of the glass. "Doc says she's delirious, the fever's so high."

"She'll come through," Cullen pledged, praying he was not lying to his friend. "She's nine: Doc told us most children her age recover."

"Most," Boyd mumbled in a quavering undertone. "Not all. She's my little girl, Cullen. My first little girl. You don't know… it ain't the same with a boy." He gestured expansively with his empty hand, clawing at the air before hiding his face in his palm. "She can't die."

Looking at him, Cullen was not at all certain that it _was _any different with a boy. He recognized the inarticulate terror of a parent's vague nightmare made all too palpable, and with it the hollow rage borne of helplessness. Boyd's temper had never burned as hot as his own, but Cullen could see the anger in the strained sinews of his neck. He could hear it in the wrathful bent of the despairing invocation as the other man repeated it again. "She can't die."

"She ain't dying," said Cullen, but he could hear no true conviction in his voice. He had stared too intimately into the truth of his own child's mortality to believe too strongly in the invincibility of another's. His mind seemed to flail about for something to say, and as Boyd stiffened and looked ceilingward again it came to him. "You should be up there, you know. I can see you want to be."

Boyd shook his head firmly. "It ain't my place. The sickroom's for womenfolk: men only clutter it up and get in the way."

"That you talking, or your mammy?" asked Cullen. He caught Boyd's gaze and held it. "Why don't you go up there and sit a while? Talk to your son. Hold your baby. Hang what Mammy thinks."

Boyd grimaced. "Am I supposed to believe you'd argue with Bethel at a time like this?" he asked. His hand traveled to rake at his pale hair. "Besides, it'd scandalize Verbena. Charity's getting too old to have her pappy in the room while they're sponging her down and changing her nightdress and things. She really should have been moved out of the nursery this year, but with the new baby we decided it could wait. Too much change all at once, we thought."

"Makes sense," Cullen ventured. Unbidden came the thought of the child Mary had lost. How would Gabe have taken to having a baby about the place? His courage was shaken by the image of the little nursery at home furnished for two, the old cradle brought down again from the attic and set near the little iron heating stove. His throat felt suddenly tight.

"And now…" Boyd shook his head. "Now Baby might die anyway, and Charity might go with her, and—"

His recitation of imagined horrors was cut short by a strangled inhalation that caught in his throat. Reflexes attuned to the signs after a fortnight of nursing Gabe through the fits, Cullen was on his feet and across the rich rug before the first cough spilled from Boyd's lips. He snatched the tumbler from the taller man's hand and set both down on the little pedestal table next to the chair.

But Boyd was not shaking with the spasms of the sickness that gripped his children and Cullen's son. He drew in a breath in a thin, asthmatic wheeze that was nothing like the sharp voluminous shrieks of whooping cough. The next cough was shallow, and followed by a series of strained gasps. Now the habits of recent weeks gave way to the patterns of distant memory, and Cullen reached to loosen the knot of Boyd's stock, forcing himself to remain calm and firm. Agitation had always made the attacks worse in their boyhood, too, and he had seen Boyd through more than one of these.

"Just close your eyes and breathe steady," he coached as the silk snagged on his roughened fingertips and followed them with more ease than it would have more pampered hands. The knot came loose and he unwound the length of ornamental cloth from Boyd's throat. "I know it feels like you might be choking, but you ain't. Slow, steady breaths. Think about it. You's the one with the sharp mind. Go on and use it."

Boyd was clutching the right armrest with one hand, veins standing out starkly blue on its back. The other crept up as if to scrabble at his neck, but found the inside of Cullen's wrist instead. The nails, usually impeccably pared, were overgrown and long enough to scratch him. Neither startled nor deterred, Cullen unfastened the starched collar from its studs and cast it aside as well. Then it was a simple matter to undo the top two buttons of shirt and undershirt and remove the feeling of claustrophobic confinement from Boyd's neck.

He was still wheezing, eyes watering with the effort of fighting the constriction deep within his airway. Cullen put a hand on his shoulder, bracing but deliberately aloof.

"That's right," he said levelly. "Longer breaths now. Deeper. Good."

It was not like comforting Gabe in the throes of an attack of the kink cough. For one thing, Boyd was actively avoiding his eye-line as a hot flush of embarrassment crawled across his sallow cheeks. For another, it was absolutely out of the question for Cullen to let any hint of sympathy or even fondness to creep into his tone. That was impossible between men, and would only heighten Boyd's humiliation.

As he recited the toneless instructions and listened for the first hint of loosening in the larynx, Cullen's gaze travelled up and away from his struggling friend. It fell upon the chair near one of the tall windows, where old Mr. Ainsley was sitting with a tartan shawl over his knees.

Boyd's father had never recovered from the strokes that had smote him almost a decade before. The right side of his body was almost entirely paralyzed, incapable of all but the most stilted motion. He could no longer speak, and it was popularly believed throughout the county that he subsisted in a state of near-idiocy. Cullen, being intimate with the family, knew differently. Although Mr. Ainsley had the use of his left hand, with which he might ring for the slaves or make his needs known through gestures, he could not write with it. Doctor Whitehead had explained that this was part of the same loss of language skill represented in his muteness, and patiently discouraged Boyd's early attempts to induce his father to use a slate pencil as useless. Nevertheless the old man still understood everything that was going on around him, and he certainly understood what was happening now.

His left brow was furrowed with worry, and the left side of his mouth tightened into a pained frown. With the right side drooping lifelessly to show the yellowing teeth of his lower jaw the effect was an unsettling one, as though the wizened face of a waxwork had been turned half to the fire and left to melt while the other half remained carved in taut lines of anxiety. His eyes were filled with a desperate command that Cullen could read all too well, even though the right eye drifted. The left hand gripped the arm of the chair, and the left leg had slipped down off of its footstool to brace against the floor. And in old Mr. Ainsley's tormented posture Cullen saw the same bitter helplessness that had gripped Boyd when speaking of Charity. His own eyes narrowed and he set his jaw as he gave a terse little nod of reassurance; his silent pledge that he had the situation under control and would act on behalf of the father powerless to aid his son.

"Take another one, Boyd: deep and steady," he said, forgetting his friend's mortification as he looked back. The next inhalation quivered, but seemed to hold for a second or two before shuddering out. The beads of cold perspiration forming on Boyd's temples began to roll down the sides of his face, cutting shimmering freshets on his skin. He gulped again and swallowed, and the gasping began to level out.

"Hellfire… and… damnation," he panted, clutching Cullen's forearm. He jerked in a breath through his nostrils and let it out through pursed lips. "Haven't had one of those… in years."

Whether this was true or merely manly boasting Cullen neither knew nor cared. Maintaining his grip on Boyd's shoulder he reached for one of the glasses and offered it to his friend. "Here: this'll help," he said simply.

Boyd took it and knocked back a healthy swallow. The lividity was fading from his face now, but he evaded Cullen's eyes as he stared down into the glass. "Don't know… what's come… over me."

"You sick," a small, frightened voice ventured. Cullen looked around, frowning in puzzlement, and Boyd stared up in shock. Then one of the long velvet curtains rustled, and two small, bare feet peeked from underneath its deep silk fringe. "You sick too, Pappy. I knows it."

Boyd followed Cullen's gaze and groaned almost inaudibly. "Leon, what you doin' back there?" he asked. "Come on out."

The drapery bulged and rippled, and its carven rings rattled on the curtain rod, but the boy did not seem to be able to find the end of the cloth wrapped about him like a sausage casing. Cullen stepped around the armchair and crossed to the casement, plucking up the bottom of the curtain and lifting it. Out popped Leon, wearing a rumpled sateen suit with a broad white collar. The waist buttons that attached the pants to the short matching jacket had come undone in the back, and the seat of the trousers dangled under a bottom covered by trailing shirttails. There was dust in his blond hair and dust on his hands, and his face was thickly smudged with dust that showed dry but obvious tear-tracks on both plump cheeks. He stumbled, suddenly liberated, and thrust out both arms to catch his balance. Then he looked up at Cullen in the awed way that small children have of regarding unexpected visitors, and his thumb crept up towards a mouth that puckered instantly around it. Cullen went so far as to reach to gently guide the arm down before remembering that this was not Gabe, who had been broken of the habit this year, and that it was not his business whether Leon sucked his thumb.

"Well now, good afternoon to you," Cullen said. "I figured you'd be upstairs with the others."

The boy, only a couple of months younger than Gabe but not nearly so precocious, shook his head. "I ain' sick," he said.

"You're still meant to be up in the nursery," Boyd said. He drained the glass and set it aside, then slapped his knee. "C'mon over here."

Leon took two shuffling steps forward, obviously expecting a swat on the rump at the very least. As he faltered through another pace, he cast an uncertain look at his grandfather. The old man smiled, and suddenly looked uncannily like a Carnival mask depicting Thalia and Melpomene in tandem. As piteously unsettling as the spectacle was to adult eyes, Leon was entirely unfazed. He saw only his grandfather as he had always known him: a quiet old man who had a warm lap, a gentle hand, and an endlessly patient ear. Cullen had the briefest moment to wish wistfully that he might have said any one of those things about his own grandpappy before Leon, comforted by the half-faced grin, squared his little shoulders and marched up to Boyd.

"Now, you tell me what you're doing down here," Boyd said in a voice just bordered with sternness. "And more to the point, how'd you get all the way in without anyone noticing?"

Leon stared down at his feet, twisting his hands behind his back so the fingers became tangled in the flapping tails of his shirt. "'Neeked," he mumbled abashedly.

"You sneaked," Boyd repeated, eliciting a hangdog nod from the child. "Well, that makes sense. Why did you sneak down here?"

The small shoulders shrugged, but it was obvious by Leon's expression that he had an answer to the question. Cullen moved to lean one elbow on the back of the settee, watching to see how the conversation would proceed. Leon was the middle child of a robust and often rowdy brood, and Boyd and Verbena were loving but stricter than the Bohannons. In a similar situation Cullen would have already had Gabe on his lap, perhaps laughing at the notion that his boy had outflanked him unnoticed.

"Leon," Boyd said, a clear warning in his voice. "Why did you sneak down here? You know you ain't allowed in the library without leave from me or your mama. Why'd you come down?"

"You here," Leon squeaked. He was standing his ground, but it was obvious that the effort took a great deal of courage. Cullen knew Boyd too well to suppose the boy was afraid of him, but he was obviously frightened of the consequences of his action.

"That's no excuse," Boyd explained with careful patience. "I am your father, and this is my house. I may go where I please, but small boys must mind their parents and stay up in the nursery when they're told to."

"No!" cried the child, looking up in dismay. Cullen recognized the expression: it was precisely the one Gabe wore when he was trying to explain something the adults did not understand. He had worn it, Cullen remembered suddenly, when trying to articulate his terror of Indians hiding in the tobacco. "_You _here!"

Boyd's lips twitched in annoyance. He was overtired: Matthew had said he was not sleeping well at night. His other children were ill and he was afraid for them. At the moment he did not have the patience that his sole healthy child needed.

Cullen cleared his throat. "I don't think he's saying he should be allowed down here because you are," he offered. "I think he might be saying that he came down here because you're here, and he wanted to be near you."

Leon's head whipped to the side, and blue eyes grew enormous with wonder and awed respect for the man who understood what he was trying to say. "Yes!" he exclaimed, bobbing his head vehemently. He looked back at his pappy. "Yes!"

Boyd's expression softened, but only midway. He maintained a downward turn at the corners of his mouth, and the level somber look in his eyes. "Why didn't you ask Mammy or Hettie to bring you down?"

"They busy," Leon whispered, eyes still large and now mournfully haunted. "Ev'buddy busy. Ev'buddy _sick_."

Boyd sighed tiredly, leaning forward and reaching to cup a hand over each little shoulder. He drew Leon gently towards him. For a moment the boy merely leaned forward, feet still planted firmly. Then with a stumbling little step his legs caught up to his torso and he stood between Boyd's meticulously shined boots, looking up into his eyes. Boyd's hand traveled down Leon's upper arm and back again.

"I know it ain't easy, with everyone being sick," he said gently. "You been a good boy. It's all right if you come down and sit in here with me, so long as you don't sneak no more. Gentlemen don't sneak. Understand?"

"Yassir, Pappy," the child agreed solemnly, nodding his head while keeping his eyes fixed on Boyd's face.

Cullen glanced back towards the elder Mr. Ainsley, and saw him tilting his head in a cant of unmistakable approval. Boyd rubbed Leon's arms again and then bowed his head to kiss the child's cheek. Leon reached up at once and flung his arms around his father's neck, hugging tightly. With his chin on the child's collarbone, Boyd noticed for the first time the low-hanging seat of his pants. He reached around Leon and tried to hitch them up, causing the shirt to bunch. When he released his hold in an attempt to tame it, the trousers fell down again. Boyd made another hapless attempt to rearrange the child's clothes, and then looked helplessly up at Cullen.

"I don't… you know how to make sense of these things?" he asked. "The contraptions the womenfolk put children in!"

Cullen grinned and rounded the settee. "Sure. It ain't all that complicated." He squatted down behind Leon, stuffing the shirt down the back of the pants and smoothing it. He tugged the trousers up and the jacket down, and then deftly fastened the three buttons that had slipped. He ruffled Leon's pale hair as the boy twisted to try to look at him without relinquishing his hold on his father. "There you are, son. Good as new, apart from the missing shoes."

"Mammy not tie them. She busy," Leon said defensively. He freed one hand from its grip on Boyd's neck to point back towards the curtain.

"And your socks?" asked Boyd, pulling his head back as far as the remaining arm would let him.

Leon nodded, and reached to hug his pappy again. With a grunt, Boyd hoisted him up onto his knee, bare feet dangling. "What do you say to Mr. Bohannon for helping you get decent again?" he asked.

Leon glanced at Cullen, shy now, and shuffled his bottom further up Boyd's lap. Still crouching, Cullen grinned. "You don't remember me, do you, son?" he asked cheerfully. "I's Gabe's pappy, from the plantation up the road."

The boy's expression brightened. "Gabe? Gabe come to play?" he asked.

Cullen shook his head. "Not today. I'm afraid he's sick too. Just about everyone is, apart from you. Ain't you a lucky little man?"

Boyd jiggled his leg so the child bounced. "My lucky little man," he said, but there was a hollow dread beneath the words as his thoughts stretched out again towards the other four languishing in the nursery.

Planting his hands on his knees, Cullen hefted himself to his feet and moved to recover the half-finished glass of whiskey. One healthy child out of six, with himself and Lottie and who knew how many Ainsley darkies sickening, not to mention the question of how far the whooping cough might spread in the county: it was not a good situation.

_*discidium_*

Under Mary's supervision, Nell and the upstairs housemaid consolidated the heaps of soiled linen and cast-off nightclothes, bundling them in the sheets from Daisy's bed. While one nursemaid sat near the fire with the two-year-old in her lap, Hettie helped the doctor examine Charlie. The arduous process of changing Charity's bed linen was in process. The child, now dressed in a fresh nightgown, sat limp in Verbena's lap while her mammy and the senior nursemaid stripped the tick and pillows. Charity's head lolled lifelessly, but her lips still moved in breathless murmurs and one hand kept plucking fretfully at Verbena's sleeve. Trying desperately to console her inconsolable eldest, Verbena seemed poised on the brink of tears. Remarkably she held them back until Lucy, who had been nicely settled in Mary's arms, began to cry. It was a high, reedy sound, so unlike the lusty squall of a healthy baby, and as it rang out Verbena began to weep.

"Poor little dove, poor little Baby!" she moaned. "Oh, give her to me; let me hold her! Poor little Baby!"

Mary swayed, rocking Lucy as her nostrils told her precisely what was the matter. She flicked her handkerchief out of her sleeve and handed it to Verbena, her other arm bearing Lucy's weight unassisted. "You cannot hold them both, Verbena dear," she said soothingly. "Nor do you need to. Baby wants changing: that's all. She'll be peaceful again once she's clean and dry."

To her dismay, this only seemed to increase Verbena's agitation. She tried to twist in the chair and had to compensate rapidly as the big girl's shoulder began to slip. Charity was tall for nine, though very slender, and she looked far too long for her mother's body. "Hettie!" Verbena called fretfully. "Hettie, the baby…"

Charity stirred and opened her eyes blearily. "Mother?" she mumbled thickly. "Mother, they won't stop buzzing!"

"Ssh, love, ssh," murmured Verbena, bowing in briefly to graze the child's brow with her lips while her hand petted the feverish cheek. "There's no yellowjackets, not in the house. You're safe in the house."

"Buzzing, crawling," whimpered Charity. Her bare feet kicked. "It itches so, Mother! It itches so!"

Mary felt her stomach wrench with pity. Even in the depths of his fever Gabe had not fallen prey to such dark dreams, or delusions, or whatever they were. She longed to say something to comfort Charity, but if her own mother could not there was nothing to be said. Besides, poor little Lucy was crying, and if she was not quieted soon the sobs would surely bring on a fit of coughing. Mary had certainly learned that from her son's illness.

She moved swiftly down to the other side of the room to the cabinet that housed the baby bath. There was a surface beside the basin where the child could be laid for changing. There was no towel laid out, so Mary simply set the baby on her back on the bare, lacquered wood. At once she remembered that she must not let her lie flat, and she slipped her hand steadily under Lucy's neck, supporting her head and bracing her shoulders to lift her up a little. But she could not lift her gown one-handed, much less unpin a diaper, wipe a soiled bottom, and put on fresh garments. She looked around.

"Nell," she called, seeing the little kitchen maid bending to retrieve another fallen cloth. The housemaid had taken the first bundle out to the back stairs, but there was laundry enough for two more trips. "Nell, come here."

The pickaninny obeyed at once, hands neatly tucked behind her back. "Yass'm," she murmured.

"I need you to hold Lucy's head," Mary said. "If you put a hand under each shoulder she can lay it on your arm, but we need to keep her up off the board to keep away the cough."

The girl's eyes grew enormous. "Oh, Missus, I ain't s'posed to touch the childern," she said breathlessly. "I's on'y a kitchen girl. 'Sides, I's too young."

"Nonsense," said Mary, forcing her voice to remain calm and kindly despite her worries and the way Lucy's piteous cries jarred her nerves. She smiled. "My girl Lottie is only eleven, and she helps to take care of my little boy. She's the best young nurse I could hope to have, and I would trust her with half a dozen babies if I had them. Haven't you ever held a baby before?"

"Yass'm, my li'l brothers," said Nell. "I's been holdin' them an' changin' them since the day they was bornded. But Missus! They's _black_ babies!"

"I promise that white babies are made just the same," Mary said fervently. "Now come and hold her so that I can get her clean. Poor thing, she must stop crying before she coughs."

"But Miss Verbena, she—"

"Miss Verbena won't mind," promised Mary. "She's busy with Charity, or she'd tell you herself. _Please_, Nell. I cannot do it without you."

Her face a quandary of reluctance, Nell stepped around to the head of the bureau. Her hands trembled as they reached out tentatively, but Mary reached with her free arm to guide them into place.

"There, just like that," she said. "Keep your arms together to make a little trough, and her head will rest right there. Perfect!" She withdrew her own hand, and the weight of Lucy's head settled between the girl's wrists. "Wonderful. See? She likes it better that way than with my hand stretched underneath."

She did not know if this was true: certainly Lucy was weeping just as desperately as before. But Mary was already rucking up the long nightgown, rolling it into a bunch that she settled under the baby's armpits. Beneath it she wore a long petticoat slit clear up the back, easy enough to lift out of the way. The tails of her wee shirt flapped down over the diapers, and Mary tucked them up as well. Then she untied the sides of the thick flannel clout, wrinkling her nose against the pong that was at once unpleasant and filled with nostalgia. The outer diaper was fastened with four neatly-placed straight pins, and she wicked them out with thumbs that remembered their duties with more clarity than the conscious mind could ever hope to. She peeled it back, soaking and here and there soiled, and then removed the inner diaper. She rolled the whole mass together and put it into the little tub, not caring if she dirtied it.

There were rags in a basket on the shelf above the bath, and a ewer of water standing ready. Mary tested the water with her finger to satisfy herself that it was as warm as the air, and then wetted a rag. It took three in all to cleanse Lucy's skin, and another to pat it gently dry. The poor baby had a heat rash on her bottom, no doubt from the fever, and although Mary was as gentle if the child were her own, Lucy wailed. But then the wiping and blotting was over, and Mary fanned her hand to raise a gentle breeze. Lucy hiccoughed and fell silent, tiny hands clutching the thick roll of her gown as she looked up in quiet wonder at the woman gazing down on her.

"Good girl," cooed Mary. "That feels better, doesn't it? Do you hear, Mother?" she cast sweetly over her shoulder towards Verbena. "Lucy feels better. Clean and dry, much better."

Nell was watching Mary with a new respect, too: one not borne of awe at her position in life, but of genuine merit. Her nimble young hands were firm and steady under Lucy's shoulders, and she did not falter even when Mary hoisted Lucy by the ankles to slip the clean diapers and clout beneath her. As she wrapped the garments and cut off the soothing supply of fresh air Lucy whimpered again, but did not deteriorate into full-fledged sobs. Mary replaced the pins with care, not quite trusting maternal memory for that task, and then tied the fresh clout. After that it was a simple matter of tugging down the hem of the shirt, settling the petticoat and arranging the flowing skirt of the gown over all. Mary wiped her hands clean and then gathered Lucy up onto her shoulder, supporting her bottom with one hand and patting her back with the other.

"Thank you, Nell," she said earnestly. "You were very brave."

There were eyes upon them, and she looked down to the other end of the room. The senior nursemaid had paused, plumped pillow in hand, to stare at the scene. Nell followed Mary's gaze and stiffened anxiously, but the nursemaid only gave her one curt, sober nod. Nell's color deepened and a tiny gratified smile appeared on her face.

"I bes' take them down right 'way," she said, nodding at the soiled diapers. "It don' do to leave 'em set."

She hastened back to her work, and Mary moved to wrap sheet and blanket around Lucy again. She was grizzling softly, no doubt still miserably uncomfortable because of the fever, but she was much quieter now. Mammy and the nursemaid were in the process of lifting Charity out of her mother's lap so that they could carry her to her clean bed.

Doctor Whitehead stepped away from Charlie's side, and placed a hand on Mary's elbow.

"May I have a word, Miss Mary?" he asked, drawing her over towards the door.

She went obediently, still rocking Lucy. Her hoop swayed as she did so, and she almost wished she had not worn it. True, it was unthinkable to go calling without one's hoop, but if she was to help nurse four sick children it was sure to prove an encumbrance – one that her experience with Gabe had not prepared her for.

"What is it, Doctor?" she asked, her voice a respectful whisper.

He glanced over his shoulder, but the other women were all occupied. Hettie had left Charlie to lie down in peace while she put fresh sheets on Daisy's bed. Daisy's nursemaid was still holding her, the child now sleeping. The process of settling Charity seemed to be proving difficult, even with Verbena to gather back the bedclothes for her two slaves. "Miss Mary, surely it is apparent to you that you could not have come at a better time," he murmured. "Thank God you are here, my dear. Thank God."

"Verbena does seem to be struggling," Mary ventured, hoping she did not sound unkind. She felt nothing but sympathy for her poor neighbor, who was suffering fourfold what she had herself.

"And I can't stay," Doc said. "I been up here pretty near thirty hours already: I got to get home and try and sleep a little. There's been four new cases of the cough on smaller farms south of here. This time next week it'll be in Meridian, if it ain't already."

"And you the only doctor?" Mary exhaled in horror. "How will you manage it?"

"I'll get old Doc Osborne to help me," he answered, so swiftly that she knew he had given this problem considerable thought. "He's too old to do night calls, but he'll still be a help. If it gets too bad I'll have to send for a locum from Jackson, but I pray it don't come to that." He looked over his shoulder again at the room that was only just settling into some semblance of order and sickroom hush. "I hate to leave Miss Verbena like this, but I ain't as young as I used to be. If I don't get some sleep I'll be no use to anyone."

"Of course," Mary said. "I'll stay the night. I couldn't leave her. She needs sleep herself; perhaps I can persuade her. These other families, Doctor. Are they far to the south?"

He shook his head. "Half-mile and two miles," he said wearily. "Ain't spread as far as it might have yet, but it's only a matter of time."

"Why don't you stay the night at our home?" Mary asked. "Our bed is vacant, as Cullen has been sleeping in with Gabe, and Bethel would make sure of your comfort."

The look of longing was unmistakable, even in the scant seconds it took him to mask it. "Oh, Miss Mary, I couldn't impose on you like that."

"You won't be imposing on _me _at all. I'll be here," she said playfully. More earnestly she said; "I know that Cullen would be glad of your company, and proud to be able to help. We are under such an obligation to you, for so much more than merely money. We will never be able to repay you if you won't even accept a little hospitality. Gabe is much improved," she added; "and I'm sure he won't have need of your attention, but perhaps you could give him a quick going-over with the listening snake regardless."

Doc's soft eyes seemed to grow misty, and his hold on her elbow grew snug. "You're a fine woman, Miss Mary," he said softly. "I thank you."

"Besides," she said, only half joking; "then you can be the one to explain to Cullen that I'm staying."

_*discidium*_

Cullen was irritated, and the worst of it was that he could not show it. It would have been cruel to voice any dissent or protest in front of Boyd, who had been so wretchedly grateful to hear that Mary was staying to watch over his children and help his wife. It was impossible to go upstairs and invade the sickroom uninvited, where even the invalids' father was not welcome, and Mary had not come down to see him. Doc said she had her hands full, doing what she could for the baby and trying to restore order to the nursery. This irritated him too, that she had not even troubled to say goodbye, but he could grudgingly understand it. Mary had a mighty big heart, and she had made up her mind to do everything she could to help the Ainsleys in what was undeniably a time of great trials. But at least to her he might have shown his feelings, and thereby felt less aggravatingly alone.

Ordinarily he would have raised his objections with Doc, who might not have been behind the idea but had certainly not discouraged it, but he had found himself unable to do that either. As soon as the pair of them were in the buggy, the doctor's gelding tied behind, Doc had slumped down on the leather seat with an exhausted sigh, half-asleep where he sat. He had been running himself ragged since this whole mess had begun, and he was too tired even to ride safely. That part of the plan was the only one with which Cullen agreed wholeheartedly: Doc had to spend the night on the Bohannon place. He was too dead weary to do anything else, and God only knew he would always be welcome wherever Cullen had the final say.

It was the idea of Mary spending the night at West Willows, sitting up with four sick children, that upset him. At any other time he would have supported her choice. Caring for the sick was a Christian duty, all right, and helping a friend and neighbor in need was the honorable thing to do. Cullen just didn't like seeing his wife do it at the expense of her own health. Mary had only just recovered from caring for Gabe around the clock. She was still pale and peaked, and between their son's lingering cough and Cullen's brewing one she had not slept more than a couple hours straight in ten days. She needed rest, and even the poor rest she would find at home would be better than staying up all night with Boyd's brood. Darkly Cullen wondered if she had even recovered fully from her miscarriage. After all, she had been up out of her sickbed sooner than she should have been for his sake, and had thrown herself into the hard work of summertime immediately afterward. There had been no respite since, between guests and harvest and whooping cough. It was not right to have her sacrifice her sleep.

Even so he had to admit that he was proud of her. She _was_ doing the right thing: perhaps the only thing. Boyd had told him that he and Mary were the only ones to visit since sickness came to the house. The wealthier neighbors, the dear old family friends and business associates, had all been too complacent or too afraid of contagion even to offer solicitations, much less concrete aid. And Cullen was forced to admit that without Mary's gentle determination to spur him on, he would not have come today. He had, after all, a sick child of his own to care for.

As the Morgans turned into the drive and drew up in front of the house, Cullen wondered how he would explain to Gabe why Mama had not come home with him. He supposed the truth would serve, unvarnished but also unblemished. He could certainly not express his irritation to his son, for Gabe would misread it as a sign that his mother was in danger. The brave little man had fears enough to plague him, with the constant worry over the next coughing fit and the added distress that Cullen's illness had brought him. He didn't need to fear for his mama.

And Mary was not in danger, Cullen reminded himself as he looped off the reins and climbed down to open the buggy door. She had had whooping cough as a child, no older than small Daisy Ainsley, and she had survived it with no ill effects. If only she could keep from wearing herself to the bone for the sake of her generous heart, she would be perfectly safe. Boyd would see that every consideration was given to her; abundant and luxurious meals, a room to retreat to, slaves to do her bidding. She was as safe under his roof as she would be under her own.

"Doc," Cullen said dully, standing back to let the older man climb down. "We're here. Doc?"

Doctor Whitehead had slipped low in the seat, and his chin was resting on his chest. He was fast asleep. Cullen almost grinned. He knew he was a skilled driver, and his horses the smoothest-stepping and best-matched team in the county, but he had never actually lulled a grown man to sleep with his driving before. He reached in and shook the physician's knee.

"_Doc_!" he called loudly.

Doc Whitehead awoke with a thick snort, one hand flying up to straighten his hat as he sat up. "Cullen," he muttered. "Here already?"

"Only a mile up the road, if that," Cullen said. "If they need you back there, all they got to do is cut through them woods."

He jerked his thumb towards the eastern horizon, where the dark mass of trees spread to mark the edge of his land. Then he offered his hand as Doc climbed down, hauling his bag after him. The doctor waved him off and alighted unassisted.

"Just go on in," Cullen said. "Bethel'll likely be in the kitchen with Gabe. If you ain't in the mood to explain, go ahead and sit down in the parlor."

"If I sit down I'll only fall asleep again," Doc said. He set his bag on the top step of the veranda, and came back towards the buggy. "I'll help you rub these two down. Keep me on my feet."

Cullen did not argue, though he had been looking forward to the ten solitary minutes in the stable to help him gather his thoughts and his composure. He might be able to vent his frustrations to Bethel after Doc was in bed and Gabe asleep, but then again he might not. Gabe didn't sleep so deeply now that he was past the fever's somniferous epilogue, and he seemed particularly on the alert for any untoward sounds from his father. He was just as anxious over Cullen's cough as he was over his own.

Doc was not much of a stable-hand, but he knew how to curry a horse. He saw to Pike while Cullen rubbed down Bonnie, and then helped with the feed and the water as best he could. Boyd had promised to see Mary home in the morning, so there was little chance of the buggy being used again in a hurry, but Cullen greased the axles and reset the traces anyhow. Then the two men went up to the house.

Bethel took the news with greater equanimity than Cullen would have expected. The announcement of a guest was no cause for concern, for the master bedroom was clean and waiting to be occupied and Bethel had never been perturbed by having an extra mouth to feed. But Cullen had expected the old darkie to take exception to the idea of her mistress, whom she had long since embraced as one of the family, spending a sleepless night at the neighboring plantation. He had, in fact, expected Bethel to echo all of his concerns and more. Instead she had only nodded and asked whether she ought to open up a bottle of wine to serve with supper. Cullen could have happily drowned his anxieties in the fruit of the vine, but he knew that Doc would prefer to keep a clear head if he might be called upon at any moment to attend a sick child. No wine, he told her.

Gabe, who had been sitting patiently under the table through this exchange, popped out as soon as Cullen moved towards the dining room door. He had _Tanglewood Tales _in one hand and Stewpot saddled over the other. The arrangement had worked perfectly well while he was sitting with one knee to bolster each, but as soon as he stood he could no longer keep hold of either. Stewpot was getting to be quite large now, and he was no longer quite as patient with the little boy's manhandling. He squirmed free and landed on his feet, strolling off towards his basket under the washstand. The book, almost too heavy for Gabe to carry two-handed, crashed to the floor. Gabe promptly bent down, backside high in the air, and hefted it up again, this time with both hands. He held it up.

"We goin' finish Dragon Teef?" he asked. "You promised."

Cullen had, and he was a man of his word. He was also a man who had a guest waiting for him in the other room, pacing doggedly to ward off slumber. Settling down to listen to a bit of Hawthorne was not exactly invigorating. Cullen took the book in one hand and offered the other to his son. "We'll finish it before bedtime," he said. "Right now Doc's here, and you got to come and say good afternoon."

"Yassir," Gabe said happily. He let Cullen lead him into the dining room, where Doc was leaning against the window and staring out over the yard with its long evening shadows. "Good aft'noon, Doc!" Gabe announced.

Cullen stretched his upper lip over his teeth, a little rueful. It wasn't really appropriate for a small child to use the familiar epithet, but Gabe did have an inclination to repeat precisely what he heard. Doctor Whitehead, at least, did not seem to care, if indeed he had noticed at all. He turned from the window with vague, weary eyes and looked at Cullen.

"I don't think I can stay awake long enough for supper, son," he said. "I'd only just got to sleep when the boy from West Willows came to fetch me last night. Would you mind terribly if I just went up to bed?"

Cullen frowned, noticing for the first time how pinched and worn Doc looked. "You ought to eat something, at least," he said. "Bethel could scramble up a couple of eggs."

The doctor looked to be fomenting a protest, but then his sagging shoulders sank still lower and he sighed. "I reckon I could manage that," he said, dragging out Mary's chair and sitting with a quiet moan of relief. "Boyd lays a fine table, but it don't do a man much good if he can't sit and savor it."

"Go and tell Bethel to fix up some scrambled eggs for Doc," Cullen told Gabe. He knew that Bethel had probably heard the whole exchange through the kitchen door, but it would make Gabe feel empowered and grown-up, and it would get him out of the room for a couple of minutes. "You watch her, too: make sure they's scrambled up good."

"Uh-huh," Gabe agreed. "Doc, we's goin' scramble you a egg."

He marched importantly from the room, and Cullen sat swiftly down across from Doc. He laid his forearms on the table and leaned over them. "How bad is it over there?" he asked breathlessly. "You tell me honest, now. Is Mary goin' have to watch one of them little ones die tonight?"

He had expected a frank denial, but instead Doc raked up his eyes in tormented weariness. "Miss Charity," he said. "Either her fever will break tonight, or she'll be dead this time tomorrow. She took it hard, Cullen. Most times children that age, they don't take it so hard."

Remembering the anguish and terror in Boyd's eyes, Cullen felt his throat grow tight. "Ain't there nothing can be done?" he asked.

"Everything I can do I done," said Doc. "All the rest Verbena and Mammy been doing. Purgatives, cold baths, they even brought the last of the ice up to the house to pack her armpits last night. It ain't just whooping cough she's got. I'm pretty sure it's pneumonia, too. And pneumonia…"

"Can kill a strong man," Cullen said, parroting Mary but thinking only of the pretty, frank little girl. Charity had all the best of her mother's looks, and of her father's personality. She was bright, vivacious, the sort of a daughter any man would want. If she had been a boy, he would have been her godfather. Now she might die.

"I hope, I pray," Doc said; "I pray she takes a turn for the better. Either way I think it's goin' happen tonight. That's why it's such a blessing you and Miss Mary came. If she does go, Verbena ain't going to be in no position to look after the others, or to give orders to the Negroes. They ain't like your people over at West Willows, Cullen. They're simple. They're used to being told what to do. Even old Mammy, she needs a mistress to take charge. Particularly as she'll mourn Miss Charity like a daughter."

Cullen hung his head, still fighting the rising tide of grief and helpless rage. It seemed so impossible that sickness could strike like this, felling child after child and carrying some away forever. When at last he raised his eyes and found his voice again, he was scarcely able to part his lips before the kitchen door swung open and Gabe came scurrying in, grabbing its edge to hold it wide open for Bethel. In five minutes she had whipped together scrambled eggs, hot buttered toast, and lightly fried turnip greens and onions. She set it down in front of Doctor Whitehead with a steaming cup of tea.

Gabe looked around the room and then came to tug on Cullen's sleeve. Cullen pushed back the chair and let his boy climb into his lap, treasuring his weight and breathing a silent, wretched prayer of thanks that his son had been spared this whooping reaper's final blow. Let him cough as long as he had to: he was alive.

"Where Mama gone?" Gabe asked. "She upstairs gettin' out her pretty clo'es?"

"Naw, son, she's back at West Willows," Cullen said, his voice rasping over a deep rumbling cough. "She's going to stay there tonight to look after Charlie and the girls. It's just you and me tonight."

"An' Bet'l," Gabe corrected. He pointed across the table. "An' de doct'r. An' 'Ottie an' Nate an' Meg an' 'Lijah down the cabins."

"That's so: and them," Cullen said, nodding his approval of the census. Gabe nestled close and rested his head against the concave of Cullen's shoulder. In that moment Cullen's love for his son was all-consuming, blotting out all fears and worries and discontent. "Doc's going up to bed when he's done his eggs," he said. "Then you and me can finish that story before we have our supper."

Gabe sighed happily. "T'ank you, Pappy," he said.


	70. Bedtime Prayers

_Note: "Barbara Allen", English Traditional._

**Chapter Seventy: Bedtime Prayers**

After Charity slipped into a shallow febrile slumber, the nursery settled at last into an uneasy peace. The senior nursemaid remained faithfully at her side, watching every rise and fall of her thin chest beneath the bedclothes. Mammy and Ester, who was perhaps twenty and very capable, gave Daisy a cool bath in the baby tub before dressing her in a clean little nightgown. Charlie sat in bed, poring patiently over one of his picture-books until a coughing fit took him. It was not a particularly severe one, and Mary sat on the side of the bed to help him ride it out. When it went it took with it all interest in the book, and Charlie slumped miserably against the pillows and closed his eyes resolutely.

Verbena, pale and haunted, sat in the rocker by the fire with Lucy in her arms, clutching the baby in tender desperation. Hettie fetched her a hassock for her feet and stirred up the flames, watching her mistress anxiously.

Then Nell and the housemaid came up bearing supper trays. There were bowls of cornmeal mush for the children, rich with warm cream and sweetened with summer honey from the plantation hives. Hettie coaxed Charlie to eat, and Mary helped Ester to feed Daisy. The little girl opened her mouth eagerly for the first two spoonfuls, but before Mary could scoop up a third Daisy's breath hitched in her throat. Almost at once she was shaking with coughs so violent that they rang in the ropes of the bed. Neither the nursemaid's patting nor Mary's now well-practiced soothing did any good. Daisy finished up the series of brutal, wracking coughs by spitting up what little nourishment she had taken, and after that refused even water with which to rinse her mouth.

"She must eat," Verbena said hollowly as Mary handed the bowl to Nell and took the child in her arms. Ester stripped off the soiled counterpane and disappeared from the nursery to fetch another. "Doctor Whitehead says they must all keep up their strength."

"No!" Daisy protested anxiously, twisting to look over Mary's shoulder and tugging at the collar of her dress with a fretful hand. "No eat! 'Ucky!"

"It's all right, sweetheart," Mary reassured her, petting her hair so that the heavy little head thumped down on her collarbone and one hot cheek pressed against the base of her throat. "You don't need to eat right now. We can always try again later, Verbena," she added softly. "Gabe has just the same trouble now and then, and he is always able to eat once his stomach has settled again."

Verbena sighed and closed her eyes. Her lashes lingered too long on her cheeks, and when she raised them it was to unveil a look of such desperate weariness that Mary felt a lump rise in her throat. "You won't forget?" she asked. "I think… I think I might."

Mary nodded slowly, her palm patting out a soothing beat on Daisy's shoulder blades as she moved across the room. Standing beside the chair she seemed to tower over Verbena, shrunken with enervation and care as she was. Mary gave the child one last pat before lowering her hand to the other woman's shoulder. She cupped it tentatively, not knowing whether her touch would be welcome, or merely tolerated, or frankly rebuffed. The pained look in Cullen's eyes flashed through her mind, the look that had filled them as he yielded his gallantry to an unpleasant truth.

But Verbena's weight shifted to the right, leaning into Mary's touch. Her index finger was crooked so that Lucy could gum the knuckle, gripping her mother's thumb and smallest finger with fat little hands. She was chomping and sucking enthusiastically despite the brilliant flush on her cheeks.

"How long since you have slept, my dear?" Mary asked gently. Her voice was low, but she could feel it vibrating deep within her chest. Daisy felt it, too, for she cooed softly and nuzzled nearer.

Verbena blinked up at her, mystified, but a grim voice came from the direction of Charity's bed. "Two nights, three days, Missus," Mammy grumbled ominously. "I tol' her. I done _tol' _her."

Mary bobbed her head briefly to show that she had heard, but she did not take her eyes from Verbena's ashen face. "I think you ought to lie down a while. Not in here," she added hastily, then leveled her tone once more into one of perfect calm. "In your own room, where it's quiet. I can sit with the children, Mammy and I."

As the words came out she realized that Mammy had not likely had any more sleep than her mistress. She hoped that the nursemaids at least had been taking it in turns to snatch a few hours' rest, but this was not the time for such questions. The most important thing was for Verbena to get out of this room for a little while and refresh herself. Mary did not need Doc's years of experience to see that the woman's stores of strength were all but spent. If she did not sleep she might easily take ill herself, with nervous exhaustion if nothing else. Certainly she would be no help to her children then.

"I can't," Verbena said, and the syllables came out like a bifurcated sob. "Lucy…"

Her chin dipped down towards her breast, and Mary understood. "You can feed her now and then go and lie down," she said. "Someone will fetch you as soon as she needs you again, or if anything at all changes with Charity."

Verbena's desperate eyes rolled towards the nearest bed, but her firstborn was still sleeping. The hectic flush was high in her cheeks, and her hands upon the counterpane were blue-tinted and limp. Her breath came in rattling wheezes, and her hair was wild and matted in its two untended braids.

"If _anything _changes," Mary pledged again. "You'll only be just down the hall. It will be better for all of them if you can sleep a little."

"Sleep…" Verbena sighed, as though half-delirious herself. She slipped her hand from Lucy's damp grip and reached to fumble with the garnet cameo at her throat. The pin sprung with an audible _boing_, and tumbled into Verbena's palm. She stared at it, startled.

"I'll put it on the mantel," murmured Mary. She plucked up the piece of jewelry, exquisitely crafted and doubtless very costly, and moved to set it beside a china dog perched proudly over the hearth. By the time she turned back Verbena was already plucking at the buttons of her basque. Her fingers knew the task even if her mind was too far-gone in exhaustion to be of much help, and soon she was opening her corset-cover. She wore a pair of nursing stays, and Mary turned decorously away as the other woman slipped her hand inside.

Charlie, who had begun eating with such reluctance, had finished with his porridge and was now digging into a little dish of apple butter with relish. Hettie stood over him with a smile of proprietary pride on her face. Ester had returned and was making up Daisy's bed. Nell stood waiting by the door, while the housemaid looked over the tray of cold comestibles that seemed to be intended for the two white women. No one seemed inclined to notice the lady turned three-quarters away from the rest of the room, engaging in one of motherhood's most intimate rites, but Mary stood to shield her nonetheless. Only now did she see the Chinese screen, its four folding sections covered with brightly painted silk, that stood between the rocking chair and the clothespress. With the child in her arms she could not draw it out to give Verbena more privacy.

Daisy's weight was limp and leaden now: she was fast asleep. Her warm breath, smelling faintly sour and yet charmingly sweet at the same time, tickled the hair behind Mary's ear. She could hear Lucy's eager suckling sounds behind her, and she thought of her own dear little boy who would be sitting down to supper at home. She hoped that he was as well now as he had been when she left him, and that Cullen and Bethel would have an easy night. At least if anything did go wrong, either with Gabe or with his father, the doctor would be on hand to help. It was Monday tomorrow: the beginning of another week of work. Despite the coughing that took him so abruptly and with such painful-sounding violence at inopportune times, she thought Cullen _was_ well enough to work, provided it was not raining in the morning. If it was, she would have to rely on Bethel to rein him in without her assistance.

There was a frenzied pitch to Lucy's feeding now, and Mary felt a little bolt of anxiety in the moment before the crisis struck. She was turning, a warning on her lips, when the baby gave a strangled gurgle and a shrill little wheeze, and began to cough. The sound was small and ratcheting, mounting with each outburst to a sharp staccato. As Lucy's jolting body came into view Verbena was hurriedly trying to sit her up, one arm levering her spine while the other hand tried to turn the baby's head away from her breast. Her eyes were wild with desperation Mary remembered from the dark nights of Gabe's crisis, but her movements were strong and sure. She braced Lucy's bottom on her lap and shifted to support her head as it bobbed and wobbled with each terrible cough.

It was hard to watch Charity hacking in her delirium. It was painful to see sweet little Daisy trying so desperately to breathe. Charlie's fits, though not so fierce, were certainly unpleasant, and Mary had earnestly believed that no sight could be more viscerally horrifying than that of her own beloved Gabe fighting for air amid the flurry of coughs. But to watch as the tiny child in Verbena's arms sank deep into the fit was somehow more surreal and more heartrending than anything else. Lucy's wee fisted hands batted the air, dainty arms bent stiffly at the elbows so they twitched and danced with each spasm. Her mouth formed the same strained ring that Gabe's always did, but it was so much smaller, so much more vulnerable with its ruddy toothless gums and little triangle of tongue. Her hair, darker than Daisy's and delicate as swansdown, rippled and waved as her head jerked forward and then fell back against Verbena's palm. Forward and back. Forward and back. Beneath the trailing gown fat little legs were kicking, and when she whooped – a shrill shriek of air almost beyond the range of Mary's hearing – they thrust out straight as pokers with the force of it.

Tears were running down Verbena's cheeks, but her voice was eerily calm as she murmured to her youngest. "Breathe, Baby, breathe. Good Baby, good Lucy, good girl. Cough, honey, breathe, just a little breath…"

It was much the same rhetoric that Mary employed with Gabe, but he at least could encourage her with those wide, knowing eyes. Lucy did not even seem able to focus on her mother's face. Her neck stretched and strained as she struggled for air, looking impossibly thin and fragile – woefully inadequate to support her round little head. Through the next series of coughs her brows furrowed together as if in an angry sob, but of course she had no wind to produce any such sound. Mary's heart was in her throat, and she only just managed to maintain her gentle hold on Daisy, who slept on obliviously.

Mammy came marching around the chair, one hand slipping in to bolster the small of Lucy's back. With the other she plucked up a corner of the sheet that wrapped her, and flung it over Verbena's shoulder to cover her bared breast. Verbena was occupied in plucking a trail of thin white phlegm from the baby's lips, for of course Lucy could not understand that she must spit it out before it drowned her. Fighting valiantly for even just a tendril of air Lucy whooped again, and Mary felt tears in her own eyes. She felt certain her heart would break.

_*discidium*_

Gabe was fast asleep, a warm and comforting weight on his father's chest. Stretched out on the small bed with his body propped up at approximately a thirty-degree angle, Cullen uncrossed his ankles beneath the weight of the blankets, and then crossed them again the other way. He settled his palm over Gabe's flank where the rhythm of his breath could beat gently against his palm. He pushed his head back, digging deep into the pillow until he could feel the hard core of the headboard beneath, and stared up at the indistinct shadows cast in moonlight on the ceiling. The lamp was not lit, for they were running perilously low on kerosene and the rituals of this plague were now so familiar that they could perform them in the dark. Only the faint crackle of the wood in the little stove broke the silence. That, and the quiet puffing of Gabe's breath.

Restless, and irate in his restlessness, Cullen uncrossed his ankles again. This time he dug his right heel deep into the feather tick and used its leverage to jimmy his hips a little higher on the bed. The cushion crumpled into the small of his back was forced to contract as he did so, and it put unpleasant pressure on the base of his spine. He wriggled as much as he dared, wary of disturbing the peaceful sleeper atop him, and then resigned himself grimly to the mild discomfort of his present position.

He knew he ought to be grateful, for Mary was certainly coping with more than mere discontented boredom. He had heard enough from the shelter of the West Willows library to make a good guess at the chaos in the nursery, and Doc's grim words about Charity's prognosis had done nothing to ease his mind. Mary would be run off her feet, moving from one coughing child to the next and trying to manage the overtaxed nursery staff. Cullen closed his eyes in a quiet prayer for his wife, because he knew that she would not stop to pray for herself.

The familiar tread of steady old feet upon the stairs gave him warning of Bethel's arrival, but he did not bestir himself even to raise his head. His temples were throbbing and the low, grinding feeling of malaise was dragging at him again. He supposed he was running a fever, but as he was still sweating hotly it could not be a very high one. He slipped his hand out from under Gabe's placidly curling arm and tugged at the top button of his nightshirt. It popped out of its hole, and loosened the narrow collar band as the door creaked open and a wedge of unsteady candlelight broadened.

Bethel's eyes made a cursory sweep of the room, and then she slipped around the door. She was dressed in her long calico nightgown with her nightcap tied snugly beneath her chin. Her movements were smooth and sure, neither stiff nor especially weary. Gabe had passed an easy day, as easy as any since the cough had first started to take hold. Even with the child to care for and a guest to tend to, Bethel had not had a difficult Sunday.

Her head turned sharply as Cullen let his hand slide down onto the mattress, and the narrowing of her eyes told him that she had assumed he was sleeping. She came up beside the bed, the guttering stump of the cheap tallow candle flickering perilously with the wind of her passage. Before Cullen could straighten his neck or even speak, she was pressing the back of her hand to his cheek.

"You's hot," she said. Her voice was low and stern, but not quite a whisper. "You didn' say nuthin' 'bout feelin' worse today."

"That's 'cause I ain't," Cullen grunted, raising his head at last and regretting it. The thrum in his temples intensified, and he felt a brief, cold slosh of nausea swell through him. The deep muscles of his abdomen twitched and he clenched them, determined not to cough. "You don't got to worry about me."

"You gots the cough. I's goin' worry," Bethel said matter-of-factly. She reached for the other cheek, this time cupping it with her palm. Her thumb brushed lightly over his wind-roughened lips and stroked the fine hairs of his beard. "I know you don' got it so bad yet, Mist' Cullen, but you gots to see you keep it that way."

"How'm I supposed to do that?" he asked sourly. A person had no control over illness. It trod its own unexpected paths: just look at the children. Gabe had it badly, so badly that he had almost choked to death on his own mucus. Charlie Ainsley was, by all reports, suffering through a moderate case with none too good graces. Charity, whose age should have tempered the blow, now seemed to have contracted secondary pneumonia. Boyd had said the baby might die, which was dreadful but not unexpected, while at the same time Leon had so far escaped without so much as a sniffle. Lottie seemed to be feeling poorly too, but she had not even started to cough yet: no telling how she would get on. As for Cullen himself, at least he was old enough to understand what was happening, and to comprehend as Gabe could not that it was not likely to last forever.

"Fo' starters, you can take it easy this week," said Bethel. "There ain't a thing gots to be done urgent 'nough to be worth you wearin' youself out. I ain't sayin' lie abed," she added before he could argue. "I's jus' sayin' don' go pushin' too hard."

The thought of the week's work ahead made Cullen grimace. He knew what was waiting for him in the morning, and he dreaded it. Nothing would save him now but a real gully-washing downpour, and the sunset had been as gloriously red as any he had seen this year. It wasn't likely to storm tonight.

"I'll do what I can," he muttered, shifting awkwardly again. A tickle climbed spiderlike out of his gullet, and he drove it out with one phlegmy cough.

Bethel set the candle on the small table and poured a cupful of water. He took it when it was offered and dragged in a long swallow. Something about the action made him yearn for a cigar, for the thick savory smoke upon his tongue and the feel of the smooth, packed leaf beneath his fingers. But he had consumed the last of the previous year's tobacco, and the new cigars were still settling in their molds. Tomorrow he could wrap them and enjoy a good smoke. He certainly was going to earn it.

"What you doin' there?" he asked over the rim of the cup as he took a second mouthful. Bethel had stepped over her pallet and was now standing before the bureau with her back to him. She turned slowly and came back, balancing a tablespoon carefully. Cullen grimaced. "I don't need dosing."

"You do," Bethel argued. "You was up coughin' a half-dozen times las' night. That don' do you no good, and it don' do no good fo' the li'l boy that wake up ev'y time you start. Open up, or I's goin' git my thumb in there an' make you."

She flexed the digit in question ominously, and Cullen let his jaw slacken. She popped the spoonful of soothing syrup in without ceremony, precisely as if she were administering the medicine to the child on his chest. The bitter treacly taste made the buds on his tongue shrivel, but he swallowed resolutely as Bethel withdrew the spoon. Taking another swig of water, he rinsed his mouth as best he could and restrained the urge to spit. It would do him more good if swallowed. There was nothing like cold November well water to cut through a fever.

Bethel watched him as he drank, silent and pensive. When the tin cup was drained she took it from him, laying it aside without shifting her eyes from his face. First her left hand caught his, palm to palm, and then her right hand folded over his knuckles. Surprised by the gesture and oddly embarrassed, Cullen looked down at their entwined fingers, the dark and the sun-browned. When he turned up towards her face again he saw that her gaze was very bright.

"What is it?" he asked, the words coming out in a raspy whisper. His other hand, the one still curled around the side of Gabe's leg, shifted its grip of its own accord.

"Is you angry?" said Bethel. "'Bout Missus Mary stayin' over t' the neighbors? You ain't been the same since you come back without her."

"The same as what?" Cullen challenged, bristling a little under her scrutiny. "I ain't no different than I've ever been."

"The same as you was this mornin'," said Bethel. "The same as you been these las' few days, since you came home an' shot that deer right in the garden. The same as you was when you firs' got married, when Mist' Gabe was born, clear up 'til spring plantin'. That there the real you, chile, not this black-eyed mis'ble worrier you been mos' of this year."

Cullen's lips twitched, uncertain whether to grin or scowl. A black-eyed miserable worrier, was he? Well, didn't he have enough to worry about? The land, the crop, the welfare of his people and his family, and lately the health and even the life of his son: that was enough to wear any man down.

"I don't worry no more than my due," he groused. Gabe stirred against his ribs, cooing softly in his slumber. Cullen pressed his arm a little more firmly along the boy's drowsily curled backbone. "Guess it all just came back to me, thinking 'bout the trouble this cough's brung us all. I ain't the only one. Boyd's worrying himself sick, I can tell you that right now."

"Mist' Boyd allus been a worriful chile," Bethel said, her rough but tender fingers stroking the back of his hand. "You ain't. It all been wearin' on you, Mist' Cullen, the trouble there been this las' year. Takin' up that no-good crop las' fall, it hurt you, didn' it?"

There was a sharpness in her gaze that made him uncomfortable, as though he could feel the daggers of her wise old mind burrowing in through his eyes towards his tired heart. He looked down instead, watching the firelight dance and ripple over Gabe's overgrown curls. They would have to trim them this week, he decided. Either that, or start tying them back in pigtails like Lottie's.

Bethel's hold on his hand tightened. She was squeezing now, almost with the fervor of one in pain.

"It hurt us all," Cullen muttered, still watching his son. His son, who wore handed-down shoes not because it was sensible but because his father could not provide them in any other way. His son, who until these last few days had spent weeks eating rabbit when there was any meat at all. His son, whose desperately needed care from the local physician was still not paid for. "I reckon it's gonna hurt us worse before it's all done."

The tick bucked and the ropes shifted as Bethel sat down on the side of the bed. Her hip pressed against his leg, and she drew his hand down into her lap still wrapped in both her own. For a moment Cullen was seven again, awaking from a nightmare of indistinct grief and loss to find his beloved nurse by his side. He felt the fear and the peace together, and the surprising mélange was somehow even more discomfiting than Bethel's well-meant but foundless concern.

"Aw, honey, that where you wrong," she murmured. She patted his hand twice before cupping it snugly again. "The luck 'round here be changin'. Sure it been bad all year; longer'n that if truth be tol', fo' it was the dry weather las' summer firs' started it off. But it be changin'. I know you's right in the middle of it an' you ain't been well youself, so mebbe you don' see, but you gone an' changed our luck 'round. That night your boy been chokin' an' you turned him right over an' saved him, that was luck an' Providence. What you had but good luck since? Mist' Secrest come an' take you off fo' a day of pleasure, an' you shot that deer, an' now Missus Mary over off'ring help to th' neighbors."

"I don't see the good luck in _that_," Cullen protested sourly. His eyes shot up to hers again, rolling a little. "She's wearing herself out sitting up with someone else's children."

"Yassir, you' good friend's childern," said Bethel. "You' own godbaby, one of 'em, an' they the closes' thing you got to li'l nieces an' nephews. An' Mist' Boyd, he be well-to-do an' comf'table, the sort of white man don' usually need no help from nobody, 'cept now he do."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Cullen asked. "If you've got some idea of me accepting anything from Boyd because of it, or Mary doing the same, I got to tell you—"

"Don' set them feathers rufflin'!" Bethel cried, a little more loudly than she should have with the sleeping child so close. "Acceptin' things fo' doin' what the Good Book say an' tendin' to the sick? Don' you think I'd burn with shame at the very notion?" Her tone softened and she smiled softly as she said; "No, honey, I mean it ain' so often Mist' Boyd need help, an' now when he do it turns out Missus Mary the bes' one to help him. Ain' you allus bridlin' 'bout takin' favors we ain't in no position to return? Well, this here a chance to return them ol' favors an' pay forward more on top. Don' you think Mist' Boyd an' his li'l wife more thankful fo' you' visit an' Missus Mary's help than ever we been fo' any of the kind things they done fo' us? Mendin' that wheel 'thout askin' no money, sendin' over a couple of fiel' hands when they ain't got pickin' work for 'em noways, you think them things means anything next to Missus Mary nursin' them children through a night of coughin'?"

This had not occurred to Cullen, and it melted his frost of annoyance considerably. Again and again this year he had relied upon Boyd's kindnesses in times of difficulty, swallowing his pride for the sake of lifelong friendship and out of grim necessity. Again and again he had told himself, or been told by Boyd, that he would do the same thing in the other man's place. Now he was – or Mary was, which amounted to the same thing – and Bethel was right. A few days' darkie labor or putting an idle wheelwright to work cost Boyd little, whatever the vast difference those gifts had made to the survival of the struggling Bohannon plantation. Mary's sacrifice of her night's rest was greater, and the boon to the Ainsleys far more precious.

Knowing him as she did, Bethel doubtless could see all this pass through his eyes. "That good luck, honey: to see a friend in need an' be able to help him. To be able to help him an' willing with it. It a lucky thing, an' a Christly thing, an' you ought be proud an' thankful."

"I s'pose you're right," Cullen murmured, still a little awed at this shift in perspective. As physically and no doubt emotionally draining as the ordeal would be, Mary could come through it knowing that she had been a comfort; to the children and to Boyd, at least, even if Verbena took the gesture as no more than her due. For his own part, he was not really suffering any inconvenience from the absence of his wife tonight, and he would always have the memory of that look of desperate, loving gratitude that had come across Boyd's face.

Bethel gave a little jerk of her chin. "Luck be changin'," she declared. "You'll see. Things be gettin' better from here on out."

All year Cullen had been plagued by worries that seemed to breed like flies, haunted by the endless permutations of each decision he made and the hundreds of ways both great and small that each venture might go horribly awry. At Bethel's words he was abruptly inundated with thoughts of a different color. All at once, he was imagining the ways in which things might begin to go right.

Perhaps Lottie was not coming down with whooping cough: it might be nothing but a cold that would pass her over within the week. If it was whooping cough, she might well suffer only a mild case: her age was in her favor, and she was a strong and well-nourished girl. Perhaps Gabe's convalescence would not stretch on as long as Doc seemed to expect: he had already made remarkable strides in the scant days since the breaking of the fever. Perhaps Cullen's own lungs would clear in plenty of time for the journey south to dicker with his buyers: there were a few more days of curing left, and hauling time besides. Perhaps the leaves that had survived the hail unscathed would fetch a good, and not merely decent, price after all. Perhaps Flora would drop a healthy heifer calf who would grow up to be a good milker. Perhaps butchering would go well: there might even be meat enough to sell a barrel or two. Perhaps the winter would be wet and mild, the wheat would flourish, the tobacco seedlings grow swiftly and healthful in the spring.

Though all these hopeful possibilities lanced through his head with the speed of a cartridge through the barrel of a rifle, none of them came to his lips. The one that did surprised him, not only because it did not seem to have materialized in his mind at all, but because he had not intended to discuss the matter with anyone just yet.

"Jim Secrest wants me for a cavalry unit," he said. "They're forming one in Kemper County, hoping to be a part of an organized state militia."

Bethel's expression was one of puzzlement, as though this announcement was some sort of bizarre non-sequitur dropped randomly and utterly uninvited into their intimate conversation. "Is they?" she asked mildly.

Cullen nodded and, realizing her hold upon him had loosened, took back his hand. He was not quite sure what to do with it, so he planted it against Gabe's ribs and hitched up a little higher in the bed. "I ain't made up my mind yet," he explained; "but I do think the idea has merit."

"Why you want to be in a militia in some other county?" asked Bethel. "Ain' you got 'nough to care for an' pertect 'round here?"

He almost chuckled. Dear old Bethel, for all her insights into human nature and her tenderness and her scolding ways and her plain common sense, did not understand everything. She did not know what it meant to be asked to join such an outfit; what it was to a man's pride to know that another man had thought well enough of him to extend the invitation. "A good cavalry unit can cover fifty miles a day," he said. "If there's any call to be protecting things 'round here we can have 'em down from Kemper County in a morning."

"Hmph."

Bethel's face was closed off now, curiously guarded. The candle flickered, illuminating eyes with an unmistakably dubious cast to them. She dusted her hands on the lap of her nightgown and got to her feet with a soft grunt. She reached out and cupped the right side of his jaw for a moment. "Well, you be sure an' tell me if'n you make up you' mind one way or t'other," she said. "If you's goin' ride off to Scooba one of these days, I gots to know when to pack you a col' dinner."

The wick in the shrinking puddle of tallow flared, then spattered irately, and then went out. While his eyes adjusted to the fresh blackness, Cullen could hear the old woman padding over to the bed on the floor. The straw rustled as she eased herself down onto it.

"First thing tomorrow, we's moving that back down to your room," he said. "It's time things got back to some sort of normal 'round here. Gabe ain't so sick he needs all three of us up here through the night. With a little luck we can have the job done before Mary gets back from West Willows."

"I ain' tired of campin' out up here, Mist' Cullen," said Bethel. "I's proud to be near my li'l boy in his time of trouble. I'd mos' likely lie 'wake a-worryin' all night long if I wasn' right here, thinking mebbe I'd miss one of them coughs."

"Maybe," said Cullen; "but if you're back in your room I think I can persuade Mary to get back in ours. At least then she'd have a chance of sleeping through one of the gentler fits now and again."

"What 'bout you?" asked Bethel.

He gestured pointedly at the child on his chest, and with his eyes now acclimatized he could see the motion of his hand. He thought Bethel most likely could as well. "The way I see it, I'm in here for the duration," he said with genuine dry amusement. "The real master of the house ain't about to turn me loose."

Bethel chuckled, a low melodious sound that shook away the last of the melancholy like ants off of a chrysanthemum. "I reckon you's right 'bout that."

_*discidium*_

After the terrible ordeal of the baby's fit, Verbena tried valiantly to resume feeding. Lucy, however, was initially inconsolable and then petulant. Finally, utterly wrung out with illness and exhaustion, she fell asleep at the breast, too deep in slumber even to suck. Mammy took charge of her then, carrying her to the second rocker and settling her on her generous calico-clad bosom.

This allowed the two white ladies to take their own supper: cold lobster salad, an assortment of prettily crafted vegetable canapés, well-aged Dutch cheese, and strawberry tart. At first Mary did not think she could find the heart to eat, but as soon as she took her first mouthful her ravenous hunger awoke. It had been a trying afternoon, and her stomach was only too eager to accommodate the dish full of delicacies. Verbena, however, only nibbled, and presently her plate began to sag in her hand as she hovered on the edge of sleep.

Hettie went to fetch her mistress's personal maid, a statuesque young lady who was so light-skinned that Mary thought she must be a quadroon. She wore her hair in a fashionable twist, with no sight of the headscarf so ubiquitous among female slaves, and was clad in a wine-colored faille dress that had to have belonged at one time to her mistress. It was this woman who managed the daunting task of coaxing Verbena up from the rocking chair and out of the nursery. Even then she only went after eliciting a recital of Mary's promise to send someone to fetch her at once if anything changed.

When the murmur of voices arose almost immediately in the playroom, Mary feared that Verbena had changed her mind. She was watching the nursery door anxiously when it opened again and Hettie came back in. She was leading Leon by the hand. The little boy had a pleasured flush on his cheeks that told Mary his mother must have kissed him and praised him for being such a good child.

Hettie began to undress Leon, and as she unbuttoned his trousers from his jacket he twisted around to look at his rump. "Whiskery man fix it," he said.

"Whiskery man?" asked the Negro girl in the absentminded tone of one accustomed to making idle conversation with young children.

He nodded. "Nice man. Gabe's pappy." His thumb popped into his mouth and he spoke around it. "Gabe not here. He sick. Ev'buddy sick."

Mary's heart went out to him, the only healthy child out of five, and she went to kneel down in front of him, arranging her skirts in a broad collapsed bell around her. Leon stiffened at her approach and backed up against Hettie's knee, eyes watchful.

"I'm Gabe's mama," Mary said, smiling gently. "I've come to stay the night. Do you remember me?"

Leon bobbed his head, considered, and then took his fist from his mouth and offered her his somewhat soggy hand. She shook it companionably, and he smiled. "I et with Pappy," he announced. "He goin' be my friend while ev'buddy sick."

"That's good," said Mary. "We all need friends at times like this."

"Pappy not sick," Leon told her. "Pappy jus' got a mis'ry in his chest. Pappy _not_ sick."

The repetition told her that this had been a very real fear for the child, and her thoughts drifted to Gabe. The invincibility of a father was a precious thing to a young child and Cullen's cough had shaken that image for Gabe, but he had risen admirably to the occasion and had taken on himself something of the role of caretaker. Thinking of how he coached Cullen through a coughing jag just as he himself was coached, she smiled.

"I'm glad your pappy isn't sick," she said, unbuttoning the green sateen jacket so that Hettie could slide it down off the short arms. "How have you been holding up?"

"Not sick," Leon said, thumping his chest with a wide-spread palm. He frowned regretfully. "Nobuddy to play with me."

He lifted his feet obediently, one at a time, as Hettie helped him out of his drawers. Naked now and unabashed he looked up at Mary. "Is _you _goin' play with me?" he asked.

"Right now it's time for bed," Mary said gravely. "Perhaps in the morning your pappy might play with you, if he is to be your friend."

"Guesso," said Leon. His voice was muffled as the nursemaid put his nightshirt over his head. "I's 'llowed in his liberry 'til ev'buddy well again."

"That's good," Mary told him.

His head popped out of the collar and he shimmied so that the hem fell down near his ankles. Hettie was reaching around for the buttons, but Leon evaded her grasp and climbed into Mary's lap. "Sing a song?" he asked.

Hettie looked uncomfortable. She shot an uncertain look over Mary's head towards the fire, where Mammy was sitting. "Missus, he meant to be in bed," she said hesitantly.

Mary boosted Leon up onto her hip. She rose to her feet, supporting his bottom with one arm while she tamed her skirts with the other, and swayed a little to rock him. Leon rested his head upon her collarbone in a gesture of perfect trust. Before today he had known her only as an ornamental visitor who perched delicately in the parlor while he charged about the house with his brother and his friend, but he accepted her new role unquestioningly. She reached with her left hand to smooth his baby-soft cheek.

"Why don't we tuck you into bed," she suggested; "and then say your prayers? After that I'll sing any song you like."

"Mm-hmm," Leon said sleepily. Then, as Mary lifted him off of her to lower him into the waiting bed, he perked up curiously. "Prayers?" he asked. "But ev'buddy sick!"

For a moment Mary did not understand what he was trying to say, but logic quickly filled the rift. Of course the Ainsley children likely said their bedtime prayers together, no doubt reciting in unison before each offering their own sweet little intentions. The ritual had, like most of the nursery routine, fallen by the wayside in the sickroom chaos.

"That's all right," she said gravely. "You and I can say our prayers together. Maybe Charlie will join us," she added, noticing now that the older boy was watching her with his head on his pillow.

"Sure I will," he agreed, hoarse but eager. He pushed himself up on his elbow.

From the bed beyond Charlie's, an anxious little voice piped up; "Daisy pway! Daisy pway!" The two-year-old girl was awake as well, struggling to sit up despite the bedclothes tucked snugly over her.

"Yes," said Mary, reaching to gather Leon into her arms again. He scrambled up her skirt obediently, one bare foot hooked over her third hoop despite its layers of petticoats. "Yes, we can all pray, Daisy. Just lie down."

"We got to kneel," said Charlie, tugging at the corner of his quilt. "God hears your prayers best when you kneel."

"Not when you're ill," Mary told him. "God loves all His children, and when they aren't well He wants them to lie down and rest even when they pray. Lie down, Charlie. Daisy, lie back down."

She rounded the foot of Charlie's bed and bowed forward to stroke the little girl's mass of curls. Under her hand Daisy settled, blinking fever-bright eyes as she gazed up at Mary and her brother. "Lee!" she said happily, reaching up to him.

Leon stretched his own hand down, fingers falling just short of Daisy's. Mary bent further, and the two children clasped hands.

"You sick, Daisy," Leon announced gravely.

"Lee, Daisy pway!" she countered.

Mary set Leon down on the edge of Daisy's bed, careful not to break the contact between them. They were the nearest in age of all the Ainsley children, and despite Leon's very natural desire to follow after Charlie she could see that he was very close to his younger sister as well. As soon as his bottom was settled on the bed he shifted further up the mattress, small legs pumping. Still holding Daisy's left hand a little awkwardly with his right, he reached with his left to pat her head as Gabe was wont to pat Stewpot's. Daisy closed her eyes and wrinkled up her nose, cherishing his touch.

Something stirred Mary's skirts from behind, and she looked to see Hettie. She was standing hesitantly between the two footboards, a chair held out in front of her. Mary smiled and gathered in her skirts so that the girl could set it down beneath her, and she sat. "Thank you, Hettie," she said, and the nursemaid flushed.

"Now," said Mary, turning back to the children. "What prayers do you usually say?"

"The Lord's Prayer," said Charlie. "And '_Now I lay me_'. Then we got to say the God Blesses."

Mary nodded. But for the addition of the Lord's Prayer, it was much the same ritual that she did with Gabe each evening. Folding her hands into the appropriately pious posture, she began. "_Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…_"

Charlie joined in on _Father_, and by _Thy kingdom come_ Leon was reciting along as well. Daisy did not know all of the words, but she followed the rise and fall of the other voices with a mumbling sort of hum, piping up now and then. "_On_ _Earff_!" she sang out, and then "_Hebben_!". When she announced solemnly; "Gib us, _humdumble,_ ow Daisy bwead!", Mary found herself hard-pressed to keep from laughing and to focus on the prayer.

Hettie and Ester had drawn near, and were kneeling together before Daisy's clothes-chest, murmuring under their breath. From the corner of her eye, Mary could see Mammy's head bowed over the baby. Her eyes were closed, and her palm was spread over Lucy's head as if in blessing. The senior nursemaid had slipped from her chair and was kneeling beside Charity's bed, while the oldest child slept on.

They came to the end of the prayer and moved on to the next one, and Mary tried to close her mind to the frightening thoughts conjured by the childlike invocation for God's grace. When they all chimed the Amen, there was a long stretch of silence. Mary looked expectantly at Charlie, who was staring at her with a frightened sort of horror in his eyes.

"Charity always goes first!" he squeaked. His eyes darted down the length of the lamplit nursery to where his older sister languished in heavy febrile dreams, and his lower lip trembled.

"That's all right," said Mary smoothly. "I'll go first this time, as I'm the oldest. God bless Charlie and Leon and Daisy…"

"God bless Charity," said Charlie, a little unsteady but determined. "And little baby Lucy. God bless Grandpappy and keep him strong and don't let him get no more stroking."

_Strokes_, Mary thought, but did not say. She supposed this part of the bedtime litany usually fell to Charity, and she was proud of Charlie for his show of courage in taking it on.

"God bless Pappy, who ain't sick," said Leon. "An' God bless Mother, who goin' git some rest."

"Mudder," Daisy agreed with a pious little nod.

"God bless Mammy and Meelia and Ester and Hettie," said Charlie. "And Matthew and Cookie and all the souls God in his wisdom hath entrusted to our care." He recited this last phrase with the same rote tone he had used on the formal prayers, and Mary realized with a little jolt of discomfort that this was how his parents had taught him to pray for the rest of the slaves.

"God bless Baby!" Leon proclaimed.

Charlie frowned sidelong at him. "I already blest Baby," he said.

"I think we should all bless Baby," Mary said. She had meant merely to be diplomatic, but as Lucy coughed shallowly in Mammy's arms her heart fluttered uneasily. "God bless dear little baby Lucy."

Leon poked Daisy under the chin, not unkindly. "Daisy's turn," he said. "Bless Baby."

"G'bless Baby," Daisy mumbled. She was looking very sleepy.

"God bless Holly, and help her to have lots of healthy pups," said Charlie. "God bless Grandma Ainsley and Grandfather George in Heaven, and God bless Grammy George down at Carmel Plantation."

"God bless Uncle Chester 'n the cousins, too," Leon said, almost conversationally. "They at Carmel with her."

"And God bless all Your children near and far," said Charlie; "and thank You for helping Pappy get a good price on the cotton, and please help us all to get well again soon." Then he cast his eyes heavenward and added in a tremulous little whisper; "And God? _Please _don't let Charity die."

Mary was touched by this last piteously sweet plea, but Leon sat bolt upright, twisting at the waist to stare at his brother. "Charity goin' die?" he cried. "No, _no!_"

Before anyone could stop him he was scrambling over Daisy and slithering off the bed. He ran the three steps to his oldest sibling's bedside and reached up to seize her limp hand, shaking her arm vigorously. "Charity!" he wailed. "Charity, don' you die! Charity! Charity, wake up!"

Forgetting a lifetime's ladylike decorum Mary flew to her feet, hoisting her hems and hoop inelegantly with both hands. The broad pleated back of her skirt dragged on the chair, and the thought that she could not make a speedy exit that way flashed through her mind. Then one foot, neat in its black buttoned shoe, flew up to the board that joined the headboard and foot of Daisy's bedstead. She launched herself up and over, petticoats and lower steels dragging on the blanket and refusing to follow, and had Leon in her arms almost before both feet were on the ground again. He was sobbing and crying out for his sister, and as Mary lifted him he flung himself upon her. His plump arms gripped her neck and he buried his face against her bosom, weeping piteously.

"Don' let her die! Don' let Charity die!" he begged. "She sick! She goin' git better! Don' let her die!"

"Hush," Mary soothed, hugging him close and rocking to and fro. She could feel tugging and jostling on her dress as one of the nursemaids freed it from the bedpost it had hooked, and she was dimly aware that Charity was stirring fretfully, but her immediate concern was the frightened little boy clinging to her. "Hush, Leon dear. It's all right. It's all right."

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that his sister would not die, but then her eyes drifted to the bed before her after all. The tall, slender child looked frighteningly skeletal among the furled blankets and the ruffles of the pillowslip. Her face was ashen in the lamplight, and her cracked lips moved in indistinct murmurs out of the dream-world in which she was lost. Meelia, the senior nursemaid, was now on her feet and bending to bathe the dry, smoldering forehead with a damp cloth, whispering tender but tormented words of comfort. It was very possible that Charity _might _die. Mary could not lie to Leon.

"She isn't dead yet," she said instead, as soothingly as she could. She patted Leon's back and felt his sobs quieting a little as she carried him out of the alley between Charity's bed and Daisy's. "She's trying to get well, but she needs to rest. We mustn't cry and fuss and wake her. It's all right, Leon. She knows you love her."

"Love her! I love her!" Leon whimpered. Daisy, wide-eyed, stared up from her pillow. Charlie was sitting stiffly in bed, fighting his own terrors. "Love Charity, love Baby, don' _want_ them to die!"

"I know," said Mary. "I know, sweetheart. You're a very brave boy."

"Feathers died," sniffled Leon. "She dead, we ain' goin' see her no more!"

Mary cast a questioning look at Ester, who was standing at the ready lest she should be needed. "Their pony, Missus," she whispered. "Died jus' last month of the colic."

"Oh, dear," Mary sighed. It might have been easier if the children had had no sense of mortality before now. As it was Leon understood enough of death to know that he was in peril of losing one or more of his sisters, and no doubt the thought had been tormenting him through the long, dull days bereft of his usual playmates. "Feathers is in Heaven, Leon. She's with Jesus and she's happy."

He snorted tearfully and raised his head in sudden curiosity. Evidently no one had offered this platitude before. "She happy?" he asked. "Who goin' ride her? Jesus too big: He all growed up."

"I'm sure there are children in Heaven to ride her," Mary said, hoping even as she did that he did not draw the obvious parallel. "It's perfectly natural to be sad that you miss Feathers, but you mustn't be sad _for_ her. She's happy."

The frantic hold on her neck loosened, and Leon nestled into Mary's arms. She drew him off her hip and gathered both legs into the crook of her left elbow, cradling him as if he were a much younger child as she rounded the foot of Charlie's bed. Hettie, seeing where she was bound, hurried to draw back the bedclothes.

"I'm going to sing a song now, just as I promised," Mary soothed, letting the boy's body stretch out on the soft feather mattress. She stroked his hair as she drew up the blanket. "We should all try to get some sleep. Daisy dear, close your eyes and try to sleep."

Daisy obeyed, snuggling back down under her blankets and tucking up both hands under her cheek. Ester smoothed the top edge of the counterpane and smiled fondly as she bowed to kiss Daisy's fever-spotted cheek. Charlie lay back with a huff and hauled his quilt up under his chin. Leon smacked his lips sleepily, tears still trickling from the corners of his eyes. Keeping her palm consolingly upon his head, Mary sat down on the edge of his bed. Not troubling to ask for requests, she began to sing. The song was sweet and low, a favorite of her own childhood that had never failed to comfort Gabe. Though it was a song that tread upon the theme of death, it was beautiful and singularly consoling.

"_In Scarlet Town, where I was born,  
>there was a fair maid dwellin'.<br>Made every youth sing Well-a-way.  
>Her name was Barbara Allen…"<em>


	71. Behind the Mules

_Note: A very happy Fourth of July to my wonderful American readers! _

_I'm now going to spoil that heartfelt salutation by reminding everyone that it was also the date of two enormously significant events in 1863: the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, with massive casualties on both sides, and the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which finally allowed Sherman to mobilize again on his southeasterly march. All said and done, not a good day for Cullen Bohannon._

**Chapter Seventy-One: Behind the Mules**

Lottie woke up with a tickle in her throat while Ma and Nate were still at breakfast. She lay motionless for a while, reluctant to get up as she listened to the quiet sounds of forks scraping and tin cups rattling. Then Ma said hesitantly; "But you goin' go again anyhow, ain' you?"

"Sure," said Nate with a laborious sigh. "If on'y 'cause I know if I didn' you might try it youself."

"Might try it myself regardless," said Ma. "I's mighty thankful to you fo' bringin' news, but it jus' ain' the same as seein' him face-to-face. He my man, an' I brung trouble down on him. Now I cain't even go give him comfort."

Lottie realized now what they were talking about, and a cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach. She hoped Ma didn't really mean she might try to go over to Hartwood again. She would be mad to do that. The overseers would by lying in wait, and whatever mean nigger had betrayed her to them the first time would do it again. The itch behind her tonsils was squeezed out as her throat closed with fear.

But a plate clattered and coarse cloth rasped as Nate reached to take Ma's arm. "Don' you dare even think it!" he hissed. "Don' you dare! If'n the time come when it safe fo' him to sneak on over here some night, I'll tell you. But you ain' goin' cross that fence ever again, you hear me? Them days is over. You ain' goin' to Hartwood no more."

Ma's voice was hard and prideful when she made her answer. "You ain' got no right to tell me what I can think," she declared. "You's the one allus wranglin' 'bout natural-born rights, an' that there be one. Even the massa don' tell me what to think, so don' you do it neither!"

Nate made a noise somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle. "Fine then," he said. "I ain' goin' tell you what you can think, but I's sure goin' tell you what you cain't do. You cain't give that ol' mad possum no excuse to hurt you 'gain. Mos' like he kill you nex' time, or worse."

Lottie did not know what could be worse, and she did not want to know. The only way to stop this horrible conversation was to let them know she was awake. She stretched her lips in an expansive, noisy and entirely counterfeit yawn and sat up in bed. "Mornin'," she said sleepily, scrubbing at her eyes.

Ma was sitting on the stool at one end of the table, and Nate was far down the other side of the bench with his arm still stretched across to grip her wrist. They both looked at Lottie, surprised and almost guilty of countenance. Lottie reached under the covers to be sure her shift was pulled well down her legs, and then flung aside the blankets. The cool predawn air struck her in a wave, and she shivered.

"We get frost las' night?" she asked. Then the possibility of disappointment reared its head. "Oh, _please _don' tell me it rained again!"

Nate's lips twitched in something that might have been amusement. It was difficult to be sure with Nate. "No rain," he said. "Not a drop more than a heavy dew. Massa and me, we's goin' be out there all day. That mean somebody got to take my turn tendin' them fires."

Lottie took her work-dress from its peg and stepped into it, reaching awkwardly behind her to fasten the buttons. She spared a longing thought for her good dress, the one Missus Mary had made out of her own old frock. Maybe when the tobacco was in there would be cloth enough for a new work-dress, too: one with grown-up buttons up the front. "I s'pose I kin do that," she said, trying not to sound as reluctant as she felt. "So long as I can be down there when you firs' git started."

"Now, Lottie, that ain' kind," Ma said sternly. "It a shameful thing to take pleasure in another body's struggles, 'specially one that been so good to you." She turned to Nate, castigation shifting to worry. "Bethel say it bes' if we don' let her in to ten' the fires no more, at leas' until she ain' snufflin'. Bethel say if she got what li'l Mist' Gabe an' his pappy got, she ain't meant to be in the smoke."

"Oh." Nate turned again, looking Lottie over thoughtfully. She fetched her stockings, which were warming on the rack by the stove, and sat down on the rag rug to put them on. "Well, mebbe Bethel kin take a turn, then. How you feelin', my girl?"

Lottie shrugged. "Drippy," she said, sniffing as her nose began to trickle. "But mos'ly jus' fine. I reckon I's well 'nough to do my work."

"Not in the tobacco barn," said Ma. "You kin help Bethel up the house, an' you can see 'bout the garden an' go check the yams in the haylof'. If Missus Mary ain' home yet you can keep Mist' Gabe happy 'til she come. But I don' want you in that smoke if you don' got to be, an' I don' want you down the cornfiel' pokin' fun at Mist' Cullen."

"Aw, Ma, I don' poke fun!" Lottie protested, rolling her eyes. She rammed her left foot into its shoe and stamped firmly to drive it in. Her toes scrabbled and crowded together, buckling over one another as they strained to fit. She tied the strings swiftly and began waiting for the uncomfortable pulsating to subside. Her shoes were too tight, but there would be no money for new ones until the tobacco was sold. "All I do is watch. Watch 'n learn how it done."

"An' how it _ain't _done," Nate muttered, muffling a laugh with a mouthful of grits. He washed it down with milk: there was no coffee left.

Ma was getting to her feet, and she swatted him with the dishtowel. "Don' you encourage her!" she scolded. "Mist' Cullen do his best, an' it plenty good 'nough. I won' have nobody speakin' ill of his hones' effort in this house!"

Lottie grinned even though she was now cramming her right foot into the other shoe. It wasn't watching Mister Cullen's honest effort that was the best part. The best part was hearing the things he said while he made it. She hopped to her feet and began to fill her plate from the dishes on the stove. There was hominy, of course, though not as much as there had been two months ago, and succotash left over from Sunday supper, and there was a thick slice of deer meat fried up in hog fat, with deer gravy to pour over everything.

"No biscuits?" she asked as she sat down at the table and began to eat. Her right hand worked the fork while her left helped itself to a spoonful of butter to put on the succotash.

"Not today," said Ma. "There bread fo' dinnertime, but Bethel say we gots to go easy on the biscuits. Ain' so much flour lef'."

"Massa could allus borrow him 'nother barrel," Nate said darkly. There was a scratch at the door and a low yip: Jeb come to let him know that Mister Cullen was abroad for a day.

"Hush that mouth," Ma said. She scraped the last of the succotash into a wooden bowl and covered it with a cloth. "We got 'nough to las' until the tobacco sold, if we jus' go easy. Now get on out to work, an' if I hears either of you-all makin' fun at Mist' Cullen's expense, I's goin' wear you both out with a broom!"

Nate danced out of her reach, heavy workboots clopping, and swept her a bow. "No ma'am!" he declared. "Ain't goin' be _no_ fun on this here farm today. No fun 't all!"

Then he opened the door and strode out, tossing a piece of gristle to the dog as he went. Ma waited until the sound of his footfalls faded away, and then fixed a firm gaze on Lottie. "You mind what I say, chile. No laughin', no teasin', no askin' if he wan' you to do it instead. If you got to go down there an' look, jus' you 'member that with Missus Mary over to Wes' Willows Bethel goin' need you' help. Might even need you to stay with Mist' Gabe an' take care of him while she down at the fires. If that happen, you gots to be my responsible growed-up girl, you hear me? Not some silly pickaninny chile pokin' fun at her massa. Understand?"

"Yas'm, I understand," Lottie said solemnly. The possibility of being the one to look after Mister Gabe while Bethel tended the fires was an awe-inspiring one. She was ready for such responsibility; she just knew it. She would prove it, too, if the occasion arose.

Ma patted her cheek and kissed her brow. "That my girl," she said lovingly. Then she too was slipping out into the grey darkness, bound for the cowshed.

Lottie finished her breakfast hurriedly, then washed and wiped the dishes. She swept the floor, made the bed, and banked the fire. Then she tied on her apron, snuffed the lamp, and went off to feed the chickens.

She had made an early start, but they were scratching already when she reached the henhouse. The nights were getting longer, and every day the sun rose a little later. The hens were not accustomed to this, and they were always ravenous by the time Lottie got to them. She scattered the corn with practiced hands, flinging it out over a large area so that the chickens did not peck at one another by mistake. When the big old biddies were all feeding, she went over to the other side of the pen to put down corn for the young pullets, who could not compete with their elders. One of them, a small red hen with an unusually exuberant fluff of tail-feathers, was her especial favorite. She filled her hand with corn and slipped it under the lowest slat so that Red could eat right out of her palm. The hard beak bucked against her hand, but she kept very still. Then she ruffled Red's feathers and tossed the last of the grain off towards the roosters.

While the hens were occupied, she went into their house and hunted for eggs. This had been one of her chores since she was only a year older than Mister Gabe, and she knew every nook and hiding place. She completed her sweep with brisk efficiency, but today's haul was a small one: only fourteen eggs. She would have been ashamed to bring such a meager offering to Bethel, save that the venison in the smokehouse had eased the family's reliance on eggs.

She laid the basket carefully on the sawn-off barrel by the henhouse door, double-checked the latch, and then ran up the hill to the smokehouse itself. In the pale light she could see the thin wisp of smoke curling out from under its roof: a sign the fire needed building-up. It was everyone's responsibility to watch for that. Last year at butchering time even Mister Gabe, not yet three, had known to look for the smoke and to fetch Lottie or Bethel if it wavered. Lottie gathered fuel into her apron before opening the small door, but she was coughing wetly long before she was finished feeding the flames. She got out into the fresh air again and stood there, clutching her chest and hacking until she had to spit out a mouthful of phlegm. Maybe she was coming down with the kink cough after all.

Bethel was at the table, eating her own breakfast, when Lottie came in with the eggs and a cheery; "Morning!"

Bethel looked up from her plate with a tired little smile. The lamp was not lit, and the kitchen gloomy in the faint glow from the stove-grates. "Mornin' to you, chile," she said. "Put 'em down there. How you feelin'?"

A warm reassurance died on Lottie's tongue. It was impossible to fib to Bethel. "I coughed some," she admitted. "Jus' now, checkin' on the meat. Nuthin' like Mist' Gabe been doin', though. Not like that."

Bethel put down her fork and beckoned. Lottie drew near, and the old woman planted a firm hand on her brow. "Ain't too warm," she said.

"No'm," said Lottie. "I guess I's awright. Goin' help you 'round here today, if that suit you. But…" She shuffled one foot uncertainly. "But if'n maybe you wants I could go 'n check the potato hills in 'bout an hour."

The subterfuge was useless. It was clear from the twist of Bethel's lip that she knew what Lottie was really interested in seeing north of the house. For a long moment she merely looked at the child, while Lottie tried her utmost not to squirm. Then she shook her head ruefully. "Reckon somebody outta," she said. "Don' want the 'coons thinkin' them plants been forgot about."

Lottie had to restrain an eager grin. Raccoons were not much of a risk to the potatoes: old Jeb was still limber enough to keep them at bay, and when he did not there was better food to be had about the plantation for considerably less effort. But the crop _did_ need checking, and she _might _as well do it while Nate and Mister Cullen were out in the neighboring field. Eagerly she looked around the kitchen. "I'll go bring up some water," she said. "Then when Mist' Gabe done his breakfas' I can wash up the dishes. Ain' Missus Bohannon back yet?"

"Not yet," said Bethel. "Doctor still be sleepin', too. Poor man been workin' awful hard, bless his heart." She leaned back to peer around the corner of the table, and only then did Lottie notice the bundle of quilts on the récamier, and the crop of curls peeking out from within it.

Her eyes widened and she pressed her fingers to her mouth. "I didn' wake him, Bethel, did I? Poor li'l fella," she whispered.

Bethel shook her head and took another spoonful of grits. "Naw, he been sleepin' like a li'l angel when he ain't woke up by one cough or t'other. Don' rightly know which one pains him more now."

Lottie moved on tiptoes to peek down at the sleeping child. Mister Gabe's face was pale and peaceful in the dim light, nestled against the back of the couch. He was lying propped up on its sloping arm so that he did not lay flat. A pang of sisterly love gripped the center of her chest. "Ain' he sweet," she said. "He growin' so tall!"

"He goin' be glad of your comp'ny today," Bethel said, her tone one of fond agreement. "We gots to keep him cheerful so he don' get to missin' his mama. No tellin' how long Missus Mary goin' be over there helpin' them sick babies."

She had apparently said the very word dancing through the child's dreams, for Mister Gabe stirred, freed his arms from the cocoon of blankets, and wriggled around to sit up. "Mama?" he asked drowsily.

"She still visitin' over West Willows way," Lottie said matter-of-factly, before Bethel could hush her. At the look on the woman's face, she bit her lip penitently.

Mister Gabe scrubbed his eyes with one small fist, frowning thoughtfully. Then his face lit up with a grin. "'Ottie!" he cried, clapping his hands. "You goin' play wid me?"

He held out his arms to her and Lottie picked him up, dragging with some effort against the blankets. He hooked his leg around her hip and bounced happily. "'Ottie, 'Ottie!" he sang fondly. "Bet'l, look! 'Ottie come to play wid me!" His stomach grumbled and he leaned against her arm to inspect Bethel's plate. "What you got dere?" he asked. "Sumt'in' nice? I's hungry like a bear!"

"Awright, li'l bear," Bethel said, getting to her feet and moving to the stove. She opened one of the iron doors, and the room grew brighter. Lottie felt the wave of heat against her calves. "I's goin' fix you up a plate, but you let Lottie dress you. Stand him up close where it nice an' warm, honey," she added.

The boy's clothes were in a neatly folded heap on Bethel's chair, and Lottie gathered them up one-handed. It would have been a challenging task, except that Mister Gabe reached out to help, gathering the bundle into the shelf his leg formed against her stomach. She brought him to the stove and stood him right in its glowing warmth, then sat down on her heels before him.

"Mama gone to he'p Charlie an' Leon," Mister Gabe explained, gripping her shoulder and lifting his feet one at a time to step into his drawers. Lottie tugged them up over his bottom and buttoned them snugly. "Charlie sick, an' de girls, an' de baby. Not Leon, dough. Pappy say Leon still healfy an' sneakin' 'round de place 'cause ev'ybody else busy wid de sick ones. Pappy say Leon tol' him to tell me he wish't I could go play. _Pappy_ say maybe when I's well again we kin go over dere."

Lottie removed his nightshirt and helped him into his undershirt, and all the while Gabe kept on talking. "Doc comed home wid Pappy. He s'posed to have supper, but he _much_ too tired. Bet'l an' me, we scrambled him a egg instead. Bet'l maked greens, too, real nice ones wid onions. I likes onions, 'Ottie. Do you like onions?"

She opened her mouth to answer as she pinched the cuff of his undershirt through the sleeve of his little checked shirt, but Mister Gabe did not wait for an answer. "Den Pappy, he finish readin' Dragon Teef, jus' like he promised. My pappy allus keep his promises," he said proudly. "Pappy get sick, dough. He coughin' an' he coughin': woked me up! Pappy couldn' hardly stop, could he, Bet'l?"

"No, honey," Bethel murmured mournfully, setting down the plate and pouring a cupful of milk. "He couldn' hardly stop."

"I tell him it awright," Gabe said with a confidential nod. "I he'ped. _I _do de buttons, 'Ottie!"

This last was equal parts insistence and indignation, and Lottie withdrew her hands from the collar so that the boy could fasten the rest of the buttons himself. He did so with meticulous care, first bowing his head and then curling forward as he tried to look at his stomach. The crown of his head bumped Lottie's arm as he reached the lowest button, and then he straightened up and flung both arms joyously into the air.

"I do _all_ de buttons!" he announced.

"Ev'y las' one," Lottie agreed, shaking out his trousers and holding them while he climbed in. He tugged his suspenders into place while she tucked in his shirttails and buttoned the front flap, half-expecting him to chase her off. "What you want to play today?"

Mister Gabe shrugged. "Ev'yt'ing," he said simply. Then he plopped down in Lottie's lap and thrust out one foot for his stocking. "Is Pappy gone workin', Bet'l?"

"Yassir," she answered gravely. "Got hisself a full day ahead, and he don' listen to nobody." She shook her head grimly, and now Lottie understood Bethel's mood. She and Mister Cullen had had a quarrel over the day's work. She didn't want him to do it, sickening as he was, and he had insisted. Lottie wondered irreverently if that meant the master would be in a foul mood, too. Bad luck on the mules if he was.

"'Ottie, my pappy work _hard_," the child announced gravely. He gave a happy little sigh as he pushed his heel down into his neat little boot. "I loves my pappy."

Strangely Lottie felt a little pang of bitterness, thinking of her own pappy whom she hardly ever saw now. All at once she could understand Ma longing to see him despite the danger. She tucked her head down to kiss Mister Gabe's ear. "You' pappy a fine man, Mist' Gabe," she said.

"He makin' de cigars," the child said, twisting to point over Lottie's shoulder. She used the opportunity to get his right foot into its stocking, and after Mister Gabe settled back she put on the other shoe. "He goin' sell de tobacco in N'Orlins, but not for a long, long time."

"Not fo' a week or two, honey," Bethel qualified cautiously. She was slicing his meat into little cubes. "But when he go, won' be fo' long. Don' you worry none."

"I ain' worryin'," Mister Gabe said blithely. "I's jus' tellin' 'Ottie. She gots to know, too, don't she?"

Bethel did not seem to have an answer for this, but Lottie left off tying the shoestrings to give Gabe a snug embrace, rocking him with her. "Thank you, Mist' Gabe," she said. "You keeps me up with all the news, don' you?"

"Yup!" he said proudly. "I's… I's… ooh, Bet'l!"

With that keening little warning, he began to cough. Instantly Lottie loosened her hold around him, and he swayed precariously on her knee when the next paroxysm struck. She curled her right arm around his back and cupped her fingers behind his knee, supporting him so he would not fall. Bethel dropped the knife and fork and hastened over, lowering herself to first one knee and then the other in a way that told Lottie her bad hip was troubling her. She took a handkerchief from her apron pocket and held it at the ready, while her other bony hand petted the side of the little boy's head.

It was easier to ride out the storm with Bethel there to take charge, but still Lottie felt cold horror as she watched Mister Gabe hack harshly through half a dozen rattling coughs and then strain to take the tiniest of whooping breaths. She felt his body buck against hers every time he tried, and she could feel him quaking deep in his small bones beneath the violent shudders of the coughs. He gripped Bethel's wrist with both hands, bracing himself and keeping the handkerchief handy at the same time. Whenever he had a moment between coughs he would rock forward and spit out clumps of gummy mucus that trailed in gossamer strings from his lips and formed little bubbles at the corner of his mouth. Finally his whole body went rigid, and Lottie was afraid for one terrible moment that he had died after all, but then he gulped a great, greedy gasp of air and let it out in a small explosion of relief. He breathed again, less fiercely this time, and then spat once more into the handkerchief.

"Pah, _pah_!" he said emphatically. Then he sighed and slumped back against Lottie, curling up his knees into her lap and reaching to grab her left sleeve. "I's sick, 'Ottie," Mister Gabe explained sadly. "De bad ol' cough, it git me."

"I knows it, honey," Lottie whispered, her voice trembling a little. She brushed the stray curls from his face, now damp with cold perspiration, and then hitched him up nearer to her.

Bethel reached to wipe the little boy's lips with an unsoiled corner of the handkerchief, and his large gray eyes pivoted to fix on her face.

"Bet'l," he sighed. "I ain't so hungry no more."

_*discidium*_

Cullen came out of the parlor, Nate following behind. They had seen to the stock and mowed the worst of the weeds from the stretch of lawn in front of the house before going in to bring down Bethel's mattress from the nursery. She had overseen the process with a highly critical eye, admonishing them numerous times to watch out as they navigated the parlor with their lightweight but unwieldy burden. One man could certainly tote a straw tick down a flight of stairs, but it was gentler work with two.

Cullen's concern was not only for the glass lamps in the hall and the ornaments in the sitting room. He also thought if he tried to wrestle that bed himself it would bring on another fit of coughing like the one that had seized him at a little after four in the morning. It had dragged on far longer than any of his previous bouts, and the memory of the searing strangled anguish that had gripped him near the end was slow to fade. Worse, it had frightened Gabe despite the brave face he had put on as he offered earnest encouragement, and it had distressed Bethel. At least it had not wakened Doc, who as far as Cullen knew had slept through the moving of the mattress as well. That was good. From the look of him last night, Doc needed all the sleep he could get.

As he stepped out into the front hall, Cullen saw that Lottie was standing in the dining room door, canted heavily to her right to compensate for the child she carried on her left hip. Gabe's feet dangled near her knees, and he was really too big for her to be holding like that, but Cullen did not say a word. Lottie was a strong little thing, and fiercely determined, and Gabe was resting his head on her shoulder in a way that made plain that he needed to be held.

"What's this, then? A delegation to wish me good morning?" he asked, stopping near the two children and smiling for both. He reached out to spread his palm over the crown of Gabe's head. "Or did you just come 'round to watch me and Nate fighting with that bed?"

Gabe raised his head and grinned, but it was the tired grin of a convalescent. "It come down de stairs," he said. "Is you goin' stay in today, Pappy? You's sick."

Conscious of Nate's presence, Cullen had to fight a grimace. "I ain't sick enough to neglect my work," he explained. "A man's got to look after his family, even when he is a bit under the weather."

Gabe seemed to accept this, and Lottie looked noticeably more cheerful. Cullen eyed her warily, suspecting the source of her good mood and not quite liking it. "What about you, Lottie?" he asked. "You going to take good care of my boy while his mama's out?"

"Yassir," Lottie pledged, swaying a little. Soothed by the motion, Gabe settled his cheek against her collarbone again, his outside hand reaching to hold the pleats of her skirt. "Bet'l an' me, we'll see he took care of awright. Had him a li'l cough before breakfas', an' now mebbe we's goin' sit an' look at the book Mist' Tate give him."

"That's a fine idea," Cullen said. He chucked Gabe gently under the chin, and watched as a contented smile tugged the corners of the child's mouth. "You's best off out of the cold yourself. Don't want that sniffle getting no worse."

"Nawsir, Mist' Cullen. Don' want that," the girl agreed. She squared her unencumbered shoulder and thrust out her chin. "Don' you worry 'bout me, neither. I ain' takin' sick, not really. It jus' a good ol' fall cold."

"You ain't coughed, 'Ottie?" asked Gabe, his tone vacillating between anxiety and relief.

She looked at him, having to stretch her neck backward to do it, and she smiled. "Naw, honey, I ain't coughed," she said. Gabe accepted this unquestioningly, but Cullen could tell from the shift in her eyes and the slight strain in her voice that she was lying. A wave of weariness took him. She was coming down with whooping cough, all right.

"Well, I got to get on," he said, smoothing Gabe's hair one last time. "You be a good boy, now, and mind Bethel. Say good morning to Doc for me when he gets up."

"I will," Gabe promised with eager pride.

"Good boy," said Cullen. To Lottie he added; "Best get him back into the kitchen where it's warm. Bethel's just putting her room back together: she'll be out in a couple minutes." He took two steps and then stopped, turning back. "Lottie, you still taking your turn in the tobacco barn?"

She shook her head. "Not today, Mist' Cullen. Ma say Bethel tol' her I's s'posed to keep out the smoke 'til I ain't snufflin' no more."

Cullen bobbed his head once in acknowledgment, offering a small approving grunt. He could always trust Bethel to keep on top of these things. Assured now of Lottie's wellbeing, he turned and went to the door, put on his ruin of a straw hat, and stepped out into the cool morning air with Nate on his heels.

"Looks like we ain't going to have an audience after all," Cullen said wryly. He honestly wasn't sure how he felt about that. Glad as he was that Gabe had his playmate to keep him happy in Mary's absence, and irritating though it was to work knowing a child was laughing at you, it always took the edge off the misery of the work to know that _someone _was taking pleasure in it. If he was next-to-useless in the field, at least he was a source of entertainment.

"Don' need one," said Nate, stepping down off the veranda and scuffing his boot across the freshly shorn grass. It was about a quarter after seven, and the sun was still low and obscured by wisps of gray cloud. The night's frost was melting into dewy wetness. "It goin' be a reg'lar swamp out there, an' slippery with it. Saved us work not havin' to cut down the corn, but we's goin' pay fo' that now."

"Better now than then," said Cullen. "If we'd had to do it then we would have lost saleable tobacco."

They were striding back towards the barn now, worn-out work-boots scuffing against the drive. Nate nodded his agreement, and then said; "You think what we got worth sellin'?"

Cullen's jaw ground shut, and his brows drew darkly together. "It's got to be," he muttered grimly. Then he sighed and drew his hand over his mouth, leaning a shoulder against the barn door and looking Nate in the eye. For once he could actually read what was written there: silent worry. "I'll most likely go into Meridian toward the end of the week, and make the arrangements to ship it. It's still worth that effort; that much I know."

He would know more tonight when he actually had the opportunity to smoke a little of the stuff. He was hardly a connoisseur of tobacco, but he did have an attuned palate and he certainly knew the taste of his own crops. Last year's had been flat, woody, faintly bitter. This year's? Hopefully better. Hopefully, he thought, remembering Bethel's words of the night before. If his luck was turning, it had best do so in that regard as well.

They went into the stable and harnessed the mules. Nate took Gus and Betsy, and Cullen took Snort and Shadow. The other three followed placidly as they were led out into the daylight, but Snort was already balky. He shook his head against the bridle and forced Cullen to wrap the rein around his hand to keep it from slipping, and when they turned the corner towards the toolshed he stopped dead and would not move until Nate doubled back and slapped his rump. If Cullen had been inclined to credit mules with anything more than the most rudimentary animal instincts, he would have thought Snort knew what was coming and dreaded it almost as much as the man leading him. Fleetingly Cullen imagined digging in his own heels and refusing to go any farther. But of course Nate wouldn't smack _him _and tell him not to be so ornery. He would only offer one of his dark inscrutable looks and trudge off to work on his own, his respect for his master gone completely.

They tethered the mules on the hitching rail and together wrestled the two heavy moldboard plows out of the shed. It was a great deal harder to tote a plow than a straw tick. Four lean muscled arms hoisted and two strong backs strained, and Cullen called out terse directions to Nate as the darky navigated backwards towards the door. They managed to get the older plow into the grass without incident, but while jimmying the other out of its corner Cullen barked his shin painfully on the iron moldboard and bit down hard upon the day's first florid oath. In the end, however, the plows were clear of the shed and Nate went back to fetch the teeth and one of the pocket whetstones that did their hardest duty during threshing.

Getting the mules into the traces was another challenge, for now they had all surmised what was happening and none of them were interested in cooperating with the men. Gus stamped and Betsy tossed her head. Snort made the sound he was famous for, as wetly and obnoxiously as possible, and actually tried to kick his master when Cullen took hold of the harness. Cullen had been expecting such a move, however, and danced out of the way just ahead of the hard, unshod hoof.

"None of that!" he growled, reestablishing his grip on the leather strap with a firmer fist. Snort rolled his eyes balefully, but heeded the warning and did not try a second assault.

Nearby Nate was occupied with Betsy, trying to get her to line up neatly with Gus before the older plow. Cullen finished with Snort and went to lead Shadow. He was the only one of the three who had any inclination towards easy obedience and he backed docilely into place, but when Cullen reached to fasten the buckle over his left jaw, Shadow leaned in to nuzzle him. Trying to restrain his irritation, already rubbed raw by Snort's antics, Cullen firmly but not unkindly pushed Shadow's nose away.

"He on'y tryin' to show he fond of you," Nate muttered mildly.

"I know," said Cullen grimly; "but he can do it when I say it's all right, not whenever he derned well pleases. The horses know when it's time for business and when it's time for petting."

"Sure," said Nate; "but you pet them horses a whole lot oftener."

Cullen scoffed at this and did not deign to comment, but when he was finished strapping Shadow into place he took a few kernels of parched corn from the feedbag and held them under the mule's nose, giving his head a quick rubbing while he fed. Shadow repaid him with another nuzzle, this one appropriately timed, and Snort looked on in disgust. Grudgingly Cullen gave him a taste of the grain as well, but neither man nor beast showed any inclination towards petting.

Then Cullen and Nate each got behind their plows, slinging the knotted reins across their backs. By pressing the handles low they could rock the plows back on their rear rail, and the mules could drag them without tearing up the sod. It was a strain on the arms, but it saved the trouble of loading the plows into the wagon, with the attendant hitching and unhitching. Behind each team stretched a narrow trail of flattened indiangrass as the mules marched steadily towards the cornfield. Cullen struggled to keep the heavy wooden apparatus as the correct angle, its iron crest turned high in the air in an almost arrogant fashion. It was a relief when Snort and Shadow stopped dead at the edge of the mud and Cullen could release his painful hold. He stretched his arms and rubbed his wrists, and gazed out at the task before him with cold dread.

The fields where the corn had stood tall and green all summer were bare now, the dark earth stained almost black by the rains and the thick layer of mulch broken here and there by swells of mud. Although the skies had been clear since Sunday morning, the earth was still wet and likely soft to a depth of eight inches or more. Still the plowing could wait no longer if the wheat was to be sown in good time to germinate, and despite the mud the work had to be done. The mules were reluctant to step down into the mire, slick with the rotted cornstalks and smelling strongly of decaying leaves. The waste of the crop was nourishing for the soil, and would help to enrich the winter wheat, but although they had been spared the chore of spreading it Cullen knew it would make this task more unpleasant than it had to be. He clicked his tongue and slapped the reigns against Snort's rump, and pushed down on the plow handles to ease it over the lip of earth and into the mud.

Snort and Shadow sank at once to the fetlocks, balking in distaste before Cullen's stern command forced them forward. Halfway down the field, Nate was doing the same with Gus and Bonnie, and meeting with similar reluctance. Snort thrashed his tail indignantly, and Shadow brayed a timid protest.

"Get on with it, you ornery brats," Cullen groaned in annoyance. "You think I want to be out here any more than you do?"

Then the mules took another step, the plow landed with a heavy _splat_, and Cullen's heel slipped on slick, browning grass. He felt the jolt up into his knee as he hastened to compensate, and then the repugnant sucking sensation as his boot was dragged down into the field. The mud was thick and clinging, and he could feel it begin to ooze cold and inexorable through the holes in his boot, soaking his stocking and chilling his skin. His left foot was forced to follow, and he set his jaw as he began to sink. Then Snort and Shadow took another step, dragging their hooves up out of the earth, and he was dragged forward by the strap slung under one arm and over the opposite shoulder.

The plow skidded over those first few inches before Cullen adjusted his hold and drove the plowshare down into the muck. The mud boiled up over the head of the moldboard, tumbling to both sides and leaving a deep furrow in its wake. The mules had found their stride now, and were walking at the appropriate plowing pace. Unfortunately the terrain was unforgiving, and Cullen found himself struggling to wrench his feet free swiftly enough to follow the team. The plow bucked against his hands, and he had to exert a tremendous stationary force to keep it from springing up out of the furrow. Navigating by the squared edge of the field, where the grass spread in an eight-foot strip to separate this stretch of mud from the one overgrown with potato greens, Cullen realized that the mules were veering left. He had to relinquish his death-grip on the right plow handle to haul on the rein slung over his shoulder. Shadow corrected, but Snort did not, and for a moment the two beasts were spraddled awkwardly with the traces stretched between them and the plowhead canting.

"Gee, damn you, _gee_!" Cullen shouted, and reluctantly Shadow eased right. Out of the corner of his eye Cullen could see Nate and the other team, moving smoothly along as if through moist soil instead of this clinging, dragging soup. Nate did not appear to strain or struggle: his back was straight and his knees beneath his hips instead of sprawling out in front of him. His ankles did not cross as he fought to walk forward and drag back on the lines at the same time, and the plow did not appear to fight his arms. It was impossible to work a plow with grace, but Nate managed to do it with dignity – and in a way that, though certainly exhausting, was at least not overtly painful.

Of all the unpleasant, uncomfortable, foul and downright miserable labors to which he had turned his unskilled hands in recent years, plowing was the one Cullen hated most of all. It lacked the senseless repetition and depressing endlessness of tobacco suckering, but it was in its own way just as tortuous to the back and arms. It was as far more inelegant and awkward than brandishing a scythe. It had none of the capacity for quiet contemplation that chopping wood or tending the fires could offer. He had no skill with a plow like he had with a hammer, an axe or a chisel. And if plowing was not as noxious a job as mucking out the privy or spreading manure on the fields, it was infinitely more miserable. All winter he dreaded the spring plowing, and all summer the autumn bout lurked deep in his mind like some ancestral demon waiting to gnaw upon his soul.

Even when the mules kept a straight course he had to strain to keep them at a pace that allowed him to hold the tooth in the earth. The mud dragged on his legs and filled his nose with its faint, hated reek despite the stronger tang of the rotted debris that the moldboard was turning under. Clods of muck, mulch and spindly weeds were churned up and flung into the air by the steady rise and fall of the hooves, splattering Cullen's arms and chest and face. The plow bounced and tugged like a schooner tossed on stormy waters, and every time it bucked it sent painful jolts into his wrists, elbows and shoulders. The wooden handles were worn smooth by years of calloused hands, but still they rubbed wretchedly against Cullen's palms, and the fierce grip required to maintain control made his fingers ache. The cool of the morning did nothing to ease this misery, and soon there was a grinding burn in his knuckles that made him want to howl with frustration.

Turning the plow at the end of a row was a challenge at the best of times. In mud as deep and viscous as this, it took on the quality of a nightmare. He had to plow right up to the edge of the field, meaning the mules actually stepped out onto the grass. Then Cullen dragged back on the plow, thrusting his weight to the right as he went so that it began to turn as Snort and Shadow backed up, dragged by the line. Neither mule liked this – still less when their hind hooves hit the cold mud again and sank – and consequently Cullen had to haul with all his strength, pushing against wet earth that burbled and shifted and refused to give him adequate traction for the task. The stout leather straps bit into his armpit on the left, and chafed against the side of his neck on the right. By evening he would have a long bruise through the former, while the latter would be rubbed raw and possibly bloody.

Because this was the first row, he was able to scramble up out of the mud himself, if only for a minute, as he completed the quarter-turn. Then he drove the mules one step up the field, forced them to turn again, and settled the plow into place for the next furrow. Already the muscles of his arms and shoulders were burning, and his hips ached with the effort of fighting the mud with every step. He was perspiring, sweat trickling down from under his hat to sting in his eyes and tickle in his beard. He was cross and irritated, and his chest heaved as if under far greater exertion. As he started down the new row, Cullen choked out a series of phlegmy coughs. They were not quite the uncontrolled explosions of a true fit, but they were unpleasant enough in the circumstances. At least he did not need to be shy about spitting out here, and he was able to relieve himself at once of the globe of slimy mucus he brought up.

The mules did not like the coughing. They broke stride and tried to twist their heads back to look, and Cullen scolded them rather more sharply than their small infraction deserved. Stolidly, resigned now to their lot, Snort and Shadow kept plodding forward through the muck. Cullen resented their obedience almost as much as he did their defiance, and he respected it less. They were accepting this: this miserable, dragging battle with the mud. Deep in his heart, where he could not or would not find the words to describe his fears, Cullen dreaded the day when he, too, would give up the fight and simply tramp onward in dumb complacency, beaten into the dirt at last.

The morning drew on and the sun began to climb over the distant willows. Cullen was sinking into his fifth furrow when he caught a blur of blue in his peripheral vision. Forgetting that the plow would follow his eyes, he turned his head and saw Lottie skipping down towards the potatoes with a one-peck basket on her hip. She felt his gaze and waved. "Mornin', Mist' Cullen!" she called, though they had met in the front hall only an hour ago. "Bethel say I's to check them potatoes an' bring some in!"

He nodded and raised his hand in acknowledgement, but had to lower it almost at once as the plow began to veer into the fresh-cut row to his right. He ordered the mules straight, not bothering to curb his tongue, and then remembered the girl's presence and was ashamed of himself. He could almost hear Bethel scolding him for using strong language in front of a child.

The imagined admonitions and their restraint abandoned him, however, when Snort and Shadow stopped dead in their tracks a few yards from the edge of the field. Taken by surprise, Cullen lurched forward and barked his shin upon the crossbar between the long handles. His toe, inadequately protected by the aging leather of his dying workboot, smashed bruisingly into the back of the moldboard. The twin impacts tore up through his body and into the burning sinews of his neck, sending up a flare of anguish into his head.

"Hellfire and damnation!" he hollered, smacking his palm across the front of his thigh. It squelched in a thin layer of mud that had spread there, one errant spray at a time. "You pigheaded son of a bitch! You rattle-boned, goosenecked bastard! What the hell d'you think you're doing? Damn you, you squirrely drunken worst part of an ass! Get moving!"

His rage and his invectives were both directed at Snort, though of course Shadow had stopped as well. He might have gone on, expounding upon the mule's faults in increasingly colorful and impious terms while Nate looked on in astonishment and Lottie, who had been digging potatoes from a few of the nearest hills, tried not to laugh aloud, had not a mild voice stopped him.

"I think they might be wary of the snake, son."

Cullen's eyes focused, his vision clarifying out of the red mist of rage, and between the withers of the reluctant animals he saw Doctor Whitehead, standing just at the edge of the grass with his hat on his head and his bag in his hand. His expression was one of quiet amusement, but it did not raise Cullen's hackles as it might have done. He felt only a feeble sort of embarrassment at being caught in the throes of a cussing tantrum by the man who was the nearest thing he had left to a father.

"Snake?" he said hoarsely, the word burbling a little in his throat. He resisted the urge to cough, knowing it might bring on a fit, and leaned to the right to look around the mules. A fat black garden snake was slithering languidly through the mud, passing in front of Shadow. A bulge about two-thirds down its length told of a recent meal, and it was moving in a listless and decidedly unthreatening fashion. It was harmless.

Irritation at the mules' timidity and annoyance at his own short-tempered assumption that the beasts were just trying to irk him rose up and made Cullen want to fly off into a fresh tirade, but he did not. Instead he stepped out of the lines and let go of the plow, slogging through mud that oozed up well above his ankles. He bent at the waist and grabbed hold of the snake, finger and thumb gripping just behind its skull. Moving his arm in a broad arc as he straightened, he flung it high into the air, where it flailed for a moment against the cottony clouds before landing far off in the indiangrass. He turned to Shadow and smacked him lightly, not quite amiably, on the shoulder.

"There," he said tersely. "Think we can get back to work now?"

Shadow butted him playfully with his nose. From Pike or Bonnie the gesture would have been welcome, even treasured. From a mule it was only a fresh annoyance. Cullen snorted, and was both surprised and unimpressed when Snort did the same.

"Putting in the wheat, I assume?" Doc asked conversationally.

"Not today," Cullen muttered, looking from the rows already cut to the acres still untouched. "Not likely this week. But we're making a start. You headed off?"

Doc nodded. "Elijah was kind enough to offer to saddle up my horse," he said. "I'll look in at West Willows, and then see about my other young patients. It seems Miss Mary's still over there. Is there anything you'd like me to pass on to her?"

In his frustration and the misery of a hated chore, Cullen had almost forgotten about his wife's absence. He reached to scrub his hand over his beard, then thought better of it. His palm was clean, but the back of his hand was filthy. "Just remind her she's got to get her rest, too," he said. "She won't stop to think about it; just about wore herself out looking after Gabe."

"It's in a mother's nature, Cullen: don't you go holding it against her," Doc chided gently. "She's got a good heart."

"I know she does," Cullen sighed. Then he smiled tiredly. "I'm grateful she's able to help. Tell Boyd we're all praying for the children."

"I'll do that," promised Doc. His eyes travelled over Cullen's mud-splattered form before settling on his face again. "Don't push yourself too hard," he said softly, his voice low enough that it was unlikely Nate could hear. "I heard you coughing last night. I thought Bethel might come and fetch me."

"Naw," sighed Cullen. "She knows I wouldn't've wanted it. I'm all right. It ain't so bad. _And_ I'm trying to keep it that way, I promise!"

Doc looked as though he wanted to step down into the mud and shake hands, but he was not fool enough to do it. He glanced at his clean shoes, and then made a small, wry smile. "Good," he said. "Best of luck with those mules."

He turned and began to walk towards the house. Rather than watch him go and risk losing his resolve, Cullen marched back to the plow and tethered himself to it again. "Get on: move it!" he barked, snapping the reins. The plow shuddered beneath his burning hands, and the mules began to move. As he struggled to find the rhythm of the work again, Cullen knew that Lottie was watching him with tremendous amusement. He knew he looked comical, fighting with the plow and the animals and the earth itself, but somehow he just could not bring himself to find the humor in it.


	72. Helpless Fathers

_Note: "All the Pretty Little Horses", American Traditional. The origin is disputed by music historians, but I subscribe to the theory that it was originally a slave song. "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was originally published in 1830._

**Chapter Seventy-Two: Helpless Fathers**

The soporific light that always seemed to fall over Mississippi at about four o'clock was filtering through the nursery curtains. Sitting propped up on Daisy's bed with the little girl curled upon her chest, Mary found herself struggling to fight off slumber. The two younger nursemaids had slipped away to snatch a little sleep, and Mammy was dozing in her rocker by the fire. It had been nearly an hour since last the blustering chaos of a coughing fit had disturbed the close and overwarm air of the room. Daisy had been the unfortunate child that time, choking and wheezing and trying breathlessly to sob as she shook with the violent outbursts. Now she was sleeping, apparently just as soothed by the steep sloping angle as Gabe seemed to be. She was sucking on her two longest fingers, and a little trickle of saliva had begun to wet the front of Mary's basque.

Leon was downstairs somewhere, presumably in the company of his father, and Charlie had finally dozed off after a long afternoon of uncomfortable grousing. He was cross and mildly feverish – hot enough that he was miserable, but not hot enough to be genuinely worn down. Mary had tried to keep him contented and entertained, but it was no use. He was ill enough that he could not run out and play, but strong enough to wish to. With the three girls needing so much attention, and all the women worn out with tending them, there was not much that could be done to placate Charlie.

Verbena was sitting in the chair by the head of Charity's bed, with Lucy's head resting on one shoulder. The baby was not sleeping, but only lying sluggishly against her mother and staring out into the middle distance with bleary blue eyes. One tiny hand rested just below Verbena's shoulder, now and then adjusting its hold on a fistful of the tarlatan sleeve. Verbena's left arm was bent to support Lucy's bottom and the long tail of the flannel blanket, but her right was stretched so that her hand could curl over Charity's.

The eldest of the Ainsley children was deep in an uneasy sleep. Her breathing was labored, and now and then it would rattle alarmingly on the intake. Whenever that happened Verbena's hold upon the slender fingers tightened, and her body stiffened so that Lucy fussed a little, faintly, before falling quiet again. Meelia, who had scarcely left Charity's side since Mary's arrival the previous day, had surrendered her seat to her mistress. She was now on the floor between Daisy's bed and Charity's, legs curled to one side. Her arms were up on the coverlet, folded next to Charity's knee, and her head was buried in them. From the slow rhythm of her breathing, Mary knew that Meelia had fallen asleep in that impossible position, and it made her own flank ache in sympathy.

She was not certain how old the nursemaid was, for she always found it difficult to tell with darkies once they stopped growing, but Mary thought Meelia was about her own age. That would make sense if she had been chosen for nursery duties at nineteen or twenty, when Charity was born. She seemed more fearful for the older girl's life than the other two maids. Ester was most often at Daisy's side at the child insistence, and poor Hettie pulled in every direction at once as was customary with the most junior servant in any home, North or South, but Meelia tended to Charity with a particular fondness and unmistakable anxiety.

Doctor Whitehead had stopped in that morning to check upon his young patients, and he had found Charity's fever significant but much reduced. She had shown no signs of delirium since midnight, though Mary had counted four severe coughing fits and half a dozen minor ones. Charity had not yet awoken lucid, but when she did bestir herself briefly she seemed no more than sleep-addled: the visions of yellowjackets and firestorms seemed to have passed. The Doctor had been guarded in his remarks to Verbena, and no doubt in his update to Boyd, but Mary thought she had seen a glimmer of relief in his eyes as he spoke. If Charity was not yet out of danger, at least she was somewhat improved.

Daisy stirred, and Mary stroked her fever-flushed cheek with the back of her finger. "Hush, sweetheart, it's all right," she murmured.

"She looks so much more comfortable like that," said Verbena quietly, soft eyes turning to her middle daughter. "It didn't occur to me that she might sleep better with someone to hold her."

"It's the only way Gabe has been able to sleep," Mary confided. "Even now when he can lie down for a little while without coughing he won't settle properly for fear of it." She shifted her arm a little, nudging Daisy higher, and blinked drowsily down at the peaceful little girl. "Of course, he's too tall now for me to hold him comfortably. Daisy's just the right size."

Verbena let out a little huff of air that might have been a weary chuckle, adjusting her own hold on Lucy without relinquishing Charity's hand. "I don't know how you've manage without a nursery staff. Even with all these hands to help I've been lost."

"It must be so hard with so many ill at once," said Mary. The words came out awkwardly, even somewhat stilted. She realized that she was second-guessing everything she said to Verbena now, in the quietude of the afternoon. Last night there had been no question of what the other woman needed to hear, and whenever the children were agitated that took precedence over concerns of personal ease, but just now it was different. Just now, all that Mary could think about was Cullen's revelation that Verbena did not truly consider her to be a friend, and the lifting of the blinders from her eyes that had followed. Just now, she feared that perhaps the other woman was judging her, and maybe even finding her unworthy of earnest respect.

Daisy shifted again, and her lips parted in a shallow little cough. Verbena stiffened, but Mary was careful not to, and the little girl slept on. She seemed so small and delicate in Mary's arms, so much smaller than Gabe, and wistfully Mary remembered the time when her own sweet boy had been this age. Unable to help herself, she bowed her head and brushed her lips against the crown of downy hair. "Dear little thing," she whispered, as though the child could hear her.

"What shall I do?" This question creaked like a rusted hinge, cracking the hush of the room and raising Mary's eyes abruptly. Verbena was sitting straight up in the armchair, Lucy squirming uncomfortably against the suddenly rigid arm and shoulder. Her gaze was fixed on Mary: hard, terrified and filled with desperation. "What shall I do if one of them dies? You must tell me, Mary. What shall I do?"

Mary's mouth went dry. It was the impossible question which no doubt came to all mothers at times like this. She recalled in perfect detail every sensation of that horror: how the heart shied away from the thought and the mind forced one to face it; how one's pulse quickened and hands grew cold at the very idea; how there was no true surcease from the fear. She remembered how her own breath had seemed to cease as she watched Gabe flailing, breathless, over Cullen's knees, and the frantic certainty that her boy was lost to her. And she remembered her real loss, the other death, the baby she had only just begun to recognize within her. She had felt certain the pain of that loss would never dim, not even a little. She had felt numbed by her grief in those first dreadful days, but slowly she had come to recognize what she still had, and to focus her yearning love on her living boy and her loving husband. She had wept for the tiny lost one and the thought still brought pain, but life went on. It must go on.

"It would be unimaginable," she whispered. "Losing a child… it's the greatest torment a mother can suffer. But if it does happen, you'll learn to go on living. If it does happen, the others will need you more than ever, and they'll be more precious to you than before."

Eyelashes sweeping low to drive back hot tears, she refocused her gaze on Verbena. The other woman was nodding hypnotically, her throat rippling with a painful swallow. Her left hand spread possessively over the rounded mass of Lucy's wee thigh, and her right still clutched Charity's thin fingers, but as Mary watched the ramrod rigidity left her back and she eased into the contour of the chair again. "The others," Verbena whispered. "All my dear little babies."

She looked down at Charity with eyes now soft with a thousand insignificant memories: the quieting of a newborn's cry as it first takes to the breast, the sparkle of bathwater on tiny kicking toes, a toddler's eager laugh and the startled look that comes when a babe just learning to walk sits down hard upon a diapered bottom. Sticky lips and sticky fingers and a pinafore smeared with blackberry jam, a fistful of wilted flowers presented with pride, the first lost milk tooth cupped in a plump palm. She was imagining the first clumsy plinkings on the piano in the back parlor, and the triumph of a simple minuet played note-perfect, the glory of the first sentence read aloud, the delight of teaching a young girl to dance. She was thinking of every tender, proud and merry moment she had shared with her firstborn.

"That's it," said Mary softly. "That's how you must think of her, always. Not like this."

Slowly Verbena lifted her eyes towards Mary again. They were shining with tears, but something else as well. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could form words or Mary could strike upon the precise emotion filling Verbena's eyes, Charlie flopped over onto his back and began to shake with coughing.

_*discidium*_

When dusk fell the two men hurried the mules on to the end of the row. There followed the onerous task of wrestling the plows up out of the mud and onto the grass, where they would stand until morning. There was no risk of theft and little chance of sabotage: though Cullen did not put such sedition past Abel Sutcliffe, there had been no trouble with him since the trial and sentencing. No doubt he considered his opponent beaten: shamed in front of the county, saddled with a financial burden he could ill afford to shoulder, and now stricken with a sick child. Grimly Cullen renewed his resolve to repay his spiteful neighbor for the misery he had caused, just as soon as life's daily struggles allowed him respite to think of a way. He had not even found the time to compose his letter of protest to the Mississippi Bar, but he would. When he had a minute or two to breathe free and clear, he would.

Of course, even breathing was a struggle just now. He had no sooner unhitched the mules than he was take with another fit of coughing – the sixth severe one since noon. He gripped the reins and tucked his head, trying not to agitate Snort and Shadow by battering their faces with the harshly expelled bursts of air. He felt his ribs hitch and his throat burn, and he knew that he was whooping, but his ears were flooded with hammering blood and he could not hear it. He choked desperately, unable to stop coughing, and felt the bile burn beneath his breastbone. He had not yet coughed hard enough to vomit, and he did not intend to do so now, but when at last he gasped his first real breath and was able to spit, there was thin acid mingled with the phlegm.

In the failing light he saw that Nate was staring at him, wide-eyed and helpless. The mules ceased their uncomfortable pawing, and the lines no longer tugged at Cullen's stiff and aching arms. Somewhere far away a screech-owl called, launching itself into its night kingdom with a triumphant cry. Cullen blinked his stinging eyes and took another shallow, tortuous breath.

"Ain't you got nothing better to do than stare?" he asked hoarsely. "Me, I want my supper."

"Supper soun' mighty good," Nate agreed inscrutably, his eyes narrowing once more to their ordinary dimensions. "Mighty good indeed."

They led the mules back to the barn, mud-saturated boots squelching through the grass. Cullen was grateful for the gathering gloom, because he did not doubt that muck and dirty water was squeezing out through the rents between vamp and sole as he went, and he did not want to see it. They stopped briefly at the toolshed to put away the whetstone, and then again at the smokehouse so that Nate could check the fire. This he did without remark, not waiting for Cullen to ask him to do it. Likely he thought if he hesitated his master would just do it himself, as he had done each night since the venison was butchered, but Cullen would not have dared it now. His lungs were still burning and his throat tickled ominously. The dust and chaff in the stable would be strain enough without the thick, choking hickory smoke. Even the smell upon the evening air seemed to tempt the cough.

Meg was on watch in the tobacco barn, having alternated twice with Elijah, and the old man was present to help with the night chores. Nate went off to see to the cows while Cullen and the one-time foreman took fistfuls of straw to wipe the worst of the muck from the mules' legs and bellies. They washed them down with water from the trough in the paddock, still tepid from its day in the sun. The mules disliked this. Bonnie hawed indignantly and Shadow made a piteous nicker that was almost horselike enough to raise a little sympathy in his owner. Gus stamped his hooves and tried to back away, hampered by the halter that tethered him outside his stall. Shadow kicked over the pail three times until Cullen gave up and hobbled his hind legs with a scrap of old rope. The bending and scrubbing were merciless upon a body already battered by the bucking of the plow, but as long as he remained in motion he knew he could bear it. The trouble would come tonight, when he finally stopped.

They left the mules to dry out a little while they saw to Pike and Bonnie. It was such sweet relief to hear their well-loved, intelligent voices rise in greeting, and to drink in the scent of their glossy hides instead of the sweaty donkey-like musk of the mules. Cullen lingered longer than necessary at the currying, even though every muscle of his arm twitched and rippled and protested the motions. His elbows were so stiff that he had to kneed them with a fist before he could bend them acutely enough to brush under the horses' jaws. In the end, the brushing was done and he had to finish grooming the mules.

At last, rubbed down and warm, almost dry, the four hard-working beasts were shut up in their stalls. The horses were settled, too, Bonnie munching ponderously on her supper and Pike already dozing. Exchanging a few brief words with Elijah, Cullen said his goodnights and started back towards the house. It was strange to walk on solid land again: earth that did not roil and shift and ooze out from beneath his heels, nor drag upon his weary legs every time he tried to step. Cullen knew he was stumbling forward almost drunkenly, and he wondered if this was a taste of what sailors felt when they disembarked after a long voyage. Certainly he felt a moment of sweet relief when he rounded the building and the inviting glow of the kitchen windows fell upon his eyes. Between those rectangles of light there was a warm and cosy room, good hot food to eat, Bethel to fuss over him and Gabe waiting eagerly for a hug from his bedfellow. And Mary! Surely Mary was home from West Willows by now.

As he trudged up to the bottom of the stoop and used the flat stone lying near it as a bootjack, Cullen imagined with eager anticipation the feel of Mary's hand upon his cheek. She would scold him fondly about coming in so dirty, but there would be no distaste or revulsion in her voice. She would kiss him, or if she didn't think of it he would kiss _her_, and that tender moment would be a balm upon the whole wretched day of hated labor. He stripped off his stockings, choked with mud, and climbed the steps. There were only three, but the effort left him panting and bent to grip the searing meat of his thighs. Nine hours of battling the plow and the earth had left his legs quivering with fatigue.

The old quilt and a pail of water were on the bench, and the rusted-out dishpan on the ground beside a basket of rags. Jeb looked up sleepily and snuffled his greeting to his master, but Cullen was too worn down to even think of bending to scratch the hound behind the ears. He stripped unceremoniously to his underwear, then plucked at his soggy, muck-stained drawers and peeled them off as well. So long as he was going that far he might as well finish, and the undershirt joined the heap of soiled clothes. He sponged himself as best he could, but his arms had finally decided to stop working and he quickly gave up. Swathed in the blanket he fumbled with the door and stepped into the kitchen.

"Pappy!" cried Gabe, sliding down off the récamier. That merry greeting, saturated with love and eagerness, banished momentarily the physical miseries as well as the dread of tomorrow, and Cullen would have scooped the child into his arms if not for the need to preserve his modesty. Instead he hitched the blanket snugly under one forearm and took a larger fistful with the attached hand so that his right could move down to cup Gabe's head. The mud was rinsed away, though his nails were absolutely filthy. One little touch could not hurt.

Gabe danced gleefully from foot to foot, trying to tilt his chin to look up without letting Cullen's hand slip from its caress. "You ain't got no pants on! Where dey go? Don' you wander 'round widout your pants, Pappy: ain't fittin'!"

Cullen looked over to Bethel, who was taking the kettle off the stove. "You got my own boy scolding me now," he said dryly. "Ain't you got no sense of propriety?"

Bethel shrugged her lean shoulders. "It my fault this chile done learnt his manners better'n you ever did?" she asked. "Now put on them fresh underthings an' wash them hands good. Face, too: you been rubbin' it in the mud?"

Cullen grimaced. "Them derned mules churn up more dirt than the plow churns in," he said. "Should have seen me before I rinsed: I looked like some kind of mud monster come up out of the earth looking for revenge."

Gabe giggled. "Mud monster," he echoed. "I wants to be a mud monster. May I be a mud monster, Pappy? I been real healfy today!"

"Don' you believe him," said Bethel, brushing past Cullen to add a generous dollop of hot water to the ewer on the washstand. She poured some into the bowl as well, and then went back to the stove. The fragrances of supper were thick on the air, and Cullen's mouth began to water. Mary must have only just returned, or else slept through the afternoon, because there had been no four o'clock meal brought out to tide the men over until nightfall. "He had him a poorly day, coughin' 'most ev'ry hour, an' lyin' all quiet an' listless-like in between. Didn' hardly eat half his breakfas', an' only jus' a bit more 'n that at supper. Didn' even want to get down off the couch to play soljurs with Lottie."

"I played wid 'Ottie," Gabe protested. "I did so play."

"I know you did, honey," Bethel soothed, spooning up a generous helping of succotash onto the warming plate. "But you didn' play with much strength. The fever be back," she said to Cullen, her voice shifting grimly. "Ain' so high, but it a-sappin' his strength an' a-thievin' his appetite. He was mighty fussy jus' b'fore naptime, too. I 'spects he goin' turn that way again real soon."

Cullen sighed, but very softly. His hand shifted down to cup the side of Gabe's jaw, and he could feel the warmth of the child's skin into the small aching joints of his fingers. His thumb with its filthy nail grazed down the side of Gabe's nose, and he withdrew his hand. Possessively Gabe reached out to grab a fistful of the blanket, imperiling his father's dignity. Something about the motion unsettled Cullen and he glanced around the room.

"Is Mary upstairs?" he asked.

Bethel glanced at him and shook her head. "That boy Pip come over this aft'noon," she said. "Mist' Boyd sent 'im to tell you that Missus Mary goin' spend another night over there. Miss Charity in a bad way, an' the other little'uns ain't doin' so well neither. I didn' sen' him down to speak to you hisself 'cause I figure you didn' need no gawkers."

"You sent Lottie for potatoes," Cullen pointed out dryly, shuffling towards the bench where his underclothes sat waiting.

"That diff'rent," Bethel said with a thrust of her chin. "Lottie be fam'ly."

Cullen chuckled. "And you know she's been looking forward to plowing all summer," he said.

Bethel shrugged her shoulders. "You want these-here potatoes, or not?" she asked. "Mashed 'em up special."

"I'll take them," said Cullen. Glancing to be sure she was still turned to the stove, he shook out his drawers and stepped into them. The blanket hung from his shoulders, still tugged to one side by Gabe's small hand.

"I do de buttons, Pappy?" he asked hopefully.

"You can do the ones on my shirt," Cullen said. Now almost decent, at least for Bethel's eyes, he eased his body down on the bench. His arms were stiffening again, and he prodded at his elbows before tugging the garment over his head. Even before he had finished lowering the hem around his hips, Gabe was climbing into his lap. He knelt up on his father's thighs and fastened the four buttons at the throat of the shirt with care. Then he patted Cullen's jaw.

"You works hard, Pappy," he said solemnly. Then he giggled. "An' you gots mud in your whiskers. Dem derned mules!"

Cullen was startled into a hoarse laugh that ended in a cough. Gabe's face crumpled worriedly as he watched, waiting for the series of explosions to follow. When none came he slid down onto his bottom and put his arms around Cullen's chest, pressing his cheek to the man's breastbone and hugging him tightly. Cullen crooked one arm around him and strained the other to bend it so that he could ruffle Gabe's curls. "It's all right, son," he murmured. "Everything's all right."

"Why ain't dat bad ol' cough never goin' go 'way?" Gabe asked tremulously. 'I cough an' cough, an' you's coughin, an' now 'Ottie coughed…"

"Lottie coughed?" Cullen asked, directing the question to Bethel.

She nodded as she brought the heavily-laden plate to the table. "Two li'l fits," she said. "Like them our boy had when he jus' startin' to sicken. Ain't bad yet, but it brewin', no mistake. Land sakes, chile, you ain't washed them hands!"

Swiftly she whisked away the plate and fetched the washbasin. Cullen scrubbed his hands and laved his face obediently while Gabe splashed with his fingertips in the water. When he was deemed sufficiently clean, Bethel took the dish of murky water away and Cullen was at last able to turn his attention to his supper. Bethel had braised the last of the fresh venison with an assortment of vegetables, with creamy mashed potatoes, succotash, greens, and a thick slice of buttered bread to accompany it. Cullen ate with the fervor of a man who has spent the day in backbreaking labor, and Gabe sat contentedly in his father's lap, plucking up choice morsels from time to time.

"Did that boy say anything else?" Cullen asked as Bethel served him up a second helping of potatoes. "Is Mary holding up all right over there?"

"Don' know," said Bethel. "I asked an' I asked, but he don' know no more than he been told, or heard from the kitchen niggers. Miss Charity ain't well at all, an' the others still poorly: that all he say."

Cullen made a discontented sound in the back of his throat, chewing rapidly. It was a shame Doc hadn't felt the need to come back here tonight. He was worried for Mary's health, worn out as she was, and he knew she wouldn't rest while there were children in need of her help. He shifted his left leg as the calf began to cramp, and Gabe rolled easily with the motion. He was sucking the gravy from a shred of meat, lids blinking slowly over vacantly staring eyes. It was past time the little man was in bed.

Cullen hurriedly swallowed the last morsels from his plate and drained the mug of milk that Bethel had set before him. Then he took the piece of venison from Gabe's unresisting fingers, glanced thoughtfully towards the covered slop pail, and then thought better of it and popped the meat into his own mouth. He wiped his hands on the napkin and used it to blot Gabe's lips and chin. Then he turned the boy around and braced him against his shoulder. Gabe curled his right arm around Cullen's neck and laid his head down on his collarbone. Using his free hand and the table for leverage, Cullen got to his feet with an ill-concealed groan. The muscles in his legs and lower back protested, the arm under Gabe's backside burned, and his palm smarted under the pressure of his body as he rose. Glossy blisters were already appearing amid the callouses of his palm and in the web of his thumb. Tomorrow his hands would be rigid with them, and the chafing of the plow-handles would make them burst and run.

"I'd best get this boy up to bed," he murmured to Bethel as he moved awkwardly towards the door. "You have a good night's sleep, now."

"I'll try it," said the old woman ruefully; "but I's mos' likely goin' lie 'wake listening fo' one or t'other of you to start coughing again." She drew near and kissed the child's upturned cheek. Gabe smiled drowsily at her. "You sleep well, my lamb," said Bethel. "Make sure Pappy say you' prayers, now."

"Yass'm," Gabe mumbled sleepily. With a final fond smile at the elderly slave, Cullen left the kitchen.

Gabe was quiet as his father bore him up the stairs. He sat patiently on the edge of the bed while Cullen stirred up the fire that Bethel had lit in the little stove and fed it from the woodbox. He looked half asleep where he sat, but as Cullen turned back the bedclothes Gabe stiffened like a hound on the scent.

"Where my mama?" he asked. "I wants my mama."

Cullen sighed, scuffing his coarse palm over his beard. The sensation of the hair raking over the blisters was a strange one. "She's still over at the Ainsley place," he said. "She's going to stay another night over there."

Gabe frowned perplexedly. "But I wants her," he said. "I wants my mama." He looked at the floor and pointed to the place where the straw tick had been. "Why her bed gone? Where my mama?"

"She's over at Charlie and Leon's," Cullen repeated patiently. "She'll probably be home first thing tomorrow."

Gabe turned wide eyes upon his father's face. "But I wants her _now_!" he protested. "She gots to say my bedtime prayers! She gots to give me a kiss goodnight! I _needs_ my mama, Pappy! I needs her!"

"I can help you say your prayers," soothed Cullen. He could feel the child's mounting anxiety and it frightened him. A happy child he could care for. A sick child he could cope with. But a panicked child? He just wasn't sure. "Bethel gave you a kiss goodnight. We'll be all right, you and me. Just the menfolks tonight, how's about that?"

"No!" cried Gabe, twisting a handful of nightshirt around his fingers and kicking one leg out so the heel thumped hard against the side of the bedstead. "I wants my mama!" For a moment his face crinkled into a little prune of misery, his lower lip quivering. Then he burst into noisy tears. "Mama! Mama! I wants my mama!" he wailed. "_Why_ she go 'way? Why she wid Charlie? Charlie gots his own mama! He don' need mine! I needs my mama!"

Cullen's first instinct was to swoop in and gather his boy into his arms, but the moment he touched the child Gabe flailed away, flinging himself backward onto the tick and scurrying to the corner between the footboard and the wall. "Mama! Mama!" he sobbed. "Where my mama? I wants my mama!"

There was rage in his voice, but also a very real terror that tore at Cullen's heart. Last night had been, so far as he knew, the first time Gabe had been separated from his mother overnight. He had borne it so well, contented to settle down with his pappy and scarcely even questioning Mary's absence. But tonight, after a wearisome day laboring under the low fever and the perpetual coughing, his courage had faltered.

"Here, son, it's all right," Cullen huffed breathlessly, not knowing what else to say. He sat down on the bed and reached for Gabe. "Mama will be back tomorrow. You and me, we can—"

"_NOOO!_" Gabe howled, a harsh ululating sound that startled Cullen enough to make him draw back. The small feet pummeled the mattress and Gabe thumped his fists on the footboard. He was in the throes of a full-fledged tantrum, and there was no use in trying to reason with him. His breath came in harsh, hitching sobs, and streams of tears poured down his cheeks. "Mama! I wants my mama! I wants my _mama_!"

It was so unlike Gabe to explode like this; he was ordinarily such a peaceful and amiable child. Cullen recalled Mary mentioning the occasional tantrum, usually occurring around naptime while Cullen himself was out working, but for the life of him he could not remember how she had said she dealt with such tempests. Helplessly he reached for his boy, hands hovering impotently a few inches from the flailing little body. Gabe was still shrieking for his mother in between sobs, and thumping his shoulder against the wall. From below came the noise of the kitchen door flung wide, and Cullen felt a jolt of cold relief. Bethel was coming. She would know what to do.

Then suddenly Gabe's breath caught, and the cries were swallowed up in a tide of coughing. Until the first whoop came Gabe seemed bent on continuing his wild protest, kicking at the tick and thrashing around. Then he was struggling to sit up straight, one foot thrust in the air as he rocked. Cullen slipped his palm into the small of the boy's back and helped him to sit, using the other hand to brace his shoulder. He fixed Gabe with a steady stare that the boy could not help but reciprocate, and he began to talk him through the struggle. Gabe was still weeping, but he had no breath to call for his mother. He had no breath at all as he shook with the coughs and choked up wet mouthfuls of mucus. Bethel was in the room now, leaning over the foot of the bed to offer a handkerchief, but Cullen kept his gaze levelled on his son.

"Good boy, that's my little man, cough it all up," he said. "Ain't nothing to worry about. Cough it up."

When finally Gabe was able to take a greedy gulp of air he shriveled against Cullen's arm, quaking piteously. "P-P-Pappy," he whimpered.

Cullen drew his son into his lap, brushing the tears from one cheek with a tender swipe of his thumb. He rocked Gabe against him. "I'm here," he whispered. "You got nothing to be scared of."

Gabe shuddered and nestled nearer. His thumb crept up towards his mouth and Bethel reached instinctively to stop it, but Cullen brushed her away. "Won't do no harm tonight," he whispered. Let his son have whatever comfort he needed: he could not have the one he yearned for most. "There, now, it's over," Cullen murmured. "It's over. You're safe."

Gabe gave a tiny little yelping cry, like a pup pushed away from the teat. "I wants my mama," he moaned softly, the sound coming muffled around his thumb.

Bethel's eyes widened in sudden comprehension, and Cullen thought her color darkened. It was difficult to tell in the ill-lit room. He rocked again, feeling the warm weight of his boy and wishing with all his heart that he could ease the child's suffering. If he could only take the fever on himself, and the cough, and all the strain of these last few weeks; if only he could wish Mary home and Gabe well and strong and the Ainsley children healthy again, he would have.

Bethel sat down on the bed, curling around to brace Gabe's other side. One hand dug into the mattress to prop her up, and the other stroked Gabe's flank through the thin flannelette of the winter nightshirt. Low and melodious, she began to sing. Cullen knew the song and remembered suddenly half a dozen different nights when that melody and that rich, deep voice had comforted him and eased the throes of childhood's pains. Now he felt the tension ebb from Gabe's small body as Bethel sang:

"_Hush-a-bye, don't you cry.  
>Go to sleep, my li'l baby.<br>When you wake, you will have  
>All the pretty li'l horses.<em>

_Black an' bay, dapple an' gray,  
>All the pretty li'l horses.<em>

_Way down yonder, down in the meadow,  
>There my poor li'l lambie.<br>The bees an' the butterflies buzzin' round his eyes.  
>Poor li'l thing cryin' "Mammy!"<em>

_Hush-a-bye, don't you cry.  
>Go to sleep, my li'l baby.<br>When you wake, you will have  
>All the pretty li'l horses…"<em>

Gabe's breathing was deep and level now, and Cullen dared to shift him up into the sitting position in which he usually slept. When the boy did not stir, he got his foot up on the bed and pushed off, using the base of his heel and the resistance of Bethel's leg to push himself up the bed as smoothly as possible. His arms, aching so fiercely from the day of fighting the plow, felt oddly comforted by the weight of his son. Bethel stood up, still singing softly, and moved to arrange the cushions. Gabe's head drooped, cheek and ear resting against Cullen's ribs. Bethel drew up the blankets and did not pause in the song.

"_Hush-a-bye, don't you cry…"_

Cullen settled as comfortably as he could, and then adjusted Gabe's position once more. The flow of tears had stopped, but he could still feel them where they had soaked through his undershirt. He curled his free arm around his son, settling his palm against the boy's ribs. He mouthed soundless thanks to Bethel as she let the song die down into the hush of the night. The last of the autumn crickets were humming outside the window, and in the cast-iron heater the flames crackled, but there was no other sound. Then a tiny voice, unsteady and thick with gathering sleep, asked; "Pappy, when my mama comin' home?"

"Soon," Cullen pledged softly, wanting only to console his dear little boy. "Real soon."

"Hmm," Gabe sighed. "Dat good."

Then he slept.

_*discidium*_

The clock on the mantelpiece showed it to be five minutes to eleven, but time had little meaning for Mary Bohannon. She moved through the Ainsley nursery like a specter, offering a sip of water here and bathing a fevered brow there. Only Leon slept peacefully, tucked into his bed as far away from the fire as possible. Charlie was tossing and turning in uneasy dreams, and Daisy lay awake in Ester's arms. Hettie was holding Lucy, who had just had another terrible coughing fit. Mary had persuaded Verbena to retire to bed an hour before, and had finally managed to do the same with Mammy. Despite her best efforts, Meelia had refused to leave. She was now asleep in the chair by Charity's bed, while Mary sat on the other side, trying to brush out the girl's snarled hair.

Charity had awakened once that evening, begging tearfully for water. She had not responded to Verbena's anxious questions, nor really seemed to realize who was with her or why. Since then she had slept fretfully, now and then mumbling unintellibly. Her skin was still hot with fever, but it was at least no longer parched. They had changed her nightgown twice today, so soaked with sweat was it. It seemed the fever was breaking, but it was doing so with tortuous slowness.

Mary drew the ivory-handled brush down the length of the hank of hair that had been the child's left braid. She had turned Charity's face towards her so that she could brush half a head of hair without sitting her up. Mary did not know whether Charity would even know the difference, but she was certain that seeing her tidy and cared-for would ease Verbena's fears when she woke. Besides, the soothing motion of the brush blunted her exhaustion a little. She had stolen a few minutes' sleep after feeding the children their supper, but other than that she had been awake and in motion almost continuously. She understood now the exhaustion in Doc's eyes when he had departed yesterday afternoon, and she was glad that she had made him the offer of a bed.

Nimbly her fingers twisted the strands of hair into a braid, moving almost of their own accord. She plucked the crumpled ribbon off of the pillowslip and tied it off. The dimmed lamp flickered, almost seeming to animate the hollow of Charity's wan cheek. The fever roses were fading, too, though they flared whenever she coughed. Even the cough seemed scarcely to rouse her, and now Mary was beginning to fear that even if the child did recover she might suffer some deficiency of reason. Such things were not unknown.

But for now Charity slept, fevered but peaceful, and she looked better for the grooming. She looked, in fact, as if she might wake at any moment like the princess in the old story. Mary set the brush down on the little table and got wearily to her feet. As she rose, Daisy stirred in Ester's lap.

"Pwetty lady?" she asked. "Pwetty lady hold Daisy?"

She was reaching out with her plump little arms, and Ester was smiling fondly. "She done took a shine to you, Missus," she whispered. "You gots a way with them childern."

"Why, thank you," Mary said, pleased in spite of herself. She could not help but love these little ones, even poor cross Charlie. She bent despite the ache in her back and gathered Daisy into her arms. One bare foot scrabbled against the pleats of her gown. She had removed her hoop that morning and her skirts hung limp and rumpled over her petticoats, but she had long since given up caring about her appearance. There was simply not the energy to spare. She tucked her arm under the child's bottom and patted her back. "There, now," she murmured. "Such a good girl, such a brave, sweet girl."

Daisy made a happy little sound at this praise, and hugged Mary's neck. "Pwetty lady," she said again.

"You may call me Miss Mary," she said as she moved out into the open area of the room. She paced down towards the bath counter, and then back to the fire. Hettie looked up from watching Lucy sleep, and offered a nervous little smile. When Mary returned it, the girl seemed to relax. She looked so young in her wilted nursemaid's uniform. Likely she had only just been promoted to the position in time for Lucy's birth.

"Miss Mewwy," Daisy murmured, trying the name out. "Mewwy li'l lamb?"

"Yes, you're my little lamb," Mary agreed reflexively, turning to stroll back again. When Gabe had been about Daisy's age, there had been nights when he wanted to be walked to sleep.

"No, Mewwy li'l lamb," said the child insistently. As they passed her brother's bed she twisted to point to him. "Chawlie know. Mewwy li'l lamb, 'gainst de rule."

She wanted something: a song or a story that her brother knew. Unfortunately, Mary did not. "Maybe he can tell me in the morning," she said gently. "Rest your head down, Daisy. That's a good girl."

She made another lap of the room, and as she turned from the fire again a blur of motion caught her eye. For a moment Mary did not know where it had come from, for the boys were still motionless in their beds and Esther was finished straightening Daisy's sheets. Then she realized that the door leading to the playroom was now ajar. Her pulse skipped, carried away in a brief flight of irrational imagination such as only the sleep-deprived and the mad experience. Then she went to the door.

The hand upon the knob withdrew as she approached, almost guiltily, but Mary untwined one hand to draw the door wider. She found herself looking up into the pale face of Boyd Ainsley.

"Good evening," she whispered.

"Evenin', Miss Mary," he said. The words were slurred and came out with a waft of whiskey. He had been drinking, and from the fogged look in his pale eyes Mary suspected he was well past tipsy.

"Miss Mewwy," mumbled Daisy.

Boyd's stuporous gaze shifted to his daughter and he reached for her head. His hand stopped not an inch short of her curls, hovering unsteadily there. "How's my girl?" he asked thickly. "My li'l Daisy girl."

Daisy snorted daintily and raised her head, looking around bewilderedly but not seeing the man who was standing almost directly behind her. "Pappy?" she asked.

"Right here, sweetheart," Mary said, turning ninety degrees so that her shoulders were perpendicular to Boyd's and Daisy could see him with ease. The child smiled, tiny teeth flashing in the lamplight.

"Pappy!" she said. "You tell. Mewwy li'l lamb!"

Boyd blinked at her and crooked his index finger under her chin, lips wavering into a small, fond smile. "My Daisy girl," he murmured. Then he shifted his eyes to Mary. "How they all been?"

"Mewwy li'l lamb," Daisy insisted.

"They're peaceful," Mary said, adjusting her hold on the little girl and adding ruefully; "apart from Miss Daisy, who seems to want a story I don't know."

"Missus?" It was Ester, come up quietly beside her. She was holding out her hands. "I know it: it a rhymin' story from one of them books."

Mary smiled gratefully at her. "Here, Daisy, Ester will tell you the story," she said, passing the child to the slave. Daisy went willingly and Ester carried her off, murmuring as she went. Mary turned back to Boyd. "You look like you ought to be in bed," she said kindly.

He scratched at his jaw, fingers rasping over stubble. Mary had never seen Boyd Ainsley anything but pristinely groomed, and it startled her more than the signs of inebriation. His stock was awry and his vest hung unbuttoned. His watch dangled from its chain, swinging by his hip. There was a smudge of something on his chin. Poor man, he looked so lost and anxious.

"Charity?" he asked. "The doctor said her fever's come down a little, but it ain't possible to say if she'll come through."

"Her fever is down," Mary promised. "She doesn't seem to be delirious anymore: her dreams are much quieter." Suddenly she was very glad of the impulse that had made her brush the girl's hair. She reached out and took Boyd's hand. It was trembling deep into the bone. "Why don't you come in and sit with her a while?"

Boyd balked, startled by these words. He tried to tug back, but Mary held him fast. "I… I can't," he muttered. "Mammy don't like men in the sickroom."

"Mammy's gone to her own bed," said Mary. "Verbena's asleep in your room. It's just me and the nursemaids – and Daisy, of course. Come in and see her. It will do you both good."

Boyd still looked uneasy, but Mary took a pace backward and drew him into the room. Once over the threshold he did not resist as she took his arm, locking it with her own as she had on the night he had led her in to the dance in Cullen's absence. As she had expected Boyd fell into the pattern of long practice and walked with her. She led him past the bed where Leon slept soundly, past the tangle of blankets with Charlie at its center, past Daisy and Esther, who was murmuring; "…_made the childern laugh an' play to see a lamb at school._" Mary guided Boyd to the chair between the girls' beds, and put a hand on his shoulder to ease him down. For the first few inches he seemed to resist her, and then the strength went out of his legs and he sat with a _thump_, staring at Charity.

"My little girl!" he moaned, very softly. He reached out with an unsteady hand and brushed the tips of his fingers to her ear. From there they travelled to the newly-smoothed tresses, slipping down until they rested on her shoulder in its frilly muslin sleeve. He cupped it tenderly. "She looks… she looks peaceful, all right, Miss Mary," he whispered. "She's so thin…"

"She hasn't eaten much at all since the fever started rising," said Mary. "Cookie has been making beef broth to give her, but she never takes much. She had a good deal of water this evening, though. That's a promising sign."

Boyd looked up at her, such a look of desperation in his eyes that Mary wanted to comfort him as she had comforted Leon last night. The same frantic plea was on his face: _don't let Charity die_! "It is?" he croaked.

"Of course it is," she said softly.

He grunted vaguely and turned his eyes back on his child. Her hand lay curled on the coverlet, and he slipped his fingers into it as though afraid to grip her too hard. Mary knew that she ought to withdraw, to allow Boyd this private moment with Charity. For all she knew it might be the last such moment he had to share with her, and she was grateful that she had been here to coax him to take it. But somehow she could not move away. There was something about the pale wraith in the bed, pretty despite the ravages of whooping cough and pneumonia, and the dark form bowed over her that made it impossible for Mary to do so much as avert her eyes.

Boyd's shoulders shook, and Mary realized he was weeping. She felt instinctively for her handkerchief, but it was gone: swept up, no doubt, with the rest of the linen. It would find its way back to her eventually, clean and starched by the West Willows laundress. If it did not, that hardly mattered, but her fatigue-addled brain was tripping over the question when the figure in the bed stirred.

Charity's cracked lips parted and her eyelashes fluttered, sticking briefly on crusted rheum. She squinted against the dim light and turned her head so that her cheek lifted feebly off the pillow. "Pa-appy?" she rasped.

Boyd's head snapped up, and his hand closed on hers. Mary's breath caught in her throat.

"I'm here!" Boyd hissed, leaning nearer to the girl. "Charity, pet, I'm here."

"Pappy," Charity mumbled. Her throat was dry and the syllables creaked rustily. The corner of her mouth turned up unsteadily. "You ain't s'posed to be in the sickroom."

Boyd laughed, or sobbed, or both. The sound woke Meelia, who sat up at once and looked to her charge. Seeing Charity's open eyes and feeble half-smile, she slipped down onto her knees beside the bed, longing to reach for her but wary of trespassing on her master's prerogative. Mary swallowed painfully, unable to move. She realized now that she had been certain that Charity would die without ever really regaining consciousness.

"We won't tell Mammy," Boyd said thickly. There were tears running from his eyes, which were fixed rapturously on his daughter.

Charity inclined her head slowly, and a weary sigh slipped from her lips. "Pappy, I'm thirsty," she murmured.


	73. Home Again

_Note: Sorry about the delay. I caught a virus and slept through most of the week. Oops._

**Chapter Seventy-Three: Home Again**

Meg and Elijah stood in the doorway, and Lottie peered between two wall slats while Nate and Cullen settled the last pole of fragile smoke-cured tobacco on the rail. The leaves shuddered, rustling dissonantly as they settled. Cullen withdrew his hands carefully and stretched his stiff neck to look up at the hanging bunches. The freshly smoked leaves needed a couple of days to fix, and the best of the crop was almost through with its air-curing: early next week they could pack the last of the tobacco. For good or ill, the harvest was over. When he turned from the sight, the watching slaves drew back to let him pass and then followed wordlessly in his wake. He ducked back into the gloom of the other side of the shed, waited until he was certain the others were watching, and used the side of his boot to kick out the embers of the nearest fire. They spread with in a shower of orange sparks, dying swiftly to dust.

Lottie clapped her hands gleefully. "Can I do one, Mist' Cullen?" she begged.

Meg shot her daughter a small reproving glance, but Cullen's lips curled up in a tired smile. "Go right ahead," he said, gesturing broadly and stepping out of her way. The girl slipped between Nate and Elijah and attacked the left-hand fire with her shoe.

"All over an' done with!" she crowed. "The tobacco's goin' get sold! We got it all in!"

Her excitement was contagious. Meg laughed and Elijah grinned. Even Nate almost smiled. Cullen, whose lungs were growing tight in the lingering smoke, nudged his way back out into the crisp frost of the morning. Lottie had finished with the second fire and moved on to the last, blithely triumphant. It was not the time to remind her or anyone else that the tobacco was not sold yet. The wearisome task of tending the fires day and night was over, and that was something worth celebrating.

"All over and done with," Cullen agreed. He looked from Meg to Elijah to Nate and back again. "I want to thank you all," he said softly. "I ain't done my share out here these last weeks, and I want you to know I'm grateful that you took it on yourselves so I could be with my boy. And Lottie. _Lottie!_" She ceased her victorious stamping and fixed him with expectant eyes. "You done a fine job this year; even better 'n last. We all relied on you to keep them fires going day after day, and you done it. Thank you."

Lottie began to squirm in delight at the praise, then caught herself and straightened her spine, clasping her hands behind her back. She nodded her head curtly, in a very grown-up fashion. "I on'y done my bes', Massa. I know you don' expect no less," she said with careful dignity.

Cullen gave an appreciative nod, cleared his throat cautiously so as not to awaken the cough, and adjusted his hat. "Right, then: let's get on with the day's work," he said. "Me and Nate'll be out in the cornfields all day if we're needed. Elijah, I want you and Meg to start bringing in the potatoes. There ain't cause to hurry, but I don't want no dawdling over it neither. Clear away the tops as you go along."

"Yassir, Mist' Cullen," Elijah said calmly. Meg nodded and curtsied. Nate was already moving off towards the stable.

"What 'bout me?" asked Lottie. "I's a good potato-picker."

"I know you is," said Cullen; "but I want you up at the house today. See if you can't keep my boy cheerful: he's lonesome for his mama."

Lottie frowned. "Ain't Missus Bohannon home yet?" she asked. "Is them childern dyin' over West Willows way?"

"I don't know," Cullen sighed, his weariness dragging on him. The long string of broken nights, the worries for his son and now his wife, and the persistent sense of malaise that accompanied the cough were all conspiring to cripple him. That his whole body ached from yesterday's plowing did not help in the least. "Just see what you can do to keep Gabe happy, all right? He didn't have such a good night."

Lottie babbled eager assurances: he could rely on her, she would do her very best, she loved little Mister Gabe like he was her own brother. Cullen did not really hear any of them, and it was with bleak relief that he watched her run off towards the house. He closed the door on the ventilated side of the barn, but left the kiln side open to air out a little. Then he trudged off after Nate, reluctant but bereft of any other choice. The muddy fields were calling to him, and the heavy plow was waiting to drag him down. All he had to do was fetch the damned mules.

It had been a hard thing, getting out of bed that morning. It would have been painful under the best of circumstances, and he could no longer even pretend that he was not ill. He had awakened his son more often than his son had awakened him, coughing uncontrollably in the darkness, and although he had managed to evade Bethel's knowing hand Cullen suspected that his fever was higher today. He had made light of his condition over breakfast, fearing that if Bethel so much as intimated that he ought to stay in today he would cave to the temptation and forsake his duty. He had almost lost his resolve anyhow when he had lifted Gabe off his lap and the child had whimpered piteously and clung to him, still half-asleep. Gabe was anxious and understandably distraught about his mother's absence, and if he had been lucid enough to beg his pappy not to leave him, Cullen would have stayed. But Bethel had managed to detach the small, possessive hands and to comfort the drowsy child while his father made his reluctant escape.

Lottie had reached the house and disappeared inside long before Cullen shuffled past. Nate was in no hurry either, and he was leaning against the barn door when his master reached it. Wordlessly they stepped into the warm gloom together and set about harnessing the mules. Snort's braying protests muffled the sound of hoofbeats on the drive until someone reined in the team and the lead horse nickered in protest. Even then, Cullen was so lost in his meandering and cheerless thoughts that Nate had to speak.

"You think that the Missus?" he asked, jerking his chin over Cullen's shoulder. He reached and took the lines from his master's hand. "Bes' go an' see."

The sun was now cresting the trees, and the day beginning to take on a golden glow. Cullen stepped out, squinting, and started back down the drive. Drawn up before the house was the Ainsley buggy, two fine carriage-horses harnessed to it and held firmly by the darky coachman. The top was raised to shelter the passengers, and the laprobe was tucked high. As Cullen approached, the low door swung open and Boyd hopped down. He shaded his eyes with his hat, which was in his left hand, and shot a tiny smile of greeting to his friend. In the vehicle, propped between the seat-back and the other door, sat Mary. Her silk bonnet was on her head, but the ribbon was twisted clumsily into a limp bow. Her hands lay limp in her lap. Boyd turned to her and reached in to offer his arm, and Cullen felt a warm wave of gratitude towards his friend. He might just as easily have sent Mary off in the care of the driver, but he had taken the trouble to see her home himself.

"Miss Mary?" he said softly. She stirred and looked about bewilderedly, then saw his hand and placed her palm upon it in a haunted, sluggish way. "Miss Mary, you're home," said Boyd.

"Home," she sighed, her words slurring almost as if she were intoxicated. "Oh, yes."

She stood up unsteadily and plucked at her skirts. They hung limp over her petticoats: her hoop was gone. One dainty buttoned shoe found the ornate iron step, and she gripped the side of the carriage with her free hand as she let Boyd guide her down. She blinked blankly at the house as though she did not quite recognize it, and then offered her escort a quavering smile. "Thank you," she said sweetly.

Cullen moved past the horses as swiftly as his aching legs could carry him. The muscles of his thighs burned as if they were still fighting against the mud and the bucking plow, but now he scarcely felt them. He reached for his wife, cupping her elbow in one coarsened hand. "Mary, are you all right?" he asked.

She turned her whole body towards him, as if to twist her neck alone was too difficult. Her bleary eyes focused and she seemed to come back into herself. "Cullen," she whispered. Her hand slipped away from Boyd's and she brushed it down the front of her skirt as if to smooth the rumpled cloth. "Yes, I'm quite all right. Only tired."

"I don't think she's slept at all," Boyd put in, shuffling awkwardly. "She got Verbena to go to her bed two nights in a row, but I don't think…"

"How're the children?" Cullen asked, not quite sure for whom the question was meant. Mary was leaning into his grasp now, her gaze still fixed vaguely on his face.

"Charity's awake and lucid, thank God," she said. "She even took a little milk porridge this morning. Doctor Whitehead says if the fever continues to come down… she'll have a hard convalescence, but I think she'll recover. And poor little Lucy, on top of everything else I do believe she's cutting her first tooth."

"They're holding on," added Boyd. "Charlie's fever broke about an hour ago; Mammy says he'll be all right. Daisy and Baby, well, they ain't much changed one way or the other." He closed his eyes and sighed, his whole body exuding a piteous relief that was all too familiar to Cullen. "And Charity's going to live."

"I'm glad," Cullen breathed. It was inadequate, but all that he could think to say.

Boyd took a hesitant step forward, drawing nearer to the couple than propriety ordinarily allowed. "Cullen, Miss Mary, I can't say how grateful I am. You don't know the help she's been, Cullen. The nursery was in an uproar, and the girls all worn to a frazzle, and she put it all to rights again. It was such a comfort to Verbena, too: I don't think she'd have dared to lie down without Mary to watch over the children. And she let me…" His eyes flickered to Mary, and then he blinked thrice in rapid succession. "I can't say how grateful I am," he repeated hoarsely.

Cullen's throat felt tight, and he did not quite trust himself to speak. Mary's head lolled to the left, and she smiled vaguely. "It was the very least I could do, Boyd," she said softly. "Your dear little children, they're such a pleasure to care for. I'll come by again in a day or two, just to see how everyone is getting on."

Boyd's eyes were very bright now. He cleared his throat and fumbled with his hat. "I thank you, ma'am," he mumbled, looking more like the gawky adolescent he had been than the languidly dignified man he was. "You've been a blessing. Cullen." He turned his attention on his friend, and his voice hardened a little. He was struggling to maintain a suitably masculine countenance while obviously struggling with the emotions of a father. "Cullen, thank you for sparing her to us. I know it can't be easy to get along without her."

"Proud to do it," Cullen said. Beside him Mary swayed, and he loosed his arm from her elbow to slip it around her waist. His other hand moved to support her left arm, now curled across her front towards him. "We'd best get you upstairs, angel," he murmured.

Mary hummed vaguely at him, and Boyd stepped back. He snapped his fingers towards the back of the buggy, and Pip hopped down off the board over the rear wheels. He had a covered basket looped over one arm and a tangle of tapes and steels bundled under the left. It took Cullen a moment or two to recognize Mary's hoopskirt. Boyd reached as if to take it, then thought better of it and looked questioningly at his friend.

"Just put it on the chair inside the front door, son," Cullen instructed, gathering Mary nearer to him as he secured his hold. Boyd stepped back against the gatepost and hurried the young Negro through before standing straight to usher the Bohannons through. Cullen released his hold on Mary's forearm just long enough to shake hands with Boyd. "Thanks for seeing her home safe," he said.

"There ain't words for this," Boyd whispered. Then he bowed stiffly. "Thank you again, Miss Mary," he said with crisp formality.

Cullen guided Mary to the veranda steps. The toe of her shoe caught on the first tread, and he had to shift his weight to buoy her up. Pip, having put down the hoop, was now holding the door wide, and Cullen guided his wife over the threshold. "Thanks," he murmured to the slave, then looked back to Boyd and raised his hand in farewell. "If there's anything else you need, just send word," he said.

"You, too," said Boyd, almost grinning. His expression grew sober again. "I hope she ain't…"

"She's just tired," Cullen pledged, though the same fear was gnawing at his innards. Mary's fingers were now curled around the line of buttons down the front of his shirt, and her temple rested heavily on his shoulder. The brim of her bonnet was pressing against his cheek. "Give my regards to Verbena. We're all praying for your little ones."

"Thank you," Boyd sighed again, pale eyes brimming with gratitude he could not express within the constraints of manly behavior. Cullen, who had known him all his life, understood perfectly and responded with a single nod that was just as clearly read. Then Boyd snapped his fingers again, and Pip bowed as he let go of the door. Cullen stretched his arm to draw it closed.

All at once the world outside ceased to exist. He did not hear Boyd climbing back into the buggy, nor the order to the coachman nor the retreating clatter of the horses. He did not hear the mules braying as Nate led them out, nor pause to think about what the slave would do with the team his master was supposed to be driving. Concealed from prying eyes, Cullen was able to turn his focus entirely on his wife where she leaned against him, propped up in utter exhaustion. He fumbled with the ribbons and eased the bonnet backward off her head, slipping it out from under her cheek without raising her head off his shoulder. He looked around for somewhere to set it, but the chair was overrun with the hoopskirt and the basket. Instead he upended the confection of faille and satin onto the newel post of the bannister, where it balanced like a lampshade. His hand found its way at once to Mary's jaw, caressing the side of her face while his thumb whisked away a stray tendril of auburn hair.

"Are you sick, Mary?" he asked softly. "Do you feel like something's wrong?"

"I'm only tired," she murmured, her voice still slurred and haunted. A heavy sigh made her corset heave against the hand that held her waist. "One would just stop coughing, and the next would start up. Poor little things."

"You shouldn't've stayed a second night," Cullen said crossly, his pride in her courage giving way to worry for her health. "They've got a whole house full of slaves to help out."

Mary twisted against him, tilting her chin up so that she could fix both eyes on his face. "Oh, don't be angry," she pleaded. "I couldn't have left them yesterday, the state everyone was in. Nobody had slept in days, and poor Verbena was quite beside herself. She's still feeding Lucy, you know, and it takes so much strength to – oh, dear, I shouldn't have told you that! How embarrassing."

She sounded so primly surprised as she said this that Cullen chuckled. "You sure you ain't tipsy?" he asked, tucking his head so he could kiss her. Her lips were brilliantly pink against the porcelain pallor of her skin, and they tasted faintly of honey. For a moment they were lifeless against his, and then they stirred hungrily. The hand that had been clutching at his shirt moved up to caress his neck. But Mary's head tipped back against his shoulder again and she sighed.

"It was such a long night," she mumbled. "Charity's weak as a newborn kitten: she can't even hold her head up to take a drink of water. It's pneumonia; Doc's sure of it. She'll be a convalescent for months, if it doesn't take another turn. And Cullen, when the baby coughs…" She shuddered so violently that he slipped his right arm around her body, fearful she might fall. "I didn't think that anything could be worse than watching Gabe, but… but…"

A host of hollow platitudes rose to his lips, inadequate to express the comfort he longed to give her, but Mary's weight shifted again as she lifted her head. "How is he?" she asked. "Doc said he had a little fever yesterday?"

It took Cullen a moment to realize she was talking about their son. "Just a little one," he said earnestly. "Between you and me, I think he worked it up hisself to try and get another dose or two of elderflower cordial. He's just fine, Mary," he promised. Any thought of mentioning the tempest of the previous evening died. "He had a quiet day yesterday, and he only woke up coughing four times last night."

"Praise the Lord," Mary murmured. "I was so afraid he might be upset."

Her weight upon Cullen's arms grew heavier as her knees trembled. He hugged her closer and cast an uneasy eye at the stairs. She had had enough trouble getting up onto the porch. "We need to get you to bed," he said. "If anyone's earned a day of lying in leisure, it's you."

Mary exhaled drowsily and began to form the first syllable of a sentence, but she was cut off by the thunder of small booted feet and a triumphant cry of; "_Mama!_" Gabe came careening out of the dining room and flung his arms about Mary's legs, squeezing with all his might. If she had not been braced up against Cullen, the force of the child's embrace would have sent her tumbling against the front door. "Mama! You's home! You's home! Pappy! Mama come home!"

"Hush now, son; Mama's tired," Cullen said gently, reaching down one-handed to attempt to pry the limpet from Mary's skirts. "She's had a long couple of nights, and she needs you to be nice and quiet."

"Gabe, dearest," whispered Mary, slipping her own hand down to caress her son's head. "How are you feeling?"

"Happy! I's happy!" Gabe crowed. "You come home! I et up my grits, an' I drinked all my milk, an' 'Ottie say we goin' make a house for Stewpot. You goin' he'p? Bet'l say we kin use dem ol' towels wid de raggedy edges. It goin' be a tent-house like de soljurs got. Guess dat make Stewpot a soljur-cat, don' it?"

This cheerful explosion seemed to soothe Mary more than Cullen's assurances possibly could. Tension he had not even recognized ebbed out of her spine and shoulders, and she seemed to wilt against him. "Yes, dear, I suppose it does," she mumbled.

"All right," said Cullen firmly, finally managing to get Gabe to take a half-step back. His hands still clung to Mary's skirt, but at least his whole torso was not thrust up against her. "I got to get Mama upstairs: she needs her sleep. You run along and play with Lottie, that's a good boy."

"Nope!" Gabe said cheerfully. "I's goin' stay right here wid Mama! I missin' her: she go 'way an' leave me 'lone."

"I know you been missing her," Cullen said, trying to remain patient. Mary was beginning to tremble with enervation, and he could feel the fine spasms in every bone of her body. "But she needs to go and lie down."

"I can lie down," Gabe said. "I gots to tell her 'bout de udder t'ings, too: de doct'r come to visit, an' he all tired out, an' me an' Bet'l, we scramble him a egg…"

Cullen could see all too clearly what would happen if he let the child come upstairs. Gabe would go on prattling sunnily away, enumerating every detail of the last two days with innocent delight, completely oblivious to his mother's exhaustion. And Mary, patient and loving mother that she was, would listen with every last ounce of her strength and struggle to reply in all the right places. Gabe was too young to understand that his mama needed to sleep, and Mary was too anxious over her first real separation from her child to refuse him anything. It was Cullen's responsibility, therefore, to keep the little boy downstairs where he could not weary his mother.

Craning his neck so that he was as far from Mary's ear as possible, Cullen called out; "Bethel! Would you get out here, please?"

The steady feet came hurrying, and Bethel appeared in the corridor swiftly enough that it was plain she had been waiting in the dining room instead of the kitchen. A moment later Lottie peered around the doorjamb, trying to be circumspect but not quite managing it. Still trying to support his wife while holding Gabe at one remove with his other hand, Cullen motioned with his head. "Would you take him? I got to get Mary up to bed."

Bethel bent and hooked her hands under Gabe's arms, swooping him up onto her hip so swiftly that he scarcely had time to realize she had touched him before he was whisked away from his mother. Gabe's lower lip trembled and his face puckered up into the prelude of a scream of protest, but Bethel swayed smoothly and cradled his head with one bony hand. "Hush, chile," she said. "If you wants to come upstairs, you gots to be quiet like a li'l mouse. One peep out that mouth, an' I'm goin' take you down to the kitchen, you hear me?"

Gabe's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to reply. Just in time he thought better of it, and shut his lips with a soft _smack._ Earnestly he bobbed his head, and Bethel stroked his cheek. "Good boy," she said. "You' pappy an' me, we's goin' git Mama ready fo' bed, an' if you's a quiet li'l man mebbe you can lie down an' have a nap 'longside her. But you _gots_ to be quiet."

Again Gabe nodded, and Cullen felt a weight of worry fall from him. It would have been a bitter thing to banish his son, screaming, to the kitchen, and it would have distressed Mary. Trust Bethel to find another solution – and to elicit such instant and perfect cooperation. "That's good," he said. "You hear that, Mary? Gabe's going to come upstairs, and he's going to be mighty quiet."

"I is!" Gabe agreed. Then, realizing his error, he clapped both small hands over his mouth and cast a look of abject apology at Bethel.

"Starting right now," Cullen declared. Gratefully, Gabe nodded. "Do you think you can manage the stairs?"

Mary did not answer. He realized he was now supporting her whole weight with his arm, his hip and his chest, and that her head was tucked against the base of his neck. Her eyes were closed: she had drifted off to sleep where she stood.

As smoothly and as gently as he could, Cullen bent forward and slipped his right arm behind her knees. As he lifted her, she woke with a little start, looking dazedly from side to side. Her eyes fixed on his and she relaxed against him, curling her arm up around his neck to bear up some of her own weight. The straining sinews in his elbows were grateful for this small respite, and he took the first step towards the staircase.

"I could walk," Mary mumbled. Her chin bounced against her collarbone as he moved again, and she amended; "I could _try_."

"No, ma'am," said Cullen simply, feeling for the back of the riser and planting his foot with care. Once he was on the stairs he stopped thinking about it so that his feet would carry him out of habit. He focused instead on the fragile beauty of Mary's features. Even the dark circles beneath her eyes – present since Gabe had first fallen ill, but now darkened almost to bruises – had about them a particular loveliness. Her skirts spilled over his arm, trailing in ripples with the ruffles of her petticoats, and her head rocked against his shoulder. He reached the top of the stairs without incident, and bore her down the corridor to their room.

_*discidium*_

Slowly Mary became aware that she was lying curled on her side upon the familiar feather tick of her own bed, warm and gloriously comfortable beneath the heavy winter bedclothes. The sensation was positively delicious, and she wondered absentmindedly just how long it had been since she had last slept here, instead of next to Bethel on the nursery floor. Long enough, so it seemed, for an ordinary consolation to seem like a sumptuous luxury. Reluctant to move or even to open her eyes, she reveled in it.

She knew that the moment she tried to move all the aches would come back: the burning in the small of her back, the weary soreness in arms worn out from carrying fussing children and holding them while they coughed, the grinding pain in her heels. Dimly she remembered the swaying of her body as Cullen carried her, steadily and with such quiet tenderness, up the stairs to their room. She remembered struggling to keep upright when he sat her down on the bed, and complying hypnotically with Bethel's instructions as the old woman helped her out of her dress and petticoats. She did not remember taking off her corset, but as she drew a deep breath with unsupported ribs she knew she must have. She shifted her hand ever so slightly, but felt no drag of a ruffled nightgown cuff. Bethel had put her to bed in her chemise, then, despite its no-doubt noisome state. Mary did not think that she had ever worn the same undergarment for three consecutive days before, standard though that was for many women of lesser priviledge. It would need a thorough boiling and a good long airing on the line.

At last she dared to open her eyes, and was puzzled to see an arc of orange light above the curve of the quilt. Then reason awoke, and she realized that it must be late afternoon: put to bed in the morning, she had slept through the day.

She would have closed her eyes and tried to slip back into the welcoming cocoon of slumber, but she was very thirsty. Reluctant but determined, she rolled onto her back and raised her right hand to brush the blankets away from her face. The familiar ceiling greeted her without astonishment, and she stared up at it for a few moments as she resolved her mind to the notion of getting up. When she thought that she had just about mastered the concept, she pushed herself onto her other elbow and hoisted her heavy head off of the pillow. A long, loose braid uncoiled as she sat up. Bethel must have plucked out her hairpins, too.

As her face crested the swell of the coverlet, Mary was met with the wide-eyed face of her son. Gabe was sitting on the dressing stool, his father's watch in his hand and his booted feet dangling. He looked as guilty as a man caught in an act of unthinkable criminality.

"I didn' make no noise!" he gasped before Mary could speak. "I didn'! I been _so_ quiet, Mama! I didn' _mean_ to waked you up!"

Mary smiled. She had worried about Gabe in her absence, and thought of him a hundred times while she tended the Ainsley brood, but she had not realized how much she had truly missed him until this moment. "You didn't wake me, dearest," she said. "Why, you were so quiet I didn't even know you were here!"

Gabe let out a long breath, deflating with relief. "Oh, dat good," he sighed. "Bet'l say I gots to be quiet, or she don' let me stay wid you. I sleeped for a long time, but you didn' waked up. Den I go et my dinner, an' played wid 'Ottie a while, but Bet'l say I may come up 'gain, an' you's still sleepin'! It daytime, Mama. How come you sleep so long?"

"I must have been very tired," Mary said, sitting up properly and smoothing the covers over her legs. She patted her lap. "Climb up and give me a hug, darling. I've missed you so!"

"I miss't you too, Mama," Gabe said solemnly, lifting Cullen's watch by the chain and lowering it onto the dressing table with care. He scooted down off the stool and crossed the room, clambering up onto the bed and crawling to kneel on Mary's lap so that he could plant a hand on each of her shoulders. Looking her straight in the eye, he asked; "Why you stayed 'way?"

"Mrs. Ainsley needed me," Mary explained, hoping that he would understand and fearing he might not. "Charlie is ill, and Charity and Daisy and Lucy, too. They needed someone to help take care of them so their mama could sleep."

Gabe nodded. "Charlie don't got no Bet'l to look after him," he said. "Jus' a mammy." He slid onto his bottom, turning around and scooting back against Mary's arm. She hugged him close, drinking in the beloved scent of his hair and the familiar feel of his body against her. As sweet and loveable as the little Ainsleys were, there was no substitute for her own boy.

"Have you had your supper?" she asked, her hand moving to feel his brow. He was warm, but not hot: the fever was mild. Even Daisy, who had not yet come to her crisis, felt warmer than Gabe.

He shook his head. "Bet'l an' 'Ottie cookin' it. I's 'pposed to go an' tell Bet'l if you wakes up an' needs her." He straightened abruptly, twisting around to demand anxiously; "Does you need her, Mama?"

"Not just now," Mary assured him. She held him still with her left arm while she reached with her right for the tin cup on the bedside table. As she had hoped it was full of water, and she took a long sip. "I think I will send you down to tell her I'm awake, though. Then you can wait for me in the kitchen, and I can get dressed."

"It just 'bout nighttime," said Gabe. "You's doin' ev'ything de wrong way 'round."

"Going to bed in the morning, and getting dressed at night," Mary said, laughing softly. "Yes, it is backwards, isn't it?"

"Backwards," Gabe agreed, nodding stoutly. He nestled back into the crook of her arm. "I's glad you come home, Mama. I don' like it when you go 'way."

Mary felt a pang of remorse, but she could not give into it. She had already promised to call at West Willows again later in the week, and when Daisy and Lucy came to the worst of the sickness she might well have to spend another night in nursing. "Now, you had Bethel to look after you, isn't that so?" she asked. "And Pappy."

"Yes," Gabe said. "But I likes to have ev'ybody."

"That is best," Mary allowed. "But it isn't always possible. Sometimes I may have to stay away for a night."

"You stayed 'way _two_ nights," said Gabe pointedly. Then he added generously; "But it good you he'pin' Charlie's mama. Dat what Bet'l say. She say Jesus lookin' down an' smilin' on you, an' he smilin' on me 'cause I been a good boy while you gone."

Mary closed her eyes, sparing a moment of quiet thanks for Bethel's wise and loving words. She enveloped Gabe in a snug embrace, careful not to squeeze too tightly. "That's right," she said. "Jesus says we must care for those who are sick, and help those who are suffering. You're a brave, good boy to let me care for Charlie and his sisters, especially when you're not well yourself. Thank you."

"You welcome, Mama," Gabe recited carefully. He craned his neck backward to look up at her. "What you goin' do when _ev'ybody _git sick?"

"Oh, I don't think everybody will get sick," Mary said. "Bethel is well, isn't she? And I am, and Leon is, too."

"But Charlie sick," said Gabe, ticking off names on his fingers. "An' I's sick. An' Pappy. Now Lottie coughin' sometimes, an' dem girls is sick. Who next?"

"Nobody, I hope," said Mary. She was both saddened by Gabe's grasp of the spread of infection, and impressed by his reasoning. She did not think anyone had put the idea into his head that others might fall ill: he had come to the conclusion on his own. "But if someone else does get sick, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

This piqued his interest. "Bridge?" he asked. "What bridge? Where? Is we goin' take de buggy over it?"

Mary giggled. "It's only an expression," she said. "When people say 'we'll cross that bridge when we come to it', they mean that we'll worry about it if it happens."

"Worry 'bout it if it happen," Gabe mumbled, mulling this over. "But why? You don't gots to worry 'bout bridges: dey don' git sick."

Again she chuckled, tucking her head to kiss his cheek. Then she boosted his bottom by raising one leg, and steered his feet to the edge of the bed. "Go down and tell Bethel I'm dressing, dear," she said. "She needn't come up: I don't need a thing."

Gabe slid down to the floor, nodding as he went and repeating the message. "Mama dressing. She don' need a t'ing." He marched to the door and reached with both hands to turn the knob. Then he looked back and studied Mary thoughtfully. His face broke into a glorious grin. "I's _glad_ you's home, Mama," he said emphatically.

_*discidium*_

The sun had just set when Lottie stepped out into the dooryard with the supper basket in her arms, and the land lay under the blue glow of twilight. In the distance she heard a mule bellow indignantly, and then sharp but unintelligible invective that surely came from Mister Cullen's throat. She wanted to sneak up the hill towards the cornfield and see whether she could catch him in an angry tirade, but she had other responsibilities. She was growing up, and she was trusted with important work. She had done her duty in the tobacco barn well – even better than last year, Mister Cullen had said! – and she always took good care of Mister Gabe, and lately Bethel had been letting her take on more and more business around the house. Being trusted to carry the supper to the cabins was no small thing, and she meant to go straight down without dawdling. So despite the temptation to watch the men wrestling the heavy plows up out of the muck for the night, she kept on towards the willows.

Lottie was glad that Missus Mary was home now. It wasn't just that Mister Gabe had been pining for her over his breakfast, or that Missus Mary was getting to be such a good help in the kitchen. There was something wrong about the house without its kind, pretty mistress. It felt colder, almost empty. Lottie thought that Bethel felt the same way, though she did not dare to ask. But she had seen the old lady's face when the mistress had come down into the kitchen, neat and tidy in a clean work dress with a crisp apron about her waist. Bethel had missed her, all right, and she was happy to have her home.

Just as she stepped into the shadow of the trees and felt the cool air grow chiller, Lottie's chest tightened. Hurriedly she squatted, setting down the basket without jostling the contents. She managed it just in time, before the first cough ripped through her chest. It came out viciously, another one right on its heels, and Lottie's throat was instantly ablaze with bright pain. Her eyes began to water, and her heart pounded as she coughed again, and again. The fifth cough drove out the last air in her lungs, and she tried to take a breathe – but she couldn't. It felt like a hand was closed on her ribs, squeezing so tightly that they could not swell with air. They only jerked as if butting against an invisible wall, and a thin ribbon of air whistled high in her throat. Then another cough came, and another, though she had not believed there was any air left to cough out. This time when she tried to breathe she did get a little, but it came in a smarting burst and she heard herself whoop.

Lottie felt her panic rising, coming up in terrible waves from deep in her belly. She couldn't breathe! She was alone in the gathering dark, and she couldn't breathe! She was too far from the house for Bethel or Missus Mary to hear her, and too far from the fields to draw attention from Nate or Mister Cullen. Ma would be off in the cowshed, doing the night milking. There was no one to hear her cough, no one to talk her through the fit as they did for Mister Gabe, and no one to know if she stopped breathing altogether. The next cough was so ferocious that it made black spots swim before Lottie's eyes, abysmally dark even amid the shadows of the willows and the last dying light of the day. Her temples pounded and she felt suddenly very dizzy.

Groping with one hand she dropped to her knees, trying again to gasp and managing only a strained, painful whoop. She could not faint! She must not faint! If she did, she might lie here for hours until someone found her. They would miss her straight away, of course, when they found there was no supper on the table. But it wasn't easy to find a person in the dark. She _was_ on the path, or close to it, but she couldn't count on that. She screwed her eyes closed as she coughed again, trying not to let her fear overwhelm her. It was impossible. She could not help but feel anxious fear, when she could not breathe.

Something hard and grasping came down on her shoulder, and Lottie tried to scream. All that came out was another cough, a long rattling one that send her bowing forward over her lap and leaning into the thing that had grabbed her. Through the haze of hot, involuntary tears she saw the glint of two dark eyes obscured by a milky film, their whites gone yellow with age. She wanted to cry out for joy, but she was coughing far too hard for that. Someone had found her.

"There now, chile, go on an' cough," Elijah said calmly, squatting down stiffly in front of her and reaching for her other shoulder. "Ain't nuthin' to do but cough."

Lottie struggled to nod, though another whoop made her head buck wildly. She clenched the muscles of her abdomen, forcing out the next three coughs with all her strength. It worked. The tickle was driven from her throat, and the tightness from her chest. When she inhaled again, she got a full, vast gulp of air. She wheezed, too stubborn to whimper as she wished to, and took another quick, greedy gasp. Elijah's wizened hand patted her right shoulder while the other supported her left.

"I… 'Lijah…" she panted, not sure what she wanted to say but feeling the need to speak nonetheless.

"Jus' catch you' breath, now," the aged foreman instructed. He sounded as if he was trying to explain how to tie a baling knot or use a pitchfork. "Nice an' slow, li'l breaths. Don' drink too deep."

Lottie tried to do as he said, but her body seemed to know what it wanted. After a few more ragged gasps she started to breathe more steadily, and the desperate hammering of her heart began to slow. Now she was aware of a slick, slimy film over her molars, and she rolled her tongue to gather the phlegm. Turning her head, she spat into the grass.

"Uh. Thankee," she said, sitting back on her heels so that she was no longer leaning against Elijah's arms. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, and brushed the stray curls off her forehead. "That a bad one, there."

"Soun' like it," Elijah said soberly. He took his hand from her arm, and there was a sound of sloshing fluid. Drops of water plopped into Lottie's lap as he held the dipper near her mouth. The tin handle showed up brilliantly in the dusk and she grabbed it, drinking greedily.

"Thankee," she said again. Now that the fit was past and her body was settling, she felt acutely embarrassed. "I's s'posed to be bringin' in the supper," she mumbled.

"Yup," grunted Elijah. "An' I's s'pose to be gittin' on over to the barn to help with the stock. But I's goin' carry that basket, an' you jus' walk 'long nice an' slow, an' catch that breath. Bethel didn' ought to sen' you off totin' heavy loads while you's sick."

Lottie stared at him, dumbfounded. Any censure of Bethel was a grave matter, but for Elijah to speak against her was practically unheard-of. Though Ma and Nate grumbled now and then, safely out of the head woman's hearing, Lottie had never known Elijah to say a contrary word about her. He remembered the old days, and the time when the lines between house niggers and field niggers were much more sharply delineated than they were now. In his eyes Bethel was the supreme authority on the plantation, second only to the master himself and far more immune to criticism.

"I tol' her I could tote it," she squeaked. It was the only protest she could think of. She was always frank and fearless with Elijah, as she was with Nate and Ma and even, though she knew she should not be, with Mister Cullen. Yet somehow she could not quite burst out with her astonishment.

The old man shook his head and _tsked _his tongue. The light was fading fast, and under the willows it was impossible to make out his expression any longer. "Well, tomorrow you tell her you cain't," he said. "One of us grown folks can fetch it 'til you's well again. Massa goin' be patient an' let you heal up; leas' Bethel can do is the same."

He planted a hand on each knee and got to his feet with a grunt. Lottie scrambled up as well, brushing twigs and crisp fallen leaves from her skirt and the knees of her flannel drawers. "What you angry 'bout, Elijah?" she asked, finding her voice and her fearless candor together. "Bethel ain't been impatient with me."

"Ain't nuthin'," the old slave said. He bent to pick up the hamper of food, and Lottie fumbled in the dark where she thought the pail of water was resting. She found the rope handle and picked it up. It was only about one-third full, and she lifted it with ease. Elijah started down the path, and she followed his shadow.

"Mus' be sumthin'," said Lottie. "You don' never speak 'gainst Bethel even when she ain't bein' so reas'nable, an' this-here ain't nuthin'. If that derned cough didn' grab me, I'da been jus' fine."

"Never you min'," grumbled Elijah. He quickened his pace, muttering as if to himself; "Young things workin' sick, coughin' an' chokin' an' the mosquitoes buzzin' 'round. Ain't no sense, ain't no pity. Sin an' a shame."

"What are you talkin' about?" Lottie demanded, skipping over a root and hurrying to catch up with him. "Ain't no mosquitoes in November, an' I didn' hardly work 't all today. Peeled me some yams, an' I brung in the water, but mos'ly I's jus' keepin' Mist' Gabe happy while his mama sleep. Ain't sin in that."

They broke from the trees, and Elijah turned to look back at her. Lottie wished she could see his face properly, and was amazed that he could see her at all. His eyes were bad, and getting worse all the time. "No," he sighed. "No, I guess there ain't no sin in that. You's born unner a lucky star, chile. There been other li'l black girls ain't so lucky."

"Who?" Lottie asked, now unbearably curious. "Who you talkin' 'bout? One of the before-time girls? From when old Mist' Bohannon was massa?"

She was surprised when Elijah chuckled, a low, rueful sound that seemed to rumble up from deep in his gullet. "Naw, none of them," he said. "Jus' someone I knowed a long time back. She been dead since b'fore Bethel been born: ain't no one now."

He started to walk again, moving between the cabins and rounding to Lottie's door. Bewildered she followed, hurrying to tug the latch-string so that he did not need to set down the basket. There was a soft _thump_ as he put it down, and Lottie set the bucket by the door and felt for the tin of matches. The lamp blazed brightly, and she squinted against it. Elijah stared blankly, briefly blinded. Then he shook his head. "Got to get on an' see to them mules," he said. "It askin' a lot for Mist' Cullen to groom 'em gentle aft' he been fightin' them all day."

"But…" Lottie began, then closed her mouth. There was a weary sadness on the old, weathered face, and a slump to Elijah's shoulders that could not be explained by a day of hoeing potatoes. She put on her cheeriest grin. "Don' be too long!" she said. "We gots the firs' of the smoked venison tonight, an' Bethel fixed it up fine!"

Elijah nodded appreciatively and stepped down out of the cabin. Even after he disappeared back around the corner, Lottie stood staring at the open door for a minute. She had never given any thought to Elijah's early life, and if he was remembering someone who he had known before Bethel was born he must have been a little boy. Alone among the five slaves, Elijah had actually been sold at auction: Mister Cullen's father had bought him, and Lottie thought maybe somebody else before him, too. Nate and Ma and Lottie had all been born right here in this row of cozy little cabins, and Bethel had belonged to Mister Cullen's grandfather before being given to his mama as a wedding present. Lottie could not imagine belonging to anybody but Mister Cullen, or how it would feel to be told she was to be sold away. The mere thought filled her with terror, and she shut it out. Instead she busied herself in lighting the stove and wiping the table and laying out the supper dishes, listening anxiously for the comforting sound of her mother's footfalls coming down the packed-dirt avenue from the pasture.


	74. A Special Occasion

_Note: ONE WEEK LEFT until the Season 4 premiere! Are y'all excited? I's excited! _

**Chapter Seventy-Four: A Special Occasion**

The homey warmth of the kitchen tugged insistently on Mary's eyelids, and she had to fight the urge to drift off to sleep. She was reclining on the récamier, her feet curled up cozily under her skirts. Her left elbow rested on her hip so that the forearm could curl around Gabe's side where he sat with the small of his back pressed against her stomach. He was freshly bathed and clad in a clean nightshirt, but though he had expended his wealth of eager chatter when he should have been eating his supper he showed no sign of lying down beside her to drowse off. He had coaxed Stewpot onto his lap, and was scratching the kitten's belly with intense focus.

The clatter of the kettle startled Mary once more from the very cusp of slumber. Bethel lifted the heavy vessel down off the stove, and poured its contents into the wooden pail on the floor. She bent, reaching down to stir the water with her fingers, and then nodded in curt satisfaction. She filled the kettle from the other bucket, and set it back on the stove to heat.

"What's that for?" Mary asked. Her voice creaked a little, rusty with weariness. She had only been out of bed for a little over three hours, but already she was longing to return. She had been tempted to take her supper with her son and retire immediately afterward, and had refrained only because her duty to her child was not the only one she had laid by in order to help Verbena Ainsley.

Bethel picked up the bucket to which she had added the hot water and smiled. "Jus' a li'l sumthin' so's Mist' Cullen can rinse off the wors' of the mud 'fore he gits in here on my clean floor."

"Pappy a mud monster," Gabe said thoughtfully. "Dat what he say when he come in yest'day. Dem derned mules muddy him up."

Mary slipped her hand up so that her fingertip grazed Gabe's jaw, but she said nothing. She watched as Bethel went to the door with the water, picking up an old towel and the rag basket as she went. She stepped briefly out onto the stoop, setting down her burdens, and then slipped into the pantry to emerge with a worn-out quilt, which she laid out with the rest. Then she closed the door snugly and went back to the oven to check on the roasting venison. The scent of the smoked meat was mouthwatering, but Mary still would have preferred to be upstairs in bed.

A distant rumble of thunder made Gabe stiffen against her. Stewpot mewed querulously, irritated to have his scratching interrupted. "Mama?" the little boy gasped. "It goin' storm?"

"It seems so," Mary said soothingly. "Don't worry. We're safe and warm inside."

"Pappy ain't," said Gabe, twisting to look at her with wide, earnest eyes. "He goin' catch his deff."

"Now honey, by this time you' pappy be up in the barn, settlin' the horses down fo' the night," Bethel declared. "It warm 'n dry in there, too. He goin' be back in here any minute now, a-grumblin' 'bout them mules an' askin' for his supper. 'Sides, it ain't even started to rain yet."

Gabe sucked his lower lip as he listened for the sound of raindrops on the roof. Hearing nothing, his shoulders eased out of their taut alertness. "Dat good," he said. He scowled in an admirable imitation of Bethel. "I don' want Pappy in no rain while he gots de cough."

Mary wanted to laugh softly, fondly, at her son's grim protectiveness, but his words had awakened her own concerns about Cullen. She knew all too well how much he loathed plowing, and how brutally exhausting it was. In her eagerness for news of Gabe and her desire to answer his questions about his friend's children, she had neglected to ask how Cullen himself had fared in her absence. Her palm seemed to burn now with the memory of cupping his neck. Had he been warm with fever, or had it only felt that way because of the chill of the morning air on her skin? Her eyes flitted to Bethel and a question hovered on her lips, but before it could fall another clap of thunder shook the windows and the rain began to fall.

"Pappy in de barn," Gabe said firmly. The cat rolled over on his lap and stretched luxuriantly. Gabe bent low and cupped his hands on either side of the furry face. "It dry in de barn, Stewpot."

The kitten's tongue darted out, lapping against Gabe's chin, and the boy squealed in surprised delight. His fingers moved to rub behind Stewpot's ears, and Mary found herself tempted. She slid her right arm out from under her side and reached around to stroke the silky fur of the cat's back. "He's getting big," she observed.

Gabe nodded. "He growin' up!" he said. "'Ottie say we ain't never goin' have mice in dis-here house, 'cause Stewpot goin' catch 'em all an' eat 'em."

"Humph!" Bethel snorted indignantly. "We ain't _never _had mice in this house! I wouldn' stan' for it. An' that cat bes' min' hisself. I catched him sharpenin' them claws on the table leg the other day. Cats don' b'long in the house!"

Gabe looked up worriedly, but Mary smiled. "Now, Bethel," she said gently; "we all agreed that Gabe might have a pet. If Stewpot misbehaves, just give him a little swat to teach him not to do it again."

"Oh, I'll teach him, Missus. I'll teach him," the old woman said darkly, stepping into the pantry again and coming out with the butter dish. She hesitated. "Is you an' the massa goin' take supper in the dinin' room?"

Mary looked towards the door, tightly closed to keep the warmth of the stove in the kitchen where it was wanted for the convalescing child. Her hand left Stewpot's flank and moved down to curl around one small, bare ankle. Gabe flexed his knee to press his leg against her palm, eager for the contact after two nights' separation. "No, we'll eat in here," Mary said. "Then Gabe may sit with us."

Bethel nodded approvingly and fetched a cloth for the table. She began to lay out cups and cutlery while the rain battered the roof. It was hammering down now, and Mary was grateful that it had waited until dark to begin. She might have wished for it to hold off a little longer, just until Cullen was snug indoors, but at least he was not out in the field trying to plow through the torrents. A flash of lightning lit up the windows, and it was followed a breath later by a colossal thunderclap.

Gabe yelped and shrank back against her, forgetting about Stewpot as he reached for his mother. Mary drew him in with her left arm, and stroked his cheek with her right hand. The kitten, dislodged from his comfortable position as Gabe's legs canted to the side, hopped down and sauntered over to his basket under the washstand.

"It mighty loud," Gabe said nervously. Then he added; "But t'under didn' never hurt nobody."

"That's right," said Mary. She helped him to turn onto his hip so that he could cuddle close to her and she kissed his brow, hardly finding skin beneath the cloud of unruly curls. "How clever and grown-up you are, dearest."

Bethel took the blanket from the back of her chair and came to drape it over Gabe's shoulders. One side trailed along Mary's leg, and she reached to tuck it behind. At once Gabe began to nestle as if to sleep, rubbing his cheek against the cushion beneath them and shifting his feet to and fro until he was comfortable. Bethel turned to check on the supper, and the thunder rumbled again. The rain was drumming and the room was warm and welcoming, and once again Mary found herself tempted on towards slumber. Each time she blinked, she was slower to open her eyes again, and the kitchen began to take on a dreamy haze.

It was the sound of the bench thumping against the outside wall that startled her out of her twilight, and she stretched her neck to look towards the door. Beyond the burble of boiling water and the rattle on the roof, she heard sloshing and splashing on the stoop, and a muffled oath as the bench banged again. Bethel lifted the kettle again and poured a generous measure into the washbasin, diluting it with cooler water from the pitcher. The rest she poured into the tub still standing from Gabe's bath. A head of steam rose from the tin vessel, and the latch lifted.

Cullen came shuffling in, swathed in the old quilt and moving stiffly over the threshold. His hair was plastered to his head, and muddy rivulets were running down his cheekbones and along the sinews of his throat. He navigated around the door and nudged it closed with his shoulder, slumping back against it for a moment. His eyes, dull with exhaustion, seemed to skim vaguely over the room before settling on Mary and sharpening into a hasty grin.

"I half forgot you was home," he said hoarsely, still smiling. "Did you get a little sleep, or did our li'l jabberbox keep you up?"

"I slept," Mary said, glancing down at the aforementioned jabberbox to find that Gabe had fallen asleep after all. His lashes were dark against his cheeks, and one fist was tucked up under his chin. More quietly she added; "He kept his peace until suppertime."

Cullen huffed appreciatively, and his gaze strayed towards the tub. Bethel was watching him with a stern eye. "You needs to warm up," she said, the warning implicit.

"Don't know if I can manage it," Cullen said. Only then did Mary notice that he was gripping the blanket far lower than he should have, his arms held out stiffly from his body as if it hurt to bend them too near. "It takes a lot of effort to fold a body into that thing. I ain't so dirty as yesterday, I promise."

Bethel looked him over and jerked her chin appraisingly. Then she put down the spoon she had been using on the beans, and stepped around the tub. On the seat of her chair was a fresh nightshirt, and she snagged it with thumb and forefinger. "Scrub them hands an' git decent, then, an' I'll wash you' feet. But hurry up: supper be pretty near ready."

Cullen went obediently to the washstand and bowed over it, the blanket hanging like a tent from his shoulders. Pinned behind her sleeping child, Mary could not rise to help him – either to wash or to preserve his modesty. Bethel did her part by turning her attention back to the stove and mashing the potatoes with vigor. Cullen patted his face and neck dry, and executed the awkward maneuver of dressing under the shelter of the blanket. He let it fall as he tugged the hem of his nightshirt down, and then looked at it plaintively as if imploring it to fly up to his hand. Mary saw the painful set of his jaw as he stooped to pick it up, shaking it out and folding it clumsily before setting it down on the bench. Then he sank down into Bethel's chair with a low sigh, and eased his feet into the tub of hot water.

"Shame to waste a fine bath," Bethel said, pushing her sleeves higher on her forearms and folding her skirts into a pad for her knees as she lowered herself. She scooped up some soap and lathered her hands, then lifted Cullen's right foot out of the water. The sides and sole were stained with mud, and there were dirty clods between his toes. Bethel's hands moved with loving efficiency. "Them boots don' hardly do you no good 't all no more," she grumbled. "You oughts to wear the other pair."

"For plowing?" Cullen snorted. "I'd ruin 'em. Got to keep the riding boots looking pretty: I need to be at my best in New Orleans." He tilted his head back over the rim of the chair, and then turned to Mary with a grin. "We put out the fires this morning," he said. "All we need is a few more days for the last batch to set, and the tobacco's finished."

"That's wonderful!" Mary said earnestly. Now she understood his good mood, when by rights he ought to have been grim and frustrated after the day's hated labors. Reluctant to break the spell, but unable to bear the strain of wondering in silence, she asked hesitantly; "Have you any idea how much you've brought in?"

Cullen's smile wavered, but held. "There's a hundred and sixty-eight boxes laid by," he said. "I figure there's five more of the air-cured still to pack, and the poles we moved today are at least another seven hundred pounds. It ain't our biggest yield, but it's more than last year. Better quality, too, except for the stuff that got tore up in the hailstorm." An eerily well-timed clap of thunder sounded near enough to rattle the dish dresser. Cullen's eyes shifted briefly skyward, gauging the storm, and then fixed on his wife's face again. They were suddenly soft. "Don't worry, Mary," he murmured. "It ain't so bad."

His reassurance concerned her more than the simple recounting of facts would have done, but Mary smiled sweetly for him. She could see the calculations whirring behind his cloudy eyes, and she did not want to burden him further. If it comforted him to think her at ease, at ease she would be. "It will be so good to have everyone sleeping through the night," she said. "Keeping those watches is such a chore."

Cullen nodded, then shifted uncomfortably as Bethel started on his other foot. "I wish I could do something to make up for not taking my share," he said. "The others ain't had a full night's sleep in two weeks."

"An' you has?" Bethel demanded, looking up with flashing eyes. "Jus' 'cause you ain't been out there settin' don' mean you ain't took your share. Ain't a one of 'em grudge you the time with your chile: don' you do it neither." She swatted at the back of his calf, her wet palm amplifying the slapping sound. "Hike up that hem, an' lemme see them knees."

Cullen obeyed, but his color rose as he did so. "I'm a grown man, you know," he grumbled.

Bethel scoffed. "An' you's fussin' worse than you' li'l boy," she said. She worked some soap into the old sponge and began to scrub vigorously at his shin. "I didn' know better, I'd say you been workin' hip-deep in that mud."

"We will be if this rain keeps up," Cullen said, glancing again at the ceiling. "I was meaning to head into Meridian at the end of the week, but if it's too wet to plow in the morning I might just go early. I got to make arrangements with the railroad, and we need more kerosene."

"Kerosene can wait," Mary said. "In two weeks the tobacco will be sold, and you can buy a whole drum."

"I ain't leaving my wife sitting in the dark in the meantime," Cullen declared. "Especially not with me going away. You going to manage all right?"

She could not help but smile at the sweet but irrational concern in his voice. "Haven't I always?" she asked. Every year of their marriage Cullen had spent ten days to a fortnight away from home in November, selling the tobacco and buying the next year's seed and stores. Every year the plantation had run as smoothly in his absence as it did in his presence.

"Well sure," he said, almost shy in his pride. "You know your business, and you know mine, too. But them other years you didn't have two sick children on the place. What if something goes wrong? What if you need the doctor?"

"He's been stopping by every few days, regular as clockwork," Mary pointed out. "And if I needed him between-times I would send Nate, of course. You needn't worry."

"I s'pose you're right," Cullen said, pushing himself up in the chair. Bethel had finished her scrubbing and she now attacked his foot with a towel, rubbing vigorously so that the blood rose to the surface and made it glow ruddily. "Still, I most likely will."

"Gabe is on the mend, and Lottie seems to be bearing up bravely," Mary told him. As if responding to his name, the sleeping child stirred and cooed softly before settling again. "Besides, it isn't as though you'll be leaving immediately."

"Monday after next, I think," said Cullen. "It's a bit late in the season, but all that means is the buyers who ain't met their quota will be getting anxious. That's good for the price." He slid his other foot away from Bethel and tugged the hem of his nightshirt down towards his ankles. "That's enough of that," he said. "You don't have to fuss."

"Mebbe I don'," said Bethel, climbing to her feet and moving to wash her hands. "But I mos' likely will."

Cullen chuckled, amused to hear his words flung back at him, and slumped back in the chair. His eyes drifted closed, and fine lines of care showed suddenly stark upon his face. He was worn out and worried, and no doubt in pain. It was only the relief of finishing the tobacco and the prospect of a morning out of the mud that allowed him to take a little pleasure in the evening. After a minute he tensed, fingers closing on the armrests to haul his body up out of the chair. He stopped beside the récamier, his hand travelling down to Mary's shoulder.

"You want me to pick him up?" he asked. "Or have you eaten already? Bethel's set two places."

"I waited," Mary said, gazing up at him in quiet adoration. His courage and his determination awoke her love and made her long for him. "We ought to eat together every night, now the days are shorter."

Gently she slipped her arm out from under Gabe's, reaching down to make sure her skirts were not pinned beneath the sleeping child. She slid the blanket between his body and hers so that he would not feel a chill when she rose, and then pushed herself down towards the foot of the couch. When her hip cleared Gabe's feet she sat up properly, and Cullen offered his hand as she rose. She took it, fingers curling into his palm, and would have let him lead her to the table had she not felt something hot and sticky against her fingertips. She froze, and saw Cullen's expression of puzzlement morph almost immediately to one of irritated embarrassment – but by then she was already turning his hand over with both of her own.

His palm, roughened with hard labor and so usually resistant to workaday hurts, was raw with burst blisters that had risen up between the callouses and across the heel of his hand. There was one in the web between thumb and forefinger, an oblong blight of torn skin oozing clear fluid and a thin trail of bright red blood. It was this she had felt, but some of the others were weeping as well. Mary stared at the ruin of her husband's hand, and felt her throat burning with inexpressible outrage. She reached for his other wrist, pulling his left hand nearer and seeing the same cruel marks there.

"Oh, your poor hands!" she breathed, wanting to shout or to weep. She looked up at him, and the awkward humiliated way that he evaded her eyes was somehow worst of all. "Cullen, what happened? What did you do?"

"It's the damned plow," he muttered, trying to turn away but unable to do so while she held him. "They'll heal over in a couple of days, and I'll have a fresh set of callouses. It ain't worth crying over."

"I'm not crying!" she protested fiercely, blinking thrice in rapid succession to prove it. "I just… they must hurt you." Then she thought of the scrubbing he had given them at Bethel's command, and very nearly flinched. The strong homemade soap must have stung excruciatingly in the open wounds. "I'll dress them," she said, and she squared her slender shoulders in determination. "Bethel, where is the ointment we use for burns?"

"I'll fetch it, Missus," Bethel said breathlessly. She had been watching the exchange in mute dismay, doubtless horrified to have missed this fresh harm to her young master. She vanished into the pantry, and came out a moment later with a roll of clean bandages and a small ceramic pot half-full of her own concoction.

"Sit down," Mary ordered, drawing Cullen over to the bench. He obeyed, and she slipped down beside him, turning in so that she could draw his hands into her lap. He did not resist as she blotted away the blood and applied the soothing ointment to the wounds, and he let her wrap his palms with tender care. She tied off the bandages beneath each thumb, where the small, neat knots would not irritate him when he used his hands, and then locked her fingers around his as she looked up into his face again. "There," she said. "Thank God for the rain: you can rest them tomorrow. How do they feel now?"

"Better," said Cullen earnestly. The word caught in his throat and he coughed shallowly, glancing down into his lap. "Much better, angel, thank you."

"Fine, then!" Bethel said stoutly, setting a laden plate before each of them and whisking the ointment away. "Jus' you two eat up, now, 'fore it git cold."

Cullen fumbled briefly with his fork, hands obviously stiff despite Mary's ministrations. The dressings did not seem to hinder him, however, and he was soon eating with relish. Comforted by the sight, Mary was able to enjoy her own meal. It was lovely to take it this way, sitting straight and proper at a table instead of balancing her plate on her lap in a nursery chair, and she was very glad that she had waited to eat with her husband. It was almost like the old days when there had been time to linger together over meals, apart from the simpler surroundings and Cullen's state of undress. Bethel poured them tall glasses of buttermilk, which with the cooler weather could now be kept more than a day or two, and kept a keen eye on their plates. There was plenty of everything, even the meat, and it did Mary's heart good to see Cullen cutting into the venison. She had worried about him, working so hard without meat.

They were just coming to the end of their meal when the back door opened and a gust of cold air came in heavy with the scent of the storm. With it came Lottie, bundled up in her mother's shawl and glittering with raindrops. She spun as she removed the garment, shaking it out over the stoop before closing the door.

"What you doin' back here at this hour, chile?" Bethel asked anxiously.

Lottie was grinning enormously, and she bobbed a curtsy to the couple at the table. "Mist' Cullen, Missus Mary," she said; "Ma says I's to come up an' tell you!"

"Tell us what, Lottie?" Cullen asked. He was frowning, but only in puzzlement. It was obvious from the child's expression that whatever the news was, it could not be bad.

"Flora!" Lottie said. "She goin' drop her calf! When Ma gone down to bring the cows in fo' milkin', Flora lyin' down on her side in the pasture. She didn' hardly wan' git up an' go back to the shed, an' halfway there she stop an' stood still, bellerin' fo' a minute. Then she come 'long, meek as you please. Ma say that calf be comin', an' no mistake! She goin' sit out there with her tonight, in case Flora need some help, but Ma says we's goin' have a new baby calf 'fore dinnertime tomorrow!"

Mary glanced at her husband, trying to run through the arithmetic to see whether the calf was early. She could not remember just when they had put Flora to Mr. Washburn's bull, however, and the calculation was useless. Cullen appeared to be mulling over the same thing, because he said; "And it's her time, all right?"

"Yassir!" Lottie said. "Well, pretty nearly. Ma figured mebbe nex' week, but Nate say if that cow goin' have her baby it boun' to be in the middle of a thunderstorm. You know Flora allus been silly 'bout thunder!"

If the cow had been laboring already at milking time, it had started before the thunder, but Mary did not say this. Lottie was alight with excitement, and now Cullen was grinning too. A new calf was a blessing, and it seemed as though this one was so very long in coming.

"Thank you for coming to tell me, Lottie," Cullen said. "Go and tell your ma that as soon as I'm dressed I'll come out and help her."

"Oh, no, massa, you don' need to do that!" Lottie exclaimed, shaking her head. "Ma said to tell you, an' to say she don' need you comin' out in the storm. Ain't nuthin' to bringin' a calf, an' Flora ain't never had trouble before. You know she had two others, an' they both come jus' fine. But Ma thought you'd wan' know what happenin', tha's all."

"_What _happenin', 'Ottie?" an eager voice asked. Gabe was kneeling up on the arm of the récamier, gripping the edge of the table and smiling broadly. "What you doin' back here? It nighttime!"

"Flora goin' have her calf!" Lottie proclaimed joyously.

Gabe frowned. "What a calf, 'gain, 'Ottie? I's forgot."

She laughed effervescently. "A baby cow, Mist' Gabe. You remember," she said. "We had one the spring before last."

"Oh, yes. A _baby_ cow," Gabe said sagely, nodding his head. From his studiously knowledgeable expression Mary could tell that he did not remember the little bull that Drowsy had carried the year he was two. They had deliberately kept Gabe well away, for the calf had been butchered before it was weaned so that Bethel could have rennet for cheese-making. If Flora's offspring was male, it would meet the same fate; a little heifer this year would be kept to raise for milk. Privately Mary hoped for a heifer: Gabe was old enough now to enjoy the rearing of a calf. His eyes glittered with excitement as he asked; "May I see it?"

"It ain't born yet, son," Cullen said. "Anyway you'll have to wait a couple of weeks, 'til Flora's settled down enough to let you near it. A mama cow's mighty protective of her baby."

From the corner of her eye Mary saw Bethel relax visibly, glad of an ironclad explanation for why Gabe could not go out to the cowshed. Mary knew that Bethel, more than any of them, feared to let Gabe play outdoors while he was still in the grip of the whooping cough. She did not think even Doctor Whitehead's word would be enough to convince her when it was finally safe to let the child out again. At least with this particular temptation, she could now refer back to Cullen's explanation of why Gabe must wait.

"Jus' like a bear," agreed Gabe, very man-to-man. "Stewpot's mama didn' like me de firs' time I see'd her kittens. She spitted."

"It's just the same with cows," said Cullen. "Except Flora won't spit: she'll butt you with her head and knock you down."

Mary thought that this was more likely to encourage Gabe than to deter him, but she smiled. "Thank you, Lottie," she said. "You may have some bread and jam before you go home, if you wish."

"Oh, yes please, Missus!" the girl said happily. "That'd be a nice treat."

"Me too?" asked Gabe, bouncing on his knees. "May I have some too, Mama? I likes jam."

"Yes, of course," Mary said. Lottie was already at the breadbox, making a neat, precise slice. "It's a special occasion, after all."

"Yass'm, that what it be!" sang Lottie. "A special occasion!"

When Lottie was gone and Gabe was sitting next to his father, munching contentedly on his piece of bread and jam, Mary turned to her husband. "Perhaps you should go down there after all," she said. "Just to be certain everything is all right."

"Meg said don't," Cullen mumbled, draining the last of his buttermilk. "Besides, I don't know nothing about birthing a calf. I wouldn't be much use even if something did go wrong. Meg'll handle it. She knows her cows."

"That so!" Bethel declared. "An' you gots to get off to bed, or this boy ain't never goin' sleep. We put the tick back down on my bed, Missus Mary," she added. "You gots to lie in you' own bed tonight: it all made up again."

The mention of bed brought back the deep weariness that her long afternoon of slumber had not entirely banished, and Mary had to raise her hand to cover a long yawn. She was so tired that she did not question the change in sleeping arrangements, not even when she tucked her husband and son into the little bed in the nursery and then left them for the big, empty one in the master bedroom.

_*discidium*_

After sending Lottie back to the cabin to sleep, Meg spread the old horse blanket on the clean straw and settled down to watch over Flora. The blanket still smelled strongly of woodsmoke and curing tobacco, and the scent made Meg smile. She reached out to stroke the huge head beside her, watching fondly as Flora's eyelid fluttered low with pleasure.

"You's a wise ol' girl, ain't you?" Meg asked. "You waited 'til we was done with them fires, jus' so I'd be free to sit with you 'thout troublin' 'bout the watch."

It might have been more considerate of Flora to wait one more day, just so that Meg could have had the night of uninterrupted sleep she had been looking forward to since the three field hands had started taking Mister Cullen's shifts in the kiln. The thought of sleeping the whole night through was a delicious one, but Meg did not begrudge Flora her company tonight. The truth was that she loved the cows, in the quiet way that only someone who cared for them every day could love them, and of the three Flora was her special pet. Meg had helped her through her other two calvings, both heifers who had been reared for a year and then sold at market in Meridian. Meg hoped the new calf would be a heifer, too: if it was, Mister Cullen had said they would keep her, for Drowsy was getting on in years and would not be a good milker much longer. Better still, Flora would be spared from an early separation.

The cow shifted uncomfortably, slipping her snout out from under Meg's hand as she climbed to her feet. She paced the width of the shed, pawing at the hay before lying down again with a mournful bellow. Meg had brought her down to the far stall, where she could be separated from the others. Cows ready to give birth appreciated a little space away from their friends – almost like women. Meg scratched Flora's ears with one hand, and felt her hard, distended belly with the other. She rubbed in broad circles, remembering how Bethel had done the same for her when she had been brought to bed with Lottie. The thought warmed her, and Meg moved her palm with more vigor.

Flora seemed to like it, too, for she stretched her head back and mooed contentedly. Her left hind hoof batted against the clean straw, and Meg's mind wandered off further into the memory of the most joyful day of her life.

When she had reached her eighth month, Elijah had taken Meg out of the tobacco fields and set her to work in the garden instead. It had been picking time, and Meg remembered how much harder it had been with the weight of her baby to wield as she strung the leaves and carried the laden poles. The order to change her assignment must have come from the house, because even a foreman did not make such decisions on his own, and to this day Meg did not know who had put the idea into old Mr. Bohannon's head. It was certainly something Bethel would have thought of, and been determined enough to suggest, and at the time Meg had assumed that the head woman had had a word with the master on her behalf. In hindsight, though she doubted neither Bethel's kindness nor her resolve, Meg was compelled to wonder whether her old master would have listened to her. Then, as now, all hands had been needed at picking time, and in those days there had been four hundred acres to bring in. And so Meg wondered if, perhaps, the suggestion had come from another quarter, though she had never voiced this suspicion to anyone – certainly not to the one she suspected.

In any case, she had been in the garden picking peas when the pains had started. Her own mother had died of a fever some years before, but the other women had told her what to expect. Still nothing had prepared her for the rippling, ripping, searing pain of that first contraction. The ache she had had in her back for the last couple of days had melted into nothingness before the furnace of that new pain. She had fallen to her knees right there between the beanstalks, clutching her unwieldy belly and gasping for air. But the pain had passed and she had picked herself up again, shaken but unharmed. Grateful for the respite of the easier work throughout these last weeks, she had gone straight back to plucking the dried pods. She had been alone, of course, for everyone else was out in the tobacco, and she had ridden out the next two contractions right there in the garden.

But Bethel must have seen her from the kitchen window, because out she had come and swatted Meg's hands away from the vine. She had declared that Meg's work was done for the day, and had walked her back down to the quarters. She had built up a fire in the hearth of Meg's cabin – not the one she now occupied, but the tiny little one down near the end of the row in which she had grown up – and helped Meg to undress. Then Bethel had gone down to the fields to fetch Rachel, Meg's good friend, to come and help her. Together they had walked her back and forth, supporting her from either side when the pains came and encouraging her when she grew tired and frightened. Bethel had had to leave for an hour or two to lay on supper for the master and Mister Cullen, who was home for a visit from university, but she had come straight back even before the field hands were done for the day. By then Meg had been exhausted and irritable, her shift drenched with sweat and her feet sore from pacing. She had begged to lie down, and Bethel had allowed it, sitting beside her on the bunk and rubbing her belly while Rachel fixed up some hominy porridge and made sure there was water boiling.

Flora heaved herself up again, pacing with plodding determination. Walking was the best way to bring on a baby, calf or human, and Meg remembered how Bethel had made her get up again as the sun was setting. They had walked the small room three times when the knock came at the door, and Bethel had sat her down at the little table so that she could march off to answer it. She had gone off angrily, muttering about fool men who didn't know better than to trouble a woman in labor, but her tone had changed when she had reached the door. Sitting with her forearms on the board and her legs splayed wide, sweating and panting and half-crazed with the pain, Meg had heard but not listened to the shy, drawling voice at the door. Only when Bethel spoke did she realize who it was, for Bethel had said; "You a good boy, an' that right thoughtful. Go on now an' don' you git into no trouble tonight."

Then Bethel had come back, and with her was the midwife from the Graham plantation. Mister Cullen had ridden off to fetch her. She was a huge, plump lady with grizzled hair and a firm, commanding manner that rivaled Bethel's. She was also very kind, however. Learning it was Meg's first baby, she had straight away told her there was nothing to fear, and she had declared that Bethel and Rachel had done everything right. Then she got Meg into the bed and felt for the baby's body through Meg's stomach. This had been followed by a more intimate examination that had made the not-quite-nineteen-year-old girl blush, and then Meg was allowed to lie down and doze while orders were given. The other women were fetched and sent off to haul more water, the baby bath was prepared and the towels and swaddling blanket laid out to warm by the fire. Meg had not taken much notice of any of these preparations, for by now the pains were very close together. Bethel rubbed her belly and bathed her face and sang to her, and the other women joined in on the responses. It was late at night and the field hands had to be back at work at dawn, but no one slept. The women were with Meg, and the men gathered outside in the yard, smoking their pipes and laughing and singing along to Bethel's songs. There had not been a baby born on the Bohannon plantation in eight years; it was a special occasion.

Then the pains had blotted out everything else, everything but Bethel's body at her back, and the voice of the midwife telling her over and over again to push. At last there had come one final push when Meg was certain she did not have the strength to push any more, and then a release of pressure and a sudden freedom from pain. And Lottie had let out a strong, lusty wail that Bethel later told Meg could be heard up at the house. The midwife had wrapped her up in a warm towel and laid her down on Meg's breast even before she cut the cord, and for a blissful eternity Meg had stared down at her tiny daughter, wrinkled and slimy and exquisitely perfect. Lottie had sucked on her finger, and then at her breast, and then Bethel had taken her to have her first bath.

Meg had spent every evening that summer stitching tiny shirts and diapers, and Bethel had given her a piece of blue sprigged calico out of the household stores just to make a baby gown. Meg had poured all her love and eagerness into the tiny frills and tucks, and Rachel had given her a hank of pretty green wool to embroider little vines and leaves around the neck and cuffs and hem. Meg had believed that tiny frock was the most beautiful thing she had ever made in her life, but when Bethel brought her baby girl back to her, clean and sweet and wrapped in the swaddling blanket, Meg realized that she was wrong.

The midwife had cleaned her up, and Rachel helped her into a fresh shift while the other women changed the bedclothes, and finally everyone but Bethel and the midwife went away, and Meg lay down with her baby in the crook of her arm. Until that moment she had thought she was the happiest girl in the world, with her beautiful daughter and her cozy little home, and Bethel to care for her. But then, lying on her side with her body throbbing with soreness and her breasts heavy with milk, she had felt sudden bitter loneliness. The narrow bunk, crowded with herself and the baby, seemed empty, and tears had filled her eyes. At that moment she had wanted her Peter, to lie down beside her and hold her and admire the life they had created out of their love. But Peter was at Hartwood, in those days not yet a foreman but still chained to the cotton harvest, and he could not come to her until Sunday.

Bethel, sensing her distress, had come to sit and rub her back, humming softly in a night now gone quiet, and Meg had wept. And in the midst of her weeping, when she felt certain her heart would break, Bethel was suddenly gone and there were low voices and shuffling boots. Then a large, work-roughened hand had come down upon Meg's arm, and hot breath had puffed against the back of her neck, and sunburned lips had kissed her just behind her ear.

And then somehow she was in his arms, weeping and laughing all at once, and the baby was awake, and she was crying out to be held. And Bethel picked her up and put her in Meg's arms, and Peter put _his_ arms around them both, and they were together, a real family at last: Ma and Pa and baby Lottie, together and happy and perhaps a little (at least in one case) cross at being awakened out of a first deep sleep. Then the euphoria had faded a little into the delicious reality of resting her head on her husband's broad shoulder, and Meg had spied the figure leaning against the post in the open doorway, watching the tableau with soft gray eyes and a bemused little smile. Mister Cullen, who had waited until he heard the cheers of celebration from the quarters, and perhaps the wail of the child, and had gone riding off again, to Hartwood this time, to fetch the new father.

Flora bellowed again, and craned her neck. She was lying on her side, her hind legs splayed awkwardly. Meg turned her attention back to the cow, wicking away tears and the ghostly sensation of a tiny fist batting at her breast. Yes, it had been such a happy day, the day Lottie was born. It would always be the happiest day. Meg longed for another baby, and despite the troubles with Mr. Sutcliffe and the awful separation from Peter she had not given up hoping for one, but even if that day came it would never be quite as joyous as that first birth. She would never be young and innocent and carefree again, a bright-eyed girl still in the blush of her first love, cradling her tiny new baby while her husband held her in the starlight spilling from the open cabin door.

Meg got to her feet, stroking Flora's side once as she rose, and went around behind. The birth opening was dilated, and the sack protruding. Meg bent to look closely, angling her shoulder so as not to block the light of the lamp. She was looking for the two little hooves that would soon be tearing through the sack to herald the calf's birth, but she could not see them. Flora let out a long, moaning bleat, and Meg dropped to her knees, peering closer. Perhaps the calf had not dropped far enough yet, but it would very soon. Then Meg's stomach shriveled within her and her throat went dry. She could see the calf, all right, but not its forelegs. She could see the white crescent of its rump, and pressing against the sack the coil of a black-spotted tail.

Flora's calf was breech.


	75. In the Cowshed

_Note: No prizes for guessing what I'LL be doing tomorrow night! "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", American Traditional._

**Chapter Seventy-Five: In the Cowshed**

In the dream, he was drowning. The water pressed against his body, squeezing limbs and ribs and skull in cold tentacles of darkness. It filled his ears and flooded his nostrils, and though he tried to close his nose against the tide it flooded in. His lips were pressed tight upon the last gasp of air from empty lungs, and tiny bubbles broke from the corner of his mouth. They floated up past waterlogged eyes towards the distant glow of orange light far above, and when they burst they did so with a cracking, hacking noise like the report of a distant musket fired in the wet winter air. Cullen tried to kick his legs, to fight up towards the surface, but he could not move. The weight on his chest kept him still, and even as his instincts shrieked for air his mind protested that he _must_ not move.

When the voice cried out, it did so with a clarion sharpness that no sound should have achieved under water. It did not come to him muffled and faint, but piercing and insistent and somehow both terrified and fearless.

"Mama!" Gabe hollered. "Mama, where you at? Pappy coughin'!" Then a small hand landed on Cullen's cheekbone with a soft _slap_, and the voice was turned on him. "It awright," the little boy insisted. "It awright. Sit up an' cough it all up, Pappy. It goin' be awright."

The force of the next spasm sent Cullen's eyes flying wide, and now that he knew that he was awake he had to fight the urge to struggle against the cough. He did not try to choke it back, or to still his twitching diaphragm, and he gave up the unconscious effort to press his lips closed against imagined water. He opened his mouth and coughed, as hard and as harshly as his body wished to. His abdomen tensed and he bucked forward, slamming back against the narrow headboard hard enough to bounce it against the wall. One hand took an enormous fistful of the counterpane and the other moved instinctively to the hip of the little boy trying to remain steady and upright on top of a violently coughing man.

"It awright," Gabe said again, very earnestly. Then he shouted; "_Mama! Bet'l! It a bad one!"_

Cullen tried to hush him, but the admonition came out in three brisk, unintelligible bursts of air that seemed to strip the flesh from the back of his throat. There was a warm flood of phlegm in his throat, and he gagged inelegantly as he took in a thin, involuntary whoop of air. Gabe was pressing against him now, one shoulder digging into the crook between arm and chest as the child reached around and behind his father. A spoon clattered against the tin cup, and something else clanged dully, and then Gabe sat back again, feeling in the dark with one hand until he found his father's moustache. The other hand came up, covered in thin linen: a handkerchief.

"Spit it up, Pappy darlin'," Gabe said. "You's goin' feel better if'n you spit it all up."

Cullen spat, or rather parted his lips and rolled his tongue against the slimy obstruction. He was in the tortured valley of breathlessness that came between coughs, and he could not muster the faculties to spit. But the motion worked, and the plug of mucus snagged the cloth and was dragged away as Gabe carefully wiped his father's mouth. Still not quite oriented to time and place, Cullen flinched as the nursery door flew open and did not immediately recognize the sound of Mary fumbling for a match. When it blazed, it blinded eyes already stinging with the exertions of the fit, and Cullen had neither the desire nor the strength to scrub at them. He felt his wife's hand between his shoulder blades, firm and capable, and he heard his son reciting grave platitudes, but all he could think about was how desperately he needed one good breathe.

He got it at last, in two big gulps of air that strained his ribs more painfully than the coughs had done. He slumped back against the pillows, not caring that he pinned Mary's hand as did so. He closed his eyes, panting with his face tilted skyward, and as the pounding in his ears changed pitch he realized that the rain was still drumming on the roof.

"Dere!" Gabe declared. "It all over now, Pappy. You done good."

"Thanks, son," Cullen croaked thinly. "I tried my best."

Mary slipped her hand out from beneath him, and pressed it to his brow. "You're very warm," she murmured, at the same time bringing the tin cup within his reach. Gabe picked up Cullen's hand with both his own, and planted the palm against the cool, sweating metal. Cullen's fingers closed and he lifted the vessel to his lips, raising his head to drink. The first sip seared down his throat, and the second was smooth and soothing. It steadied him and enabled him to offer a small smile to his worried wife.

"I hope the racket didn't wake Bethel," he said. He turned his eyes on Gabe. "You didn't need to yell quite that loudly, son. I'm all right."

"You was chokin'," Gabe argued. "You couldn' bree'd. An' what if dat gooey t'ing git stuck in your mouth? I's too li'l to pull it out myself."

Cullen was momentarily puzzled, but the child looked down at the handkerchief still clutched in his hand. He unfolded it and poked at the gelatinous orb of phlegm skimming the fabric. Cullen's eyes shifted to Mary's face, uneasy. He had hoped, apparently in vain, that their son had been too far gone with fever and want of air to remember his brush with death.

It seemed the same thought was in Mary's mind, for she paled. "Don't touch that, dearest: it's dirty," she murmured absentmindedly, sweeping the handkerchief out of Gabe's grasp and balling it up. She flung it into the corner where they had taken to heaping soiled linen, and bent to caress her son's head. The look of dismay shifted to one of tenderness and quite pride. "You did the right thing, calling for me," she said. "You're taking very good care of Pappy."

Gabe squared his small shoulders at this praise. "I's tryin', Mama," he said soberly.

Cullen wanted to protest that he did not need taking care of, especially not by his own boy, but Gabe was so proud to have helped and Cullen could not take that from him. He curled his lip a little and grunted softly, then busied himself in emptying the tin cup.

An orb of unsteady light filled the open doorway, and there stood Bethel. The last meager stub of a tallow candle sputtered on its old brass stick, and in its glow the dark face was lined deep with a worried frown. "Ev'ything awright up here?" she asked. "I heared our li'l man shout."

"Pappy coughed," Gabe announced. "It a pretty bad one. I t'ink he needs him some med'cine."

"I took some," Cullen said defensively, before either woman could scold him. "Two spoonfuls, right before bed like you ordered, Bethel. We're running low: I'll have to fetch another bottle when I go to town. I'm sorry I woke you: I'll try'n keep from doing it again tonight."

He had half-hoped this would mollify Bethel, and that she and Mary would both get back to bed. But the graying brows collapsed together, and he knew he was not about to make a quick retreat into heavy, feverish sleep. Bracing himself for a scolding and a brisk, insistent examination, he was surprised to see the old woman shake her head wearily.

"You didn' wake me, Mist' Cullen," she said grimly. "I was comin' up here anyways. Nate, he gots to talk to you."

She stepped into the room, beckoning behind her, and before Cullen could even think about making himself presentable, the tall field hand stepped over the threshold. His shoulders were rounded awkwardly, and he was fumbling with his hat – still dripping rainwater onto the floor – as he entered. Mary, who had flung her dressing gown on in her flight from the bedroom, clutched it hastily closed over the modest folds of her nightgown, but if it distressed her to be seen in such dishabille she gave no other sign. Gabe was busy trying to fasten the second button at Cullen's throat, and seemed not to have noticed the intruder.

"What is it?" Cullen asked, pushing himself higher up in the bed and trying to deport himself with a little dignity despite the circumstances. He was not accustomed to having Nate walk in on him in bed, and certainly not still flushed from coughing with his child in his lap and a thin strand of spittle still clinging to his beard. He wiped his mouth hastily with the back of his hand and made his best attempt to look grave and masterful. "Something wrong with the calf?"

"Yassir," Nate mumbled. His eyes were fixed on the braided rug beside the bed, and he seemed oddly shrunken in the small room, as though deliberately taking up less space than was his wont. His color seemed to deepen in the poor light as he added, almost inaudibly; "It turned the wrong way 'round."

The urge to curse was curtailed only by the presence of his keen-eared son and the instinctual desire to avoid Bethel's censure. Cullen clamped his jaw closed instead, stretching his upper lip tersely over his teeth. "That's bad, ain't it," he said. The moment the words were out he realized he sounded like a fool. "Does Meg know what to do?"

"Nawsir, she ain't never see'd one like this," Nate said. Habit overcame discomfiture, and he raised his eyes to meet Cullen's. They were grave but steady as he said; "Drowsy's last had the hooves tucked up under instead of comin' out straight, but at least his head was the right way 'round. This one right backwards: tail firs'. The sack done broke, an' Flora been strainin' pretty near a hour now. I tooked a look, but what I don' know 'bout cows would make a good long song. I…" Suddenly he seemed to remember Mary's presence in the room. His eyes widened as they shifted to her, and he swallowed hard. "Beggin' you' pardon, Missus," he mumbled.

Mary's face was very white, but she was not in the least bit embarrassed by the frank talk. She was standing perfectly straight, and the modest grip upon her dressing gown had eased out of its urgent fist. When she spoke, her voice was sweet and level: perfectly calm.

"What do you suggest we do, Nate?" she asked.

His mouth moved, but no sound came out until he glanced back at Cullen. "You could ride up t'Meridian fo' a farrier, Massa," he said hesitantly. "But that goin' take at least an hour an' a half, an' it might be too late by then. Meg say Flora allus done had her calves quick 'fore this."

"There's no money for a farrier," Cullen said swiftly. He was trying to remember whether any of the neighbors had had a similar mishap in recent years, and he cursed his general disinterest in farming. If anyone had mentioned something, he had obviously not been listening. "What about somebody in the neighborhood? The cowherd at West Willows, maybe, or one of Washburn's men?"

Nate cringed visibly. "Ole Jessup be the man to ask," he said. "Been herd boss for twenty years, an' he ain't never lost a calf could be saved, so they say."

The words themselves were promising, but Nate looked almost sick as he spoke. Cullen's veins ran cold as he prompted; "But?"

Nate cast his eyes away. "But Ole Jessup over at Hartwood."

This time, Cullen forgot both Bethel's watchful ears and his son's impressionable ones. "_Shit!_" he snarled, thumping one foot against the mattress so that the ropes creaked. He drew his hand over his face, hissing wrathfully. "And there's nobody else nearby who could help?"

"Maybe," said Nate. "I don' rightly know. Truth is I ain't been off the place much since the crops been bad: too much work 'round here. Meg say if we's goin' do anything it gots to be soon, Mist' Cullen. She say she heard tell of calves bein' took out awright, even breech like this one be, but she don' know how to do it."

There was nothing to be gained in sitting in bed and fuming against Providence, or Cullen would gladly have continued to do it. He knew less about cows than Nate did, and far less than Meg, but he could not just lie idle. He shifted Gabe's weight in his lap and slipped his forearm under the boy's bottom. Bracing him, he flung back the covers and swung his legs off the bed. Gabe gripped the front of his nightshirt.

"You goin', Pappy? You goin' he'p Meg?" he asked, an unmistakable note of uncomprehending worry in his voice. "Meg in trouble? Is she hurtin' 'gain?"

"Naw, son, Meg's fine," said Cullen. "She just needs some help taking care of the cows, that's all: too much work for a woman all on her own." He hefted his boy and got to his feet, not troubling to disengage the small hands that held him. "You got to be a good little man and stay up here with Mama while I see what's going on. Ain't nothing to worry about."

"You's goin' out in de rain," Gabe protested. "You's goin' catch your deff."

"Bethel never shoulda put that idea in your head," Cullen muttered, half forgetting that the lady in question was standing at the foot of the bed, still holding the guttering candle. He jerked his chin at his wife. "Here, Mary, take him. I got to get dressed. Don't you worry, son. Everything's all right: I just got to get to work."

"Like in de tobacco barn?" Gabe asked. "You goin' watch dem cows?"

"Something like that, yeah," Cullen said. Mary was at his side now, reaching to take the child. "Go to your mama, there's a good boy. With a bit of luck I'll be back here in no time."

"You put on your hat, now!" admonished Gabe, wagging his finger as his weight was shifted onto Mary's hip. She managed to keep her dressing gown closed as she took him, and smoothed it swiftly before wrapping her other arm around his back. "An' don' you splash in no puddles!"

"Yassir," Cullen said. Then, seizing Nate's arm, he marched past Bethel and into the hall, hooking the door as he passed it. In the gloom of the corridor he turned to his slave. "You got to do better than some old man at Hartwood," he hissed. "What the hell are we supposed to do?"

"Don' know," Nate said, his tone circumspectly low but utterly unreadable. "Don' know nuthin' 'bout cows on the bes' of days, 'cept how to milk 'em worse 'n Meg do. You don' want Ole Jess, you gots to get on that mare an' gallop on into town."

"We can't afford a farrier!" Cullen snapped, irritation blazing for a moment only to be doused by cold hatred of his helplessness. "And I won't ask favors of Sutcliffe."

"I don' like that no more'n you do," said Nate. He was speaking very rapidly now, and only just above a whisper. "But if you don' get someone who knows what he doin', you's goin' have a dead calf fo' certain an' a dead cow mos' likely."

Cullen's teeth clicked closed so swiftly that he was lucky not to have sheared off the tip of his tongue. Somehow this possibility had not occurred to him: that they might lose Flora as well as her calf. Drowsy was old, and Nan had never been much of a milch cow. Flora was the best that they had, as well as the most reliable breeder. She was an asset the plantation could not afford to lose. "Get back out there and do what you can," he ordered. "I'll be along the minute I've got my pants on. Wake Elijah, too. See if he knows anyone else hereabouts who might help. I'll ride to the Graham place if I got to."

Nate made a cursory noise of assent deep in his throat, and turned to hasten off in the dark. Cullen heard his boot scuffle for the top step, and then he thundered down. Hastily, Cullen turned for the master bedroom, its door ajar. With the stormclouds still hanging low the windows were dark, but Cullen did not bother to grope for a candle or fumble with the lamp. He felt his way to the chair where Mary had, as she did every night, laid out his clothes for the morning. He shucked his nightshirt and shivered in the cool air as he stepped into his drawers and stretched his undershirt over head and shoulders. He rammed his feet into the cotton stockings, stepped into his trousers, and hooked one brace over a shoulder so that he could move for the door as he put on his shirt. He had just tugged a wrist through a cuff as he passed the nursery door, and was surprised when it opened with a creak.

Mary stepped out swiftly, drawing it closed behind her. She had Bethel's candlestick in her hand, and her dressing gown was now fastened with a row of perfect ribbon bows. Cullen froze, looking awkwardly back at her, but she fell into step beside him and urged him on in her small pool of light.

"Is there anything I can do?" she whispered as they drew near the stairs. "Hot water, a clean knife? Is there a book…"

"A book on birthing cows?" Cullen said incredulously. "My grandpappy was a planter with a fondness for railroads, and my father never read one word that didn't have to do with tobacco or politics. That's what they had slaves for: looking after the livestock."

He regretted this harsh assessment the moment it was out of his mouth. Such offhand comments pricked Mary's conscience and awoke her abolitionist sensibilities. Ordinarily it would have been enough to earn him a pained look, at the very least. Now, however, her face was set into lines of cool determination and she scarcely seemed to hear him. "Very well, then. At least I can fix something for everyone to drink when it's over, whatever happens. I don't like the idea of you out in that rain – you or any of the others."

They were at the bottom of the stairs now, and Mary set the candle on the narrow hall table so that she could button Cullen's shirt. He stood still and let her do it: her hands moved swiftly, unhampered by bandages or the raw wounds beneath them. "Never mind that," he said. "Get back upstairs and see to our boy. I think he's frightened."

"Not anymore," said Mary. "He's giving Bethel a lecture on every sort of baby animal he has ever heard of: pups, kittens, lambs, chicks. _What a baby skunk called, Pappy_?" Her loving impression of Gabe's voice brought an unexpected smile to Cullen's lips. "You calmed him perfectly," she said. Then she veiled her eyes and laughed softly to herself.

"What?" asked Cullen, ramming his shirttails into his pants and straightening his suspenders. "What's so funny?"

Mary reached to take his hat from its peg. "It's nothing," she said, turning the brim in her hands. Then her shoulders twitched in a tiny half-shrug. "I was thinking how good you are with him now, and how hopeless you were when he was just born!"

This was not the time for fond reminiscence, but Cullen's mind was inundated all at once by a flock of memories. Long accustomed to a house full of men, with the notable exception of Bethel, he had been caught hind-footed just to have a wife about the place. The arrival of a noisy (and often noisome) little stranger had been a shock. Thankfully Mary had taken naturally to motherhood, and of course Bethel was intimately familiar with the business of rearing a baby: they had undertaken the mysterious rituals of feeding, clothing, bathing and burping the infant Bohannon. Though he was filled with pride to be able to boast of his son, and seized with an almost spiritual awe whenever he chanced to hold his wee offspring, Cullen had never quite known what to do with the baby. It was only when Gabe began to babble and crawl and show some signs of a personality that Cullen had started to take an active joy in spending time with his child. And once Gabe had started to talk… well, they had been fast friends and perfect playmates ever since. Not until this latest crisis, however, had Cullen truly tried his hand at the more tender duties of a parent: quieting a frightened child's fears, bathing a feverish little head, and cuddling a small body close until sleep slipped up unnoticed.

He still had a lot to learn, too: only the coughing fit had prevented Gabe's tantrum of the previous evening from escalating into a disaster. But he was learning, and Mary was right. He had come a long way in four short years.

"I got to go," Cullen said softly, taking the hat and ramming it low on his head. Mary had his shabby day coat in his hands almost before they left the brim. "Fix us a toddy and say us a prayer."

"I will," breathed Mary, and before she could say anything more Cullen was wheeling around the dining room door and starting at a run for the kitchen.

_*discidium*_

Flora was bellowing again, but her voice had gone hoarse and the noise was rusty and painful to hear. Meg wanted to cringe away and clap her hands over her ears, but she did not. The cow was frightened and in pain, unable to understand what had gone wrong and why the ordeal was not over already. The heavy head sawed against Meg's leg, leaving a trail of rheum from the lower eye. Meg stroked Flora's nose and tried to hush her. On the far side of the shed, the other two cows were moving restively, troubled by the scent of pain and unfulfilled birth.

The sack had broken, and the little tail was now trailing out into the straw. Meg had not seen it move in all the time since it had come slipping out in a sluice of fluid. She did not know if this was a good sign or not. The other calves she had birthed had all moved very little, and she remembered someone once telling her that a calf that fought coming out never lived very long. But of course a dead calf never moved at all.

Flora bucked her snout against Meg's stomach, tucking her head back into the woman's lap and lowing wretchedly. The sound tore at Meg's heart, and brought with it the yearning to do something, anything, to comfort the poor suffering beast. Her dear pretty Flora, who always gave such pure and plentiful milk, was in agony, and Meg was helpless to do anything but sit here and hold her head while Nate fetched the master.

A mournful moan rumbled in Meg's throat, rising up and attenuating itself into a low, clear note. It was something all black children learned almost as soon as they were out of the cradle: the best way, the only safe way, to cope with sadness and suffering was with a song. No one could fault you for singing. No one would scold you or think ill of you if you sang. Now, lonely in this isolated outbuilding while the rain pounded down on the thick thatch she had helped Elijah to lay, Meg sang:

_Swing low, sweet chariot,  
>Comin' for to carry me home.<br>Swing low, sweet chariot,  
>Comin' for to carry me home!<em>

The music seemed to comfort Flora, or maybe it was just the sound of Meg's voice. Whatever it was, her hooves stopped shifting restlessly against the straw and the rhythm of her breath deepened a little. Maybe, Meg thought desperately, if she could calm the cow enough Flora might just let go and give birth anyhow, even if the calf _was_ backwards and its legs nowhere to be seen. Encouraged, she went on.

_I look over Jordan, an' what do I see,  
>Comin' for to carry me home?<br>I see a band of angel's a-comin' aft' me,  
>Comin' for to carry me home.<em>

As she repeated the chorus, Meg heard a far-off echo of thunder. She had thought the lightning had moved off long ago: this clap must have been very loud to reach back so far through the rainy night. She had sung this song on other rainy nights, lonely nights in the weeks and months after the euphoria of that joyous moment as a family had faded and she had found herself alone in a little cabin, with a fussy baby to tend and no husband to comfort her. She had sung it as she paced the packed-dirt floor with Lottie fretting on her shoulder, back sore from the day's work and breasts aching with the strain of feeding her child. She had found comfort in the melody that swung like the chariot itself.

_If you gets to Heaven before I do,  
>Comin' for to carry me home,<br>You tell all my friends I'll be comin' there too,  
>Comin' for to carry me home.<em>

In those days, Meg had imagined heaven as a beautiful place where she could walk beneath the willows on a summer evening, and pick the clover-blossoms to weave into her hair: a place where her Ma and her Pa were waiting, and they could all be together again. Now, as she sang, a different image emerged. Heaven was a place not beyond this world, but of it: a place where there was no tobacco that needed picking, no dying calf and suffering cow, no cruel white strangers to beat her and speak ill of her and threaten her child. Heaven was a place where Lottie could grow to adulthood and pick her own man, and live with him and have children who would never be property under the law. The Heaven in the song was, and perhaps always had been, the impossible dream of freedom.

Meg shivered, and the song died on her lips. She shook herself. These were the thoughts of a tired woman, worn out after digging potatoes all day. She wasn't thinking sensibly, and she wasn't focusing on Flora as she ought to be. But though she busied herself in picking up a fistful of straw and scouring off the foam of sweat from the cow's neck, she could not quite shake the unsettling thought and the knowledge that what was a revelation to her had surely been known to other people – people like Nate, who had never been content, or Elijah, who had suffered through a long, hard youth in South Carolina before coming out here – all their lives. It was not her naivety that troubled her, but the realization that she had lost it: something had been changed deep within her on the night she had been captured at Hartwood. It frightened her.

The splash of heavy boots in the puddles gathering outside was a welcome distraction. Mister Cullen came in, stooping a little to pass through the broad, low door. He took of his hat as he did so, shaking from it a curtain of water. His shoulders and back were running with it, and the tails of his coat dripped. His eyes were red-rimmed and bleary-looking, and his face gray beneath the weather-tan. He coughed shallowly as he flung the hat over an empty peg and came shuffling towards the last stall. He stopped four feet short, staring transfixed at Flora's rear and the small tail trailing in the soiled straw. He looked both disgusted and faintly horrified, but also grimly determined. There was something else in his eyes, glittering behind the weariness and the fog of a man dragged out of his sickbed, and it filled Meg with a motherly fondness that was utterly baffling until she recognized that glint. It was the same look of avid curiosity that little Mister Gabe exhibited with such cheerful regularity. It was the first time that Mister Cullen had ever seen a cow trying to give birth.

The reminder that this was not at all a good thing tugged at Meg's mind, but she found she was already speaking – explaining.

"It's s'posed to be the other way 'round, Massa," she said. "Forefeet firs', then the li'l head. But the tail come out, an' the rump stuck right like that. I been tryin' to keep her quiet, an' lyin' down so she don' push too hard. I's scared if'n she push now, it goin' tear her an' she'll bleed to death."

The words shocked her, but now that they were said she found that she could breathe a little easier. She had been evading the thought since the awful realization had struck. Meg did not want to imagine the worst possible outcome, not only because of Flora's value but because the truth was that she was fond of her. It was silly to be fond of a cow, but Meg could not help it: she cared for them every day, talked to them and coddled them and kept them safe and healthy despite their dreamy dimwittedness. She found herself staring up at Mister Cullen, half-hoping that he would contradict her now.

Instead he inched closer, head cocked appraisingly to one side. "Nate ain't back yet?" he asked. Not waiting for an unnecessary answer, he added; "You know I can't pay a farrier, Meg."

"Yassir," she said. Her throat grew tight, and she swallowed painfully. "Uncle Jessop down at… at Hartwood…"

The very word seemed to shrivel her tongue and she bowed her head over Flora's, telling herself that she had to make sure there was still life and determination in the soft brown eye lolling helplessly up at her. She had to tend to Flora: it was not at all that she was trying at all costs to keep from thinking about that hateful place, about her Peter still chained there by law and custom, about the fact that but for the events of that terrible day they might have already sent for help.

"I thought mebbe I could pull, Mist' Cullen," she said. Her fingers strayed to the halter looped around Flora's neck and tied to the ring driven deep in the log wall. "I even tied her up, so's she couldn' get 'way. But when I tried… when I tried, I couldn' fin' nuthin' to grab hol' of 'ceptin' that tail. An' I thought I'd as like tore it off if I pulled on it."

"You would have," said Mister Cullen. He squatted down and prodded with one finger at the small, wedged hindquarters protruding ever so slightly from Flora's body. Then he put his hand under her hind leg and pressed up into the hip joint. Flora moaned, and Meg tried to hush her. "I don't… I can't tell if it's stuck on her pelvis. Hell, I don't even know if I'm pressing in the right spot."

His hand flew back to his knee, dusting against his trousers as he snorted disgustedly. "Some damned farmer I am," he muttered. Then his face hardened from loathing to anger. "Dammit, there's got to be enough room for the thing to come out! Otherwise how's a calf supposed to get born? She's half a hand taller than Washburn's bull: it can't be too big."

"It ain't," Meg ventured. "It's small: smaller'n her other two was, Mist' Cullen, I'd swear to it. It's jus' the wrong way 'round."

"We could try and pull again," he said. He stripped off his coat and flung it behind him onto the pile of fresh straw waiting to be spread after the birth. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his shirtsleeves, then shoved the arms of his undershirt up to the elbows so that their buttons strained. He raked his hair up away from his face and then reached to brush his fingertips against the calf's lip, slick tail. "Guess I just follow it in?" he asked.

Meg nodded, wanting to speak but not quite able to find the words. Then she braced herself. Mister Cullen was right: they had to try something. She wished Nate were here, to shoulder the portion of the decision now thrust upon her. Mister Cullen always looked to his people for advice and for knowledge, but in this case she knew only a little more than he did and had no advice to give. But at least she _did_ know how to get up inside of a cow: she had helped to pull a reluctant calf or two in her time, though always with the head and forequarters leading.

"If you'll hold her steady, Massa, I'll try," she said, though it took all of her courage to say it. Her hands were still sticky from her earlier attempt, and she did not have much hope for a different outcome now.

For an instant Mister Cullen's face was soft with the gratitude of a lost child offered a friendly hand to lead him home, but then it crystalized back into the reassuring, determined look that promised Meg that they were together in this endeavor, whatever might happen. "No, you hold her," he said. "You got smaller hands, but I've got stronger arms. 'Sides," he added with a tiny lopsided grin; "she knows you. She's like to try and bite me."

"Cows don't bite," Meg said reflexively, then found herself giggling almost drunkenly at the silliness of correcting her master as she might a small child. She closed her fist firmly on the knot of the halter, wrapping one coil of the rope around her hand. With her other palm she began to stroke Flora's neck. "Brave ol' girl, I got you," she mumbled.

Mister Cullen's Adam's apple bobbed beneath his beard as he swallowed, bracing himself. Then he slid his hand up along the tail and into Flora's birth opening, determined but skilless. Flora bleated indignantly, and her hind hoof kicked – but not with much strength. Her belly rippled with a fresh birth pain, and Meg saw Mister Cullen's arm tense.

"I can't…" he muttered. Then, "What the hell…" And finally, "Nope."

With a squelching sound, he withdrew his hand. It was now red and slimy with blood and birthing fluids, and he stopped himself just before wiping it instinctively on the leg of his trousers. He picked up some straw instead, reaching over Flora's leg for some that had not been befouled, and scrubbed at his fingers. Meg noticed for the first time the bandage wound around each palm, as Mister Cullen stripped off the right one and tossed it aside. He flexed his hand and grimaced.

"Nothing to grab hold of," he said. "I can't get a grip to pull it."

"That jus' as well, Massa," a low voice said. Meg looked up, startled, and saw Elijah in the doorway with Nate looming behind him. The old man was naked to the waist, his work pants hanging low on prominent hipbones. His ribs and arms were still roped with muscle, built up by decades of backbreaking work. He scratched at his tousled hair. "You try an' pull 'im back-end first, an' you's goin' rupture her."

Mister Cullen twisted, bracing one elbow on his leg as he did so, and canted his head as he looked up at the elderly Negro. "You know something 'bout breech calves?" he asked.

"A little," said Elijah. "We had one when you was just a boy, an' Meg here nuthin' but a bump unner a petticoat. I didn' touch that cow, but I see'd what the man done. You gots to push firs', then git them legs out. _Then _you pull."

"Push?" Mister Cullen said, looking up at Flora's belly. Meg almost thought she could see him straddling the cow and bearing down on her abdomen with both hands.

"Push 'im back in," said Elijah. Then all at once he was striding forward, brushing past the master and squatting by Flora. "Git up there an' help that child hold her head. Put your knee on her neck an' hold her down. The cow, I mean, Mist' Cullen: not Meg."

He said this last in the patient voice he always used when the master executed simple instructions poorly. It had been a frequent occurrence over the years as Mister Cullen took on an ever-increasing share of the daily labors, and the tone was instantly recognizable. Nate chuckled, but if Mister Cullen appreciated former foreman's wit he did not show it. Shooting Elijah the swiftest of black looks, he moved at once to obey.

"Nate, you git 'round back here. Once I get both legs out we's each goin' take one," Elijah said. "Hold her down, you two: she ain't goin' like it."

He reached and slipped his hands out of sight. Then the sinews of his arms tensed and he pushed, thrusting all of his weight towards Flora. She bellowed so loudly that scraps of straw fell dislodged from the thatch above, and Drowsy and Nell lowed in sympathy. Elijah's left elbow was locked, still bearing down with the strength of his body, but his right was bent. That arm shifted, questing for something. It rotated, hitched as if caught, and then slid back. Smoothly his wrist emerged, and then the hand, cupped around a tiny hoof. The hind leg unfurled, motionless, and Elijah pushed again. Flora trumpeted her misery and tried to thrash, but Mister Cullen hand his knee firmly on the base of her neck where it met her broad shoulder, and Meg was holding her head. She could not rise.

Mister Cullen made a sound something like a laugh, but there was no mirth in his eyes. The corners of his mouth tightened as he seemed to choke, and then swallow. "Not now, dammit," he muttered, clearly speaking to himself. "Not _now_!"

Elijah was digging again, feeling for the other leg. It came out like the first one had, the hoof guarded by the wizened old hand so that it did not tear into Flora as it broke free. Then the old man gripped one skinny hock, and Nate did the same with the other. "We's goin' pull on three," Elijah said, getting his feet firmly under him and lifting his backside into the air. "One, two, _three…"_

The two of them hauled with all their might, while Flora strained and howled and Meg and the master struggled to keep her skill. There was a sickly sucking sound and a strong, animal smell, and Nate and Elijah took two stumbling steps back, released suddenly as the calf came free. Flora let out a hollow moan and lay very still, her head suddenly heavy in Meg's lap. Meg herself was straining to see the calf, lying splayed in the dirty hay. Its head was twisted awkwardly, and the stick-thin forelegs had been dragged straight. Breathless she waited for the nose to twitch, for the limbs to curl in towards the wet body for warmth, for some sign that the calf lived.

Elijah hobbled stiffly around the little body, and put one hand on the calf's ribs while the other reached for the snout. He remained motionless for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped and his arms tucked in against his sides. He shook his head. "Dead," he said. And Nate said; "Heifer."

Meg wanted to weep. They had needed that calf so badly. A healthy she-calf would have been a blessing almost great enough to soothe the other losses of the hard year. She had been waiting so eagerly for the birth, and to have it end in this bitter disappointment was almost too much to bear.

"Did you tear her?" Mister Cullen asked hoarsely. He had slid down off of Flora's neck, and was now sitting in the straw with one leg curled under him and the other knee tucked up near his shoulder. "The cow. Is she all right?"

If Flora lived, that was something. Not a gain, not a step forward or a leg up in their struggle to get by, but at least the absence of a catastrophic loss. Meg wanted to scramble around to check for herself, by the cow's head was pinning her thigh. Flora was making low thrumming sounds deep in her gullet, as though mourning her calf. Elijah squatted again, bending low to examine the opening. Meg could not see it at all over the swell of the cow's hind leg, but she could make out the red glister of blood in the hay and smell the coppery tang of blood. She looked away, unable to watch. She looked at Flora's face instead, and the large, dark eye. Cows had such gentle eyes, even at a time like this.

"Don't seem to be no tearin'," Elijah said. "But she ought be closin' up awready, an' she ain't. Mebbe we done strained sumthin'…"

His voice trailed off, and Mister Cullen's tongue clicked against his teeth. Meg closed her eyes, but on the inside of her lids was blazoned the image of the calf's tiny body. It was _so _small, too small for a calf only a week or two early. She had never seen such a little calf. Her eyes stung, and she scolded herself. She was not going to cry, not over a calf. She would not cry even if Flora died and they lost their best milker. All year things had gone from bad to worse: if even one of them cried now, they might all break.

Then Elijah laughed, and Flora bellowed. It was a fierce, pained bellow: a birthing-bellow. Nate swore under his breath, and Mister Cullen blurted out; "What is it?" Meg's eyes flew open in spite of herself, to find the men as she had left them and the dead calf still lying in the straw. The only change was that Nate and Elijah were both grinning.

"We got us another set of hooves here, Massa," Elijah crowed; "an' this set a-wrigglin'. Looks like our girl been carryin' twins!"

Meg thought she too might laugh aloud, but her strength was utterly spent. Her crow of joy snagged in her throat and came out as a quiet little gasp. "Praise the Lord," she breathed. "Oh, praise the Lord!"


	76. November's Chill

_Note: Well, the premiere was amazing! Delicious morsels of backstory, too: so inspiring! And don't worry about William Edgar Bohannon: I got this! ;-)_

**Chapter Seventy-Six: November's Chill**

Cullen handed the jug down to Nate, who was leaning against the rail of the stoop with his shoulders hunched against the rain. He took it, grunting his thanks tiredly.

"Tell Meg to lie in tomorrow," Cullen said. "Ain't going to be much work worth doing in this wet anyhow. You can see to the milking?"

"Yassir," said Nate. "If'n she let me. I gots a feelin' she goin' be down there firs' thing a-checkin' on that baby." He touched the dripping brim of his hat and hefted himself onto both feet. "You tell Missus Bohannon we's thankful," he said, and then trudged out of the patch of light spilling from the kitchen windows. Cullen could hear his boots squelching off towards the quarters, and he turned back towards the door with a soft sigh.

The second birth had been swift and straightforward, and the tiny calf had emerged alive, if a little lethargic. Flora, exhausted though she was from the labor and the violent ministrations required to remove the dead twin, had picked herself up almost immediately after the birth and fallen to grooming her newborn. Nate and Cullen had dragged the carcass out and well away from the cowshed to be burned when the rain let up, and then returned to carry the living calf to Flora's usual stall. The cow had balked to see her baby slung between the two men, but Meg had somehow managed to quiet her enough that she did not attempt to butt or to kick them. She had followed instead, quiet but commanding, and nudged Nate out of the way the moment the calf was safe in the clean straw. There the licking and nuzzling had resumed, while Meg wrapped herself in the old horse-blanket and settled down near the calf. Her presence Flora did not seem to mind, though when Cullen drew too near again she had lowed ominously at him.

Strangely, the expression on Meg's face as she watched the cow tending to her infant had awakened a memory Cullen had thought buried under the forgetfulness of youthful embarrassment. It was almost the same look of love and exhaustion and relief that Meg had worn on the night Lottie was born, when Cullen had gone off in a fit of foolish gallantry to borrow Peter away from Hartwood to see his new baby. Cullen had stood in the doorway of the cabin transfixed, knowing that he ought to look away but somehow unable to do so until Bethel shooed him off with brusque words and a tender pat on the cheek. Tonight Meg had of course not been quite so invested in the birth, but the same basic emotions were present. All other considerations aside, Cullen was grateful that there was a living calf to show for the night's labors. He thought it might have been too much for Meg to bear just now, had the dead one been the end of the story.

He shucked his muck-caked work-boots and paused with his hand on the doorknob, then retracted it to brush over the front of his shirt. It was soiled with the mess of the birthing, and gave off a strong stink. Hastily he shrugged off his suspenders. His fingers, already battered and aching from fighting the plow, were stiff and clumsy in the cold of the night. They struggled with the buttons, but at last he was able to strip the garment off and bundle it into a ball. Only then did he step back into the house, replacing one brace as he went.

Mary was standing at the table, waiting for him. Cullen twitched a half-smile as he tossed the shirt into the basket of kitchen laundry. "Nate says thank-you for the drink," he said softly.

"I used the last of the brandy," said Mary. "I think the occasion warrants it."

"We ain't out of the woods yet," Cullen warned. In front of the Negroes he had to keep up a brave face, but too much harm had been done this year by him and Mary trying to protect one another from the truth. "The calf ain't stood up yet, and she ain't given no sign of trying to feed. Meg's going to sit out there another hour or so, and if the calf don't smarten up she'll have to milk Flora and try and feed her by hand."

"How do you feed a calf by hand?" Mary asked. Cullen had turned to the washbasin and could not follow her with his eyes, but he heard her moving to the other side of the room.

"Dip two fingers in the milk, and let her suck," he said, easing his own fingertips into the tepid water and cringing as the open sores began to sting. There was blood and cow-juices caked under his nails and caught in the creases of his knuckles, and he had to wash, but he dreaded the bite of Bethel's homemade soap. "Same way we teach 'em to drink from a pail when they's old enough to be weaned."

"But that would take hours!" Mary exclaimed softly, coming up behind him. Her cheek brushed his shoulder as she peered around his body. "Use this," she whispered, reaching about the other side to slip the small bar of store-soap into his left hand. Her fingers settled in the crook of his elbow, right where the sinews burned most deeply.

Cullen wanted to protest. The bar in his hand was already half-gone, and they needed it to wash Gabe's hair. But Mary put her palm over the jar of the coarse, soft stuff as if refusing another helping of wine. "Use it," she said, and this time he could hear the spine of steel determination in her voice.

He plunged his hand back into the water, wetting it and the soap together, and then lathered quickly. The application was not without pain, but it was bearable. He closed his mind to it and listened to the rhythm of the rain on the roof. It filled him with an idle desire to sing. No plowing tomorrow, whatever else happened.

Mary's hand ran up his spine, firm and comforting, and drove some of the tension from his tired back. "Hurry and sit down," she said, stepping back to the table. "Your toddy is getting cold."

"Last of the brandy," Cullen muttered. He shook the water from his hands and patted them gingerly dry. The blister in the web of his thumb was bleeding again, and he stared at the burst of bright color. "There anything we ain't running out of?"

"Yams!" Mary said, so promptly and cheerfully that Cullen could not help but chuckle. "We have bushels and bushels of yams."

Forgetting his hands and careless of her silk dressing-gown, Cullen swooped in to wrap his arm about her waist, drawing her to him and kissing her smartly on the lips. He tilted his head back a little, and she cocked hers, a small surprised smile blossoming on her blushing lips. Then her hand flew up to grip his neck and she kissed him back, deeply and hungrily. Her body, supple and uncorseted beneath her nightgown, molded perfectly to his and pressed so near that he could feel the thrum of her heart against his breastbone. Cullen's desire rose, hot and unexpected, through his chest, and he reciprocated. She stole a swift breath around his mouth, but when she paused to draw a second, deeper one he remembered himself.

"I smell like a cow," he muttered abashedly.

"I don't care!" she sighed, kissing him again. The arm that had been resting on his slipped down between them and found the first button of his trousers.

"Mary!" Cullen protested, taken aback by her determination and her utter disregard for the rules of conduct usually so carefully observed in these matters. They were in the kitchen, for heaven's sake! But then her hand moved to the next button and he found himself questioning his sanity. What man would not welcome such passion from a warm and willing woman - his wife, no less? They _were_ married, after all, and in their own home. The sun had set almost six hours ago. The slaves were down in the quarters, and both Bethel and their son were upstairs, presumably asleep. They could do whatever they pleased.

He found her mouth again, as she tugged out the tails of his undershirt. His exhaustion and the strain of the day were forgotten. Things in the cowshed had gone about as well as he possibly could have hoped, and his other worries seemed suddenly distant. Only Mary's questing lips were real to him now, and her slender body against his. "Help me," she urged breathlessly. "Help me."

Next came a few frenzied seconds while they grappled inelegantly with one another's clothing while still engaged in ravenous caresses. Cullen stepped out of his trousers, and Mary's dressing gown slithered down her shoulders to puddle at her feet. She kicked off her bedshoes as Cullen lifted her around the corner of the table and onto the récamier. For a moment she was draped back gracefully over the cushioned arm, her long plait trailing like that of a woman in some elegantly erotic old painting. Then lithe and welcoming she rose up to meet him, propriety and the cooling mug of tea and liquor forgotten.

*_discidium*_

Nate clung to the moment of relief when he stepped in out of the rain, lingering for a moment on the threshold before the reality of a weary body and wet clothes dragged him the rest of the way into the cabin. The embers were glowing, and by the faint orange light he went to the shelf that held the few kitchen sundries the two men kept. He took down a pair of old wooden cups, simply but neatly carved and worn smooth as bone by the year. Setting them on the corner of the table he poured out the rest of Missus Mary's concoction. It was still hot, and gave off a sweet, spicy scent that warmed him. He divided what was left as equally as he could, and took a long draught from one cup. He picked up the other and carried it across the room, water gushing out of his boots with each step.

"Li'l sumthin' from the missus," he said as Elijah rolled over on the lower bunk and sat up, leaning low over his knees so as not to bark his head on Nate's bed. He exhaled heavily as he did so, and wrapped his hand around the cup. "Seems she been sittin' up an' waitin' fo' the news."

"Meg come in yet?" asked Elijah.

Nate shook his head. "Calf ain't fed yet. Meg won' sleep 'til she do."

He slogged back to the table and took another swallow of his toddy, feeling the soothing burn of the brandy and savoring the taste of cloves and sorghum. It gave him a small burst of energy that made it possible to strip off his soaked coat and the foul-smelling shirt beneath. There was a towel, frayed and time-stained, on the table, and he used it to blot his head and neck. The muscles of his arm burned as he did so: plowing-pains half-forgotten in the strain over Flora's birthing. It took enormous strength to keep the share in the earth, and to maintain the careful control over the plow. Although Nate much preferred the work of tilling and sowing to the soulless labor in the tobacco, he could not pretend he was not grateful for the rain that would give him a day's respite.

Elijah was staring down into the depths of his cup, the crevices of his face shadowed starkly in the dim firelight. He looked his age tonight. Nate pushed off his sodden socks with his feet, watching the old man worriedly.

"What is it?" he asked. "If'n anyone can get that heifer to nurse, it Meg. An' if she cain't, she goin' feed her by hand. She can suck awright: tugged good 'n strong on Meg's finger. It jus' she ain't stood up yet."

"Mebbe I oughts to get back out there," Elijah said. "Who goin' to be to blame if we lose that calf?"

Nate laughed shallowly. "What you mean?" he asked. "You saved that calf, an' mos' likely the mother, too. How you r'member how to do that? I don' recall no breech birth when me 'n the massa was boys."

"There weren't one," Elijah said. His voice was hoarse and deadened. "I lied."

This revelation hung heavy in the air for a moment. "_You _lied to Mist' Cullen?" Nate said incredulously. Such a thing was certainly not beyond his own scope, but it was entirely unlike Elijah. The chief reason that the master relied upon him for aid and advice in running the plantation was because Mister Cullen trusted Elijah to tell him the stark and unvarnished truth at all times – even when it was not personally flattering. Elijah was not without tact, and could deliver honest criticism in a way that made it easier to bear, but he was always truthful.

The old man nodded, and finally raised the cup to his lips. He knocked back a sharp quaff, grimacing a little at the unfamiliar burn of the brandy. "I lied," he said again. "I ain't never see'd a breech calf born; on'y heard tell of it from the herd niggers down my second plantation."

"Why'n't you jus' say that?" Nate asked, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Elijah had lied.

The rheumy eyes with their clouded irises lifted to Nate's face, troubled and anxious and unspeakably tired. "B'cause if I'da said that, Mist' Cullen never would have let me try," he said. "He would have gone over t'Hartwood an' begged favors off that ol' white skunk. Aft' what that greasy sumbitch done to Meg, you really wan' Mist' Cullen over there grovellin'?"

Nate's mouth was dry, and he took another swallow of his drink. The abyss of hatred and rage opened up in his heart, and the small hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Among the slaves Meg's ordeal was never discussed. The nearest any of them had come to talking about it was on the day Mister Cullen had gone hunting, when Meg had panicked in the hayfield. It was too awful, too horrifying even to think about. Now he saw that the wounds of that terrible day were still fresh in his heart, and with them the bitterness that he had been unable to do anything to help her.

"No," he growled. "_No. _We ain't never goin' ask that bastard fo' nothing. I wouldn' look the massa in the eye again if he even tried."

Elijah snorted. "Neither would he," he said. "He couldn' live with hisself. But he couldn' live with lettin' a cow die without tryin' all he could, noways. So I lied." His hands shook and he tightened his grip on the wooden mug. A shiver ran up his spine and he tried to square his shoulders only to have them cave forward piteously. "Ain't been so scared in forty year," he muttered. "I's sure I's goin' to rupture Flora an' tug out a dead calf. Turns out I was on'y half right."

"You tugged out a live one, too," Nate pointed out. He had been leaning against the narrow board that served as a mantelpiece over the simple stone fireplace. Now he pushed up off of it and moved to sit down next to Elijah on the narrow bunk. His shoulder pressed against the old man's, and he could feel how cold Elijah's skin had gone. "That ain' nuthin' to be 'shamed of. All we needed was one."

"If it had gone wrong…" Elijah mumbled, chill dread in his voice. This time when he shivered Nate felt it into his spine. He clapped his hand down on the other man's knee.

"Don' think 'bout it," he said. "It didn' go wrong, an' that li'l rapscallion up in the cowshed right now, mos' like feedin' off her mother. Now Meg gots a calf to look out for, an' Flora goin' be givin' good milk all winter. All worked out jus' fine."

He reached behind and tugged the edge of the quilt free from the crevice between tick and wall. Drawing it up, Nate draped it across Elijah's bare shoulders and patted him manfully on the back. "Drink up an' get to bed," he said. "Massa say Meg kin lie in tomorrer, so you's goin' have to do my share in the barn while I milk them cows."

He got to his feet again, draining his cup as he crossed the small room to deposit it on the table. He picked up his shirt from the floor and tossed it into the basket where they kept their scant soiled laundry. He would have to wear a fresh one tomorrow, although he did not usually change shirts on a Wednesday. He went to the fire again, laying on another pair of logs carefully tented to burn slowly. As the flames caught and the heat blazed, he held out his aching hands to the warmth. When he turned back to the beds, Elijah was already lying curled beneath the blankets with his face turned to the wall.

"I ain't goin' tell 'im," Nate said softly, not knowing whether the old man slept already or if he would hear him in any case. "Mist' Cullen. I ain't goin' tell 'im you lied."

"I know," Elijah said. His voice sounded almost sorrowful. "Time was you might have, but not no more."

"Nate? Elijah?" The voice came from without, very soft and uncharacteristically tentative. Nate turned towards it and the closed cabin door. "I know you's in there: I hear you talkin'."

Elijah made a low noise that was not quite a snort: a sound of amused resignation. Nate found a smile tugging on his own lips. "C'mon in out of the wet, girl. You's goin' catch you' death."

The door opened and one skinny, bare brown foot slipped around it, followed almost immediately by a gangly leg. Lottie hurried over the threshold. She had her mother's big shawl draped over her head and clutched around her shoulders, but under it she was wearing only her shabby cotton shift: she had got straight out of bed to come to see them. Nate reached for her, putting his hand on her shoulder blade and drawing her in near the fire. Her naked toes wriggled hungrily in the warmth, and left small, muddy prints on the hearthstone. Her eyes were shining with excitement.

"Is it born?" she asked eagerly. "Ma ain't back yet, but you two is. That mean it born, an' she settin' up a while to see ev'ything go well, don' it? Don' it?"

Nate could not help but grin at her enthusiasm. Where before he had only felt grim relief that the birthing had been fruitful, now he was almost painfully thankful. He did not know how he would have been able to explain to this hope-filled child about the dead calf.

"Yass'm, it do," he said, savoring the words and the joyful little jump the shivering girl gave. She was looking up at him with bright, sparkling eyes, and rolling her lower lip gleefully between her teeth.

"Tell me! Tell me!" she begged. "Oh, tell me, Nate!"

"Chile, I done tol' you," he chuckled. "The calf born, an' Flora be up an' movin' awready. You' ma's jus' goin set out there a little while longer, an' then she goin' be back an' a-wonderin' why you ain't abed."

"No, no! Is it a he-calf or a she-calf?" Lottie asked, good-natured exasperation in her tone. "You cain't jus' make me guess: if you ain't goin' tell me, I kin allus run up to the shed an' see fo' myself."

The idea of Lottie, who was coming down with the kink-cough, tearing off across the property dressed like that gave Nate a palpitation of anxiety before he realized that of course the girl was just teasing him. He laughed again, low and amused, and patted one bony shoulder. "Ain' no need fo' threats," he said. "It a she-calf, tiny an' a li'l punky, but strong 'nough I reckon. Jus' 'bout sucked the nail off'n you' ma's finger, so she say."

"Oh, a heifer! A heifer! And we can keep her!" Lottie cheered. "Mist' Cullen done said if it a heifer we ain't goin' sell her off as a yearlin', not this time. Why! She goin' be ready fo' a calf of her own jus' 'round the time Drowsy goin' start runnin' dry. It couldn' be perfecter, Nate, don' you see?"

"Sure, I see," he said indulgently. "You bes' git off to bed now: mornin' come early. I 'spect you' ma goin' be 'long direc'ly."

Lottie's smile took on a wheedling cast, accentuated by a flare of fire from the hearth. "Aw, Nate, cain't I jus' set a bit? It awful lonely with Ma gone."

"We ain't settin'," Nate said. "Elijah awready asleep, an' I's fixin' to go down myself. It been a long day, an' even if we cain't do no plowin' tomorrer, there still work got be done."

The girl's sighed, obviously disappointed. She had likely been hoping to spend time with the grown folks, sitting up late and telling stories by the fire. The shawl had slipped down off of her head, and peaked like a hood around her ears. She tugged it back up and grinned, pearly teeth glinting. "I's mighty glad it a heifer," she said contentedly. "I likes me a bit of cheese jus' as much as anybody, but it so sad to see a li'l baby calf git kill't fo' it."

"Well, no worry 'bout that this time," Nate said. "No cheese, neither, min' you. Git 'long to bed, chile. Min' you dry them wet feet."

Lottie laughed, sprinting for the door, and stopped with her fingers on the latch. "Nate, you's awful silly, talkin' like I don' hardly know my own business! Why, anybody'd think you don' trus' me, an—" Her eyes widened and her breath hitched in her throat, and she began to cough.

The sound was harsh and resounding in the small space, and Nate cringed to hear the way each outburst rattled Lottie's lungs. For a minute he seemed rooted to the spot, entirely unable to move. Lottie bent forward, one hand planted on her leg to brace herself while the other splayed over the place where her ribs met her belly. At first her eyes were surprised, then annoyed. When he saw the first sheen of fear made carmine in the firelight, Nate finally managed to move. He got his arm around Lottie and shepherded her gently to the nearest stool.

"Here, now, sit down," he said. Lottie did so heavily, as if she did not have adequate control of her legs. She bowed low over her lap, gripping her bony knees. One had an old black scab on it from some fall or scrape, and her fingernail snagged under its lip as she rocked with the next fit of coughing. She tried to draw breath, but whooped loudly instead.

There was a loud _crack_ as Elijah sat up in bed so swiftly that he forgot himself and smacked his head on the underside of Nate's bunk. He flung off the bedclothes and slapped his feet down on the floor. Then he was on his feet and reaching for his shirt where it hung on its peg.

"I'll run fo' Bethel," he hissed. There was a gray cast to his skin even in the ruddy half-light, and his hand shook as he reached for his sleeve.

Lottie shook her head spastically, still choking on a cough. "Naw!" she bleated, trying to speak and to breathe at once. The next cough left her time for neither, and she dipped forward again. Unsure of what to do, Nate bent with her. His hand was firm upon her back and he used the other to grip her arm, wishing he could protect her. Bethel had said the cough was bad and that Mister Gabe's fits were terrible to watch, but Nate had not imagined this. It was far less frightening to imagine the travails of a child that, for all his precocious sweetness, Nate hardly knew. Watching Lottie, of whom he was very fond, suffering through such a thing was another matter entirely.

"I got to!" Elijah protested. "Chile, I ain't goin' let you cough youself to death!"

Lottie rolled her eyes in his direction, argumentative and pleading at once. She forced out two more deep, sundering explosions of air, gasped thinly, and let loose a little cough. It was followed by a croak and a ratcheting gulp, and then she let out something that Nate recognized as a ghost of a normal breath. "I's awright…" she huffed. "It over, Elijah. I's goin'… goin' be awright…"

Suddenly the old Negro was beside her, leaning in over her other shoulder and placing his hand just below Nate's on her back. "Fetch her some water, boy," he ordered hoarsely. His fingertips brushed her brow and moved to graze her far cheek. "Chile, you take a breath. I's goin' go an' fetch Bethel, so's she can git a look at you. Mebbe she kin dose you with some blackberry root."

"Naw, please, Elijah," Lottie sighed. Nate was back with the dipper now, and she took it from him with a tiny nod of thanks. She drank greedily, and he hurried to fill it again. "It jus' a cough. Bethel be sleepin', mos' likely, an' she need her sleep. She been up again an' again with Mist' Gabe. 'Sides, it raining."

"Sure, it rainin'," said Elijah. "Bethel can jus' git herself out here in the rain! It the head woman's business to look aft' the black childern jus' the same as the white, leastways in time of sickness."

"I ain' that sick!" Lottie protested. There was a note of beseeching in her voice, and she turned to look up at the younger man. "Nate, please! You tell 'im I ain' goin' up an' die! Bethel worn down jus' as much as Missus Mary or the massa, what with Mist' Gabe bein' sick. All I needs is some sleep."

Nate held out the dipper to her, and watched as she drank again. Over her bowed head he looked at Elijah, whose lips had gone pale with strain. "Mebbe we oughts to jus' let it be," he said. Then he forced out the words he disliked even to think. "She ain't my chile, nor yours. It Meg's decision what she need. When Meg come in, she kin say if we ought git Bethel."

Elijah's jaw tightened, and he would have ground his teeth if he had had enough teeth left to make an effort. His broad nose twitched and his brow furrowed deeply. "Awright," he said. Then he wagged one gnarled finger dourly. "But if'n she cough again, I's fetchin' that woman an' ain't you nor that chile goin' stop me."

They stood momentarily locked in combative stares, Elijah's cataract-riddled eyes grappling with Nate's clear dark ones. Finally Nate looked away. "Fine. That fair," he conceded.

"An' she ain't goin' out in the rain to lie down all on her own where ain't nobody goin' hear her cough," Elijah said stoutly. He looked down at Lottie and cupped his hand over the back of her head, squashing several pigtails with the effort. "Is you well 'nough to hop up in that top bunk?" he asked. "Nate kin lif' you if you ain't."

"I's well 'nough," Lottie said, getting to her feet and letting the shawl fall to the floor. She took two steps and stopped, looking at the wall with its two amply-dressed bed-shelves. "Where Nate goin' sleep?" she asked.

"He kin lie down bottom with me," Elijah declared in a tone that was not to be argued with. "Now you git on up there an' git to sleep. You ain't here a-visitnin'. Go on, scoot!"

Lottie grinned at this gruff command, and put one foot on Elijah's bed. She flung the other leg up onto Nate's winter bunk, and clambered up, her shift rucking high on her coltish legs. Nate wanted to step over and give her a boost, but he was not sure her eleven-year-old dignity would stand such an affront. Lottie achieved the ascent on her own after a little bit of flailing, and wriggled under the covers. She burrowed down, raising her head almost at once so that she could punch Nate's pillow into a more desirable shape. Then she flopped deep into the straw tick and tugged the bedclothes up over her ear so that only her brow and her keen, pretty eyes were showing.

"G'night," she said from the depths of this nest. "G'night Elijah. G'night Nate."

"G'night," Elijah grunted. He picked up his shirt from where it had fallen and slung it back over its peg. Then he looked at the lower bunk. "You wan' the inside or the out?" he asked.

Nate shrugged. "I's goin' set up a while yet," he said. "Don' you fret 'bout me."

Elijah cast him a long look, then nodded knowingly. "Well, don' thrash 'round too much when you decide you's been 'nough of a man an' wants a li'l sleep aft' all." He took the two stumping steps to the bunk and eased himself down again.

Nate stood still for a while, until he could hear the slow, deep sighs from the upper bed and knew that Lottie was asleep. After the trouble with the neighbors, Meg would be frantic if she returned to the big cabin and found her daughter gone. Though no doubt this would be her first port of call and the fright would not last long, Nate intended to spare her. He picked up the stool and brought it over near the door, then sat with his back against the wall and his bare feet stretched out towards the hearth. With his ear cocked to the patter of the rain on the packed earth of the yard, he settled down to wait for the sound of Meg's return.

_*discidium*_

Bethel was washing the breakfast dishes, and Mary was wiping them. Gabe, having eaten more heartily than he had in many days, was lying on his back on the récamier with one booted foot in the air, rolling his ankle so that the bright copper toe reflected the morning sunlight onto the wall. Stewpot, who obviously thought the entire performance was for his benefit, was up on the back of the cough trying to catch the golden rhombus of light as it danced across the clapboards. Mary would have feared for the upholstery, had not Bethel clipped the kitten's claws after the unfortunate incident with the table leg. As it was he merely jumped and batted, paws scrabbling harmlessly against the wall as he tried to keep his balance on his hind legs. Gabe thought it was tremendously funny, and his eyes danced. He seemed reluctant to laugh, however: whenever his giggles rose near a guffaw, he pressed his lips together and tried to restrain them. After a while Mary realized that he was afraid of setting off the cough.

With her eyes drawn again and again to the piece of transplanted parlor furniture, Mary could not help but think of the previous night's unexpected turn. She found that she blushed to remember it: of her own unabashed desire and Cullen's surprise, of the delicious flurry of kisses and all that had followed, and of the sheer delight that came of casting off propriety and the burdens of adult responsibility. It was that which had been the most refreshing. The customs they had cast aside last night were neither so sacred nor so dangerous to breach as those they had flouted in secret in the weeks before their marriage, but Mary had found the same thrill in it. It was marvelous, too, to realize that she could still astonish and enchant her husband as she had done on those long-ago winter afternoons.

Twice it had seemed as if their impassioned exertions would prove too much for Cullen's afflicted lungs, but he had managed to best the impulse until they had parted to curl hip-to-hip on the récamier with Mary's feet in her husband's lap. When he was able to breathe again they had slipped quietly up the stairs, pausing to peek in on Gabe where he lay with his torso across Bethel's body and his knees bent up under him. Satisfied that their boy was sleeping peacefully, they had retreated to their own bed together for the first time in weeks. There they had reprised their earlier performance gently, drowsily, while the rain drummed comfortingly above. Finally Mary had drifted off curled in her husband's arms, spent but at peace.

"What you dreamin' 'bout, honey?" Bethel asked softly, tilting her head to the side with a fond little smile. "You wants to go up an' lie down a spell? You didn't git much sleep las' night, seems to me."

Mary's lips parted in embarrassed astonishment, but there was no sparkle of mischief in Bethel's eyes: only loving worry. "You didn' have to set up waitin'. Them menfolks mighta fended fo' theyselves."

"I would not have been able to rest," Mary said sweetly. "And the sleep I did get was very restful. Thank you for lying down with Gabe."

"Oh, he my li'l man, Missus Mary," Bethel said, glancing at the entranced child. Gabe rolled his ankle again and sent the spot of light flying towards the ceiling before arcing back. Stewpot, sitting on his hindquarters with his back rigid, sprang at once into action and thumped against the wall again. "I do think his color better today."

"I think so, too," Mary agreed. She did not add that it seemed the nearer Gabe got to health, the sicker his father became. Cullen had not been burning merely with passion the night before, but with fever as well. She was thankful that he was not out in the mud on this cold morning, with the damp still thick upon the air and the mist clinging to the low places, but she was not certain that the drive into Meridian would be much better for his health. If he could have ridden he might have at least taken some good from Bonnie's warm body beneath him, but he was determined to bring back kerosene and had taken the buggy instead. Mary hoped that spending two hours immobile on the hard seat would not chill him too badly.

Gabe squeaked mid-laugh and gave a little cough, his hand flying up to clamp over his lips as his eyes widened warily. When no second outburst came, they slid from side to side as if watching for some unknown invader. Then, timidly, Gabe lifted his fingers one by one before finally taking his palm away from his mouth. Finally he grinned. "It didn' git me, Stewpot," he announced. The gawky young cat twisted his head away from his ethereal prey in response to his name. "Dat bad ol' cough didn' git me dis time."

Mary's instinct was to reaffirm this and to reassure her child, but she refrained. She thought that it was good for him to make conversation at the kitten. He ought to have had younger siblings by now, to speak to in much the same way and to instruct in the mysteries of life that only a worldly young man of not-quite-four could understand. In their absence, Stewpot must serve.

She turned back to wiping the dishes. By this time Bethel had finished with scouring the hominy pot, and she picked up a towel to help. They were just putting away the last cup and spoon when the back door opened and Lottie came in. She was wearing her new dress, with her stockings tugged high and her cuffs buttoned snugly at her wrists, and she was wrapped in Meg's faded wool shawl. A chilly draft came in with her, and Mary shivered. The day was not much above freezing.

Lottie closed the door snugly and wiped her feet, then curtseyed. "Mornin', Missus," she said. "Mornin' Bethel."

"'Ottie!" Gabe said happily, rolling onto his stomach before sitting up. The refraction on the wall vanished as he lowered his foot and Stewpot mewed disconsolately, staring at the blank canvas in bewilderment. "Why's you wearin' a blanket?"

"It a shawl, Mist' Gabe. On'y it Ma's, so's it too big on me," the girl said, taking it off and folding it into a bundle. She set it down on the edge of the bench and then bent to untie her shoes. She hesitated, one shoestring pinched between finger and thumb, and looked up at Mary without straightening her back. "Missus?" she asked. "Can I take 'em off? I don' much want to wear 'em, 'ceptin' it so col' an' wet this mornin'."

"Go right ahead, Lottie," Mary said before Bethel could comment. If Lottie took off her shoes it would spare the floor as well, and she seemed so anxious to shed them. As her deft dark fingers loosened the laces, a troubling thought struck Mary. "Lottie, do they pinch your feet?"

This time Lottie did straighten, so quickly that an older person's spine would have crackled. Her mouth collapsed unsteadily and her eyes grew wide. "No'm," she yipped. Then she cast her eyes shamefacedly away and recanted the lie. "They do some, ma'am."

Mary had to choke back a little cry of pity. "Take them off, dear," she said gently. "You may wear my bedshoes in the house: Doctor Whitehead told us with Gabe that it was best to keep his feet warm."

"My shoes don' pinch me no more, 'Ottie," Gabe piped up, getting his calf out from under him so that he could thrust his leg out straight off the edge of the récamier. "My ol' ones did, an' Pappy say I ain't goin' wear dem no more. Den dese ones come on de train, all de way from de bangin' town in de big barrel. I like 'em. Dey's shiny, an' dey go _clop-clop_ jus' like Pappy's big boots!"

Lottie had been listening to this story attentively, but without the sweet smile she usually wore when Gabe spoke. Her brows were perked ever so slightly upward, and her mouth unmoving. Mary moved to her side and put a hand lightly on her elbow.

"We will buy you new shoes, Lottie, I promise," she said quietly, trying to keep her voice from showing her regret. "We will, only you must try to manage just until—"

"Until the tobacco sold, Missus Mary. I know," Lottie said gravely, meeting the woman's eyes with a steady gaze. "If Mist' Cullen git a good price, an' we ain't los' too much on 'ccount of the hail, then we's goin' git all we need. That what Ma say. If'n he cain't, or if'n we has… well, we's jus' goin' have to make do."

This frank assessment startled Mary, and saddened her. Lottie was too young to have such worries, and by rights Meg ought not to have had them either. The proponents of slavery were so proud of the fact that they spared the Negro such anxieties, and provided the necessities of life so that the black man need not fear for his future if only he worked. Swallowing the sourness that always filled her mouth when she was forced to face the hideously flawed system under which she had chosen to live, she fixed her eyes once more on Lottie.

"Even if the price is poor, or the quantity inadequate, we will find the money for your shoes," she said. "I promise we will." Her maternal inclinations rose within her and she stroked Lottie's cheek with the back of her hand. "You have been such a help to us all this year, such a blessing. You will have new shoes."

Now Lottie smiled, veiling her eyes shyly. She opened her mouth to speak, but was startled into silence when Mary abruptly shifted her hand up to the girl's brow. Next she touched the side of her throat, and then the inside of one wrist. "Lottie, you're burning up!" she said. "You're feverish. Are you feeling more poorly today?"

"Well, Missus Mary, I ain't been feelin' so lively," Lottie admitted reluctantly. "But I spent mos' of las' night in Elijah's cabin, on 'ccount Ma out so long with Flora an' the new calf, an' them beds ain' so comf'table as mine 'n Ma's. It smokey in that cabin, too, since Nate ain't cleaned the chimney fo' wintertime yet, an'…"

"Come sit by the stove," Mary said, guiding her further into the room. She dragged Bethel's chair close to the oven door and waited for the child to sit. When she did not, Mary added; "It's all right, Lottie. Please sit down."

"You do as Missus Mary say, chile," Bethel said, reaching to feel the girl's temperature for herself. Lottie sat down, looking a little dazed, and then scooted further back into the chair. Mary fetched the quilt that was folded on the foot of the récamier, and spread it over Lottie's lap instead.

"A cold drink of water," she said, thinking aloud. "That's the first thing. How has the cough been, Lottie? Is it any worse?"

Lottie nodded unhappily. "Las' night I had me a fit when I was carryin' the supper down," she said. "Then again when I woked up an' heard the men talkin'. And… and two times this mornin'. I's 'hoopin' myself now, same as Mist' Gabe."

From his perch on the couch, Gabe groaned. "Ooh, 'Ottie, de bad ol' cough done catched you, too! Bet'l? Bet'l, do 'Ottie need some of my nice med'cine?"

This brought a smile to Bethel's worried face. "Why, that there a good idea, my lamb," she said, nodding firmly. "Ain't much lef', but a li'l sip might do her good."

She went to the counter and poured out the usual quarter-mug dose of elderflower cordial. Lottie took the tin cup and peered into it curiously.

"It's sweet," Mary explained. "It seemed to help Gabe's fever a little. It certainly won't do any harm."

"Drink it, 'Ottie!" Gabe urged eagerly. "It mighty nice."

Cautiously Lottie took a sip. The taste seemed to agree with her, for she downed the rest of the cordial swiftly and then licked her lips. "Thankee, ma'am," she said. Then remembering the child she turned to him. "Thankee, Mist' Gabe, fo' sharin' you' medicine."

The effort seemed to tire her, for she sank back in the chair and let her hands cup loosely over the armrests. She closed her eyes for a long moment as she drew in a breath. "I'll be awright in a minute, Missus Bohannon," she said hurriedly, trying to sit up straight again and not quite managing the effort. "Then I's goin' look aft' Mist' Gabe like I's s'posed to."

"Don't be silly, Lottie," Mary scolded gently, tucking the blanket about the girl's hips and reaching for the stepstool to slide under her feet. "Your work today is to stay warm and to rest. I'll fetch the bedshoes, and you just sit quietly. Bethel will fix a cool cloth for your forehead. I'm expecting Doctor Whitehead this afternoon to look in on Gabe and Mr. Bohannon – if he's back from town. He'll be able to take a look at you."

"But Ma said I's s'posed to be helpful when I's up at the house," Lottie protested. "Mist' Cullen say he don' want me diggin' potatoes in the cold, so Nate an' Elijah goin' do it themselves. But I ain't goin' be no lazy nigger."

At another time Mary might have protested that she did not want crude language used where Gabe could hear it, but now she held her tongue. Lottie was only speaking in the vernacular she heard every day, and she was tired and obviously unwell. It had likely slipped her mind that they did not want Gabe picking up such unrefined words when he was too young to understand when and where they should not be used. Instead she smiled reassuringly.

"You could never be lazy, Lottie," she said; "and I do want you to help today. You must help by taking care of yourself so that you get well again. It's what Mr. Bohannon will want, too, and Bethel and Gabe. We need you to get well."

Again she felt the quiver of fear beneath the busk of her corset. She knew that at Lottie's age the whooping cough was not especially dangerous, but it and the accompanying pneumonia had very nearly carried off Charity Ainsley and she was only two years younger. And there was also a tiny voice deep in Mary's mind, a remnant of her superstitious English ancestors who had beheld the three suns at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross and hailed the rise of the House of York. That voice whispered that there must be some payment for the good fortune that had allowed Cullen to snatch death right out of Gabe's throat. They surely could not be so lucky twice.

Lottie was resting her temple against the back of the chair, eyes closed again and face smoothed of its cares. Mary wanted to kiss her cheek, still round and full in childhood's contours, but she did not quite dare to step so far away from custom. Instead she patted the back of Lottie's hand. "You rest and get well," she said.

"Yass'm," Lottie said obediently, not opening her eyes. "I's goin' do my very best. I know you an' Mist' Cullen don' 'spect nuthin' less."


	77. Raising a Loan

_Note: Rough week at work! Luckily if I finish it, there's a new "Hell on Wheels" waiting for me on Saturday! (This chapter was posted between 402 and 403.)_

**Chapter Seventy-Seven: Raising a Loan**

Madsen's Bank always smelled strongly of aniline ink and pipe smoke. In the first inhalation over the threshold Cullen was whisked instantly back to the fall of the year he turned seven. His grandfather, having returned only the previous evening from his pilgrimage to New Orleans to sell up the year's cotton and his son's tobacco, had decided that the time had come to include his grandson in the journey down to the railhead to deposit the year's profits. Scrubbed and polished, uncomfortable in his snug topcoat and high, stiff collar, Cullen had nonetheless been overcome with the enormity of the occasion and with his new status as a man of the family. With Bethel's admonitions of good behavior ringing in his ears he had ridden the six miles poker-straight on the carriage seat, and had followed a step behind Grandpappy with meticulous dignity.

In those days Madsen's had been newly built: the bare pine walls unpapered, and a pine floor in place of the glossy oak planking it now sported. But the smell of the ink and the smoke had quite overpowered the clean scent of fresh lumber and the oily undertone of the new steel safe. At a time when the Bohannon home had been among the largest local residences – before the building boom in which successful planters had replaced original houses with elegant mansions – the large and sparely furnished front promenade of the bank had seemed a very vast space indeed. Only Cullen's determination to appear grown-up and worthy of the charge placed upon him had prevented him from shrinking against his grandfather's leg, so daunted had he been. But he had strolled along as if unaffected (or so he had hoped), and he had seen how the men deferred to his grandfather, doffing their hats as he passed and murmuring amongst themselves. _That's Mr. Bohannon_, one young man had murmured to his friend. _Built our spur line hisself, he did_. _Brung the railroad right here to Lauderdale County_._ Put us on the map._

Cullen's memories of the transaction itself were dim: of his grandfather producing a sheaf of banknotes and a large purse heavy with gold coin, of the clerk sorting and counting the money, of the bankbook being annotated and signed by both parties and the monies spirited away into the safe. But he remembered in aching clarity the pride that he had felt standing beside his grandfather: a dignified man, a respected man, a man who could behold his own accomplishments and see his worth in them. He had been a heavy-handed man, stern and often impatient, feared rather than liked, but he had also been in his own dour way contented. It had been an awe-inspiring experience to stand with him, a small boy made suddenly significant by mere proximity to personal greatness.

This visit was nothing like his first, Cullen reflected sourly as he shuffled half a step ahead in the line before the teller's window. He had his good hat cupped against the front of his silk waistcoat, and his freshly-blacked riding boots gleamed upon his feet. His gouged and stinging hands were hidden in his black kidskin gloves, but he had tucked his right into the pocket of his coat regardless. He kept his eyes fixed low on the back of the man in front of him, hoping that he might simply carry out his business and be gone without a fuss. He wished there were some way to keep from running into any close acquaintance; either one who might wish to needle him about his present misfortunes, or one who might simply dodge around the issue entirely with a phalanx of irrelevancies. He was tired and he was cross and his chest felt tight in the smoky air, even as his mouth watered for a taste of one of the new-made cigars in his breast pocket. He did not dare to partake, for he had tried it on the buggy-seat as he drove through the cold morning. The first two puffs had brought on a coughing fit severe enough that he had to rein Pike and Bonnie to a halt until it passed. The pleasure of tasting his harvest would have to wait until the whooping cough finally left him alone.

The line shifted again, and Cullen followed it. Around him the other men were talking quietly to their neighbors, swapping farm news or political gossip or hushed ribald stories. The bank was a haven of the male sex, visited only rarely by a female patron. There were chairs under the windows where men could sit, smoking indolently and catching up with their friends. More respectable than the saloon and more dignified than the old general store, the bank was as much a leisure destination as it was a hall of finance. Cullen's own father had enjoyed many a languid afternoon in here before seeking an evening's pleasure elsewhere.

The man in front of him was at the window now: a husky youth with the look of the railroad about him. It was nothing that Cullen could put his finger on, precisely: the rough hands and rough clothes could just as easily have belonged to a farmer or a builder or a blacksmith. The overgrown beard was a common sight in a county still young enough to lack costal refinement. But there was an ineffable flavor of carefree disinterest about the youth that made Cullen believe that he was with the railroad: it was the feel of a man free of the burden of property and responsibility, who need look no further than that night's lodgings and the next day's wages. It was certainly not the air of a man with seven trusting souls looking to him for things he could not quite contrive to provide them.

Cullen dug out his bankbook, the pages smudged with tobacco tar and rumpled from constant anxious rifling over the last eleven months. It had been in September of the previous year when he had realized that the tobacco crop was not going to be merely mediocre, as its predecessor had been, but well and truly substandard. The dread had started then and had been continuing almost completely unabated since. In his other pocket was his leather pocketbook, empty but for a few small coins. The only other money he had in the world right now was tied to the little ledger in his hand.

When the bearded boy stepped out of his way and sauntered off, whistling, Cullen stepped up to the window and tried to keep his feet from dragging. He set down the book, open to the last of the marked pages.

"Cullen Bohannon," he said quietly. "I want to speak to someone about raising a loan."

The teller was Mr. Madsen's son-in-law, a thin, malarial man some years older than Cullen who had a fondness for chewing tobacco. There was nothing wrong with this, particularly from the perspective of a struggling farmer of the stuff, but he also had a penchant for breathing through his mouth, and the result was that his whiskers and his collar were always stained with golden-yellow spittle. Looking at it now, Cullen was surprised to realize that he felt only a sort of tired understanding. He had the same discolored blotches on his own fingertips, from sorting the leaves into their crates; not three weeks ago it had been black smears from the fresh tar.

"Property or personal?" the man asked, trying to disguise with businesslike fidgeting the avidly curious looking-over he was giving the no-doubt-notorious client before him.

"Business," said Cullen flatly. For his part, he was trying not to resent the way he was being regarded while at the same time swallowing a cold mouthful of dread. Abel Sutcliffe had done his best to poison the merchants against him in October, he remembered abruptly. Had that campaign of slander extended to the banks?

With a thin little smile, the clerk glanced questioningly over his shoulder. Cullen set his teeth. Madsen himself had noticed the exchange and was watching from his desk behind the rail that separated the tellers' cages from the back of the bank. The elderly man adjusted his pince-nez and beckoned to his son-in-law.

The man retreated hurriedly, taking Cullen's bank book with him and leaving his patron in the uncomfortable position of standing before an empty wicket. Cullen kept his eyes fixed intently on the counter, aware that he was drawing attention from every corner of the room. At the window beside him the butcher's apprentice was drawing a dollar in small change, and Cullen wished he had been in that line instead. The other teller was just an employee, with no hope of inheriting a share of the place through his wife and therefore no impetus to show initiative.

Finally the clerk came back, but Cullen's bank book was gone. "If you'll just come around, Mr. Bohannon, Mr. Madsen would like a word in your ear," he said in a low and infuriatingly sympathetic tone.

Cullen glared at him, but moved swiftly to the low swinging door that admitted him behind the counter. He found the gap in the rail and moved over to the bank owner's desk.

"Sit down, Mr. Bohannon. Please sit down," said Madsen. He had once been a tall man, but age and scoliosis had shriveled him. He still possessed the dignified presence that had aided him in building a prosperous concern out of a small trackside lot. "Now, you want to see about a business loan, is that right?"

"That's right," said Cullen. He tugged back the chair before the desk and sat stiffly, perching on the edge. It was a plain wooden seat with a rigidly straight back and no armrests: it offered about the same degree of comfort as the dunce's chair at the little town school, and with similar intent. "I'm a customer in good standing, as you see right there."

He nodded at the book, which bore the balance noted at his last visit to the bank 'round about tax time, as well as a personal note about the draft for ten dollars he had given to Doctor Whitehead against his ever-increasing debt.

"So I see," said Mr. Madsen. He turned as though to summon someone, but his son-in-law was already returning with the big ledger of accounts, _A Through D_. Madsen took it from him and set it on the blotter, thumbing through the thick pages with their columns of figures until he came to the right one. He followed the calculations to their end and smiled condescendingly at Cullen. "It seems your sums are in error, Mr. Bohannon. According to our records you have not five dollars in account, but thirty-five."

"I never heard tell of a bank taking exception to a man being worth more than expected," Cullen said, trying to sound nonchalant while his mind was racing. Thirty-five dollars? Doc had intimated he didn't intend to cash in the draft until the tobacco was sold, but where had the other twenty come from? Then the inner pocket of his greatcoat suddenly hung heavy against his breast, and he remembered. It was laden with the letters he had just collected from the post office – two from New York, and an unprecedented four from Bangor, Maine. Those letters, at last sent postage paid, had come from Jeremiah Tate, and so had the money: Mary had telegrammed as instructed to tell her brother that a contribution for Gabe's medical costs would be appreciated.

Cullen tried to settle in the unyielding chair, conscious of the sharp old eyes upon him and fearful that Madsen had read his confusion, and worse, his present embarrassment. "I ain't been in to town lately," he said, trying to shrug it off. "Harvest time."

"The harvest has been in for weeks already," Mr. Madsen said pleasantly. "And a fine one it was, too! Oh, but of course that was the _cotton _harvest, Mr. Bohannon, and you're a tobacco man."

"That's right, I am," said Cullen, affecting a proud little tilt of the head. As his eyes lifted he could see the haze of blue smoke that hovered above the hanging lamps. "Got to give folks what they love, Mr. Madsen."

The banker chuckled. "True, that's true!" he said. "And it's sound business. The only trouble is that this here ain't the best country to be raising tobacco. The weather ain't always favorable."

"The weather ain't _always_ anything, sir," Cullen countered as cheerfully as he was able. He was on the lookout for any change in the other man's expression; any hint that the conversation might be turning for him or against him. But Madsen was an old hand at his trade, and he saw nothing. "That's what makes planting a proposition instead of a certainty, whether you're growing tobacco or cotton or rice."

"You don't mean to try rice, do you?" asked Madsen. "If you're even considering it, son, let me tell you what I told your father when he wanted to switch from cotton: changing from a crop that's done you well, done the whole state well, all these years will cost more'n you got, and bring in less'n you expect. Best you stick to how it's always been done, and prosper or struggle with the rest of us. Ain't much profit ever come from a man going his own way."

"I ain't sure I agree with that," Cullen said thoughtfully. "Leastways not so far as my father's change was concerned. Seems to me he profited well enough out of the tobacco over the years, and you've profited, too."

Madsen's eyes softened marginally. "I won't deny I've seen good business out of your family," he said. "But we wasn't always prospering together. While he stood on his own your father did all right. It was when he needed a hand up that things took a turn for the worse, now wasn't it?"

Cullen's throat constricted, and he felt a fierce tickle rising deep within it. Resolutely he swallowed, trying to force back the cough as well as the private terror he had been ignoring since he first realized he would have to raise this loan. Madsen remembered, of course, the defaulted mortgage that had cost William Bohannon eighty percent of his slaves, leaving only the aged and – for reasons he had never disclosed to his son – Nate and Meg and two-year-old Lottie behind. The plantation had never recovered from that loss, and no doubt Madsen knew or could imagine Cullen's fear of being brought to a similar pass.

"I ain't looking to cover a failed crop," Cullen said. He knew his eyes were very hard, but he did not dare to let up even a little. He could not let the banker read his unease. It was a lesson learned in his days of college gaming and general mischief: a man was always happier to lend you money if he thought you didn't really need it. "I'm looking to ship a good one. I need money to finance the journey to New Orleans: that's all. Haulage, rail fare, incidental expenses. I plan to leave in ten days' time and be back by the eighth of December with the year's earnings. No risk to anyone, unless the train goes off the tracks."

Madsen, who had been listening dispassionately, abruptly laughed. It was not his decorous, appreciative chuckle, but a high nasal bark that cut through the heavy air and drew eyes from every corner of the bank. Even the accountant, seated just inside the first cage of the safe, looked up from his books in surprise.

"And if the train goes off the tracks, we'll both see compensation from the railroad," Madsen chortled. "Provided I lend you enough for the insurance as well."

Cullen grinned, even though he was certainly not feeling it. "That's right," he drawled lazily.

Mr. Madsen picked up the tired-looking little bankbook and flapped it at its owner. "All right," he said. "I've been a custodian of the Bohannon family wealth for forty-five years, son, and I've seen it through the lean times as well as the fat. It ain't no secret 'round these parts that this year's been a mighty lean time, but it ain't been the leanest. I can give you a loan of fifty dollars, providing you don't close out your account withdrawing the whole of this thirty-five you got. Leave the five with me, and you can walk out with eighty: thirty in gold, that's yours, and fifty from me. Fifty dollars unsecured, Mr. Bohannon. Meaning if you can't pay in a timely manner – if you can't get a good price for hail-damaged produce, or the railroad goes bust, or a late-season hurricane blows up and ruins your tobacco at the docks – there ain't much we here at the bank can do but write off the debt. We can't sell up your stock, or take your land, or come to collect your slaves. That means the loan ain't a gamble for you. I got to tell you that in your place that'd be a great weight off my mind."

It would have been, and with the memory of that terrible time now rubbed raw Cullen would have been glad to take it if he could have. Instead he shook his head. "I need a hundred and eighty," he said. "Freight will come to a hundred and fifty at least, and I need to get out there with it. Then there's the money to have it hauled from the rail-yards to the warehouses and the other considerations of doing business. Last year it cost me two hundred and thirty: I can trim it down to two, but no less'n that."

"Your arithmetic's faulty, Mr. Bohannon," said Madsen pleasantly, waggling the booklet again. "By my estimate, that means you need a loan of a hundred and seventy."

Cullen restrained himself from curling his lip in disdain, stretching it over his upper teeth instead. "Yeah," he grunted with a curt little nod. "But ten of that thirty's spoke for. I got a draft with the doctor that I guess he ain't called for yet."

For a moment Madsen's shrewd eyes showed nothing but sympathy. In that moment he was not a hardscrabble banker who had made his second fortune out of the county while most people were still lusting after their first; he was just a good-natured old man sitting down with the son of a dead friend. "Not your lovely wife, I hope?" he asked kindly.

"Naw," said Cullen. Instinct would have told the man to mind his own business, but just at present common sense won out. "My boy had a spot of trouble in his chest. He's well on the mend. Now." He reached out and rapped on the desk with one finger. "What about this hundred and eighty dollars?"

"I can't lend you that kind of money unsecured," said Madsen. His voice, though ostensibly regretful, now had the rehearsed note that came with long and cynical use. "I wouldn't lend the Governor hisself a hundred and eighty dollars unsecured. I got to think of the interests of my investors, Mr. Bohannon. My customers – yourself included. You wouldn't want me risking _your _money irresponsibly, now would you?"

Cullen fought the urge to retort, and tried to turn his mind away from the inclination to be angry at the man's patronizing tone. If his temper flared he might say something unforgivable, and whatever else happened he needed this money. His crop was worth almost twice as much on the levees of New Orleans as it was in the market in Meridian.

"Nawsir, I wouldn't," he said. "I'm willing to put up collateral if you need it. What do you suggest?"

"Well, you could take out a mortgage on your land," said Madsen; "but I wouldn't advise it. To begin, your plantation is worth a good deal more than the amount in question, and if you start carving up pieces for surety you'll hurt that value. As your banker, I can't advise it."

Cullen thought of Abel Sutcliffe, and his repeated attempts to buy up acres on the cheap. "No, I wouldn't want that," he muttered.

"Do you have any investments I don't know about?" the old man asked. "Stocks? Bonds? Interest in a company or two?"

"You've handled all my business," said Cullen. Now it was all he could do to hide his bitterness. In the crash of '57, when the last of his grandfather's railroad holdings had been stripped of their value, Madsen's Bank had hardly seemed to shudder. Its principle interests were in agriculture and cotton, not industry: once again the Bohannons had tried to go their own way, and paid for it. "No investments."

Madsen nodded sagely. "Well, as assets go that just leaves your livestock. You ought to be able to secure a loan of a hundred and eighty dollars quite comfortably on one or two. Should we call it an even two hundred, just to make the figuring simpler?"

Cullen was inclined to laugh at this. A moment ago the banker had been hedging about lending him anything at all, and now he was offering more than Cullen had asked for – no doubt in the hope that he would spend the difference indiscriminately and so inflate the interest. It was another of the old tricks of the business, but it was not worth arguing with Madsen over a gamble of another twenty dollars. "Fine," he said. "Two hundred. That ought to be just about the worth of a team of mules: you can have your pick."

"Mules?" Madsen clicked his tongue. "Oh, no, I cannot let you stake your mules. You need them to work your land. If I had to take them, you'd never survive another year and I'd lose a fine old customer. Besides, what an animal is worth on the open market and what it's worth as collateral are two different things, Mr. Bohannon. You ought to know that."

Cullen did know that, remembering his father's outraged blustering that had petered off into sodden despair. "All four mules, then," he said through fixed teeth. "If you have to take 'em I'll figure something out."

"Out of the question, I'm afraid," the banker sighed. "It's irresponsible, and we at Madsen's cannot be liable for lending to irresponsible persons. Now if I'm not mistaken you have a male, young thirties, without any signs of consumption or moral turpitude, who's an experienced tobacco hand and man-of-all-work. _He _ought to answer very nicely."

"No."

The word was out before Cullen could stop it, before he could pause to consider the suggestion or to remember that there was no place in business for childhood sentiments, his wife's abolitionist ideals, or any other personal considerations. He did not even pause for a moment to consider that it would weaken his bargaining position if Madsen even suspected how much it pained him to have to borrow this money at all.

"No," he said again, with more constraint. "Nate's worth nine hundred – maybe more at auction. It's bad business to put him up against a loan that wouldn't buy one of his legs."

Madsen nodded appreciatively. "All right, then. What about your young woman? She's still of childbearing age, I understand, and proven fruitful."

"Necessary to the farming effort," said Cullen reflexively. "I need her just as much as the mules. More, 'cause she does what I tell her to and don't give no attitude."

His breath was coming quickly now, and his mouth was very dry. He veiled his eyes for a moment, trying to settle himself. If Madsen insisted on one of the darkies as collateral instead of turning back to the mules, Cullen did not know what he would do. He was sure enough of his crop, hail-damaged and diminished though it was, to know that it would raise enough to cover the shipping costs that should by rights have been paid out of the previous year's earnings. Barring any further disaster, he would repay the loan within the month. Yet he was afraid. A moment ago the suggestion of a November hurricane had seemed ridiculous, but now it did not. Who would have predicted a second perilously dry July, or an October hailstorm fierce enough to shred a fifth of the crop? The weather had not been favorable to the Bohannon interests in two years.

"Well, it's a stretch, but I'd lend you the money on the girl," Madsen said. "She's a sound investment: there's always demand for a likely young girl with a bit of household experience."

Cullen bit his tongue against an enraged outburst. He knew who it was who had put about the word that there was always demand for young girls. He was almost certain the same person had tipped off Madsen that Lottie had household experience. "No," he breathed, not opening his eyes. His mind was still wheeling through dark and troublesome thoughts. "She's indispensable to my wife: couldn't do nothing like that without Mrs. Bohannon's consent."

Even if the money could be absolutely guaranteed, how would he face Mary and explain that he had raised it by offering one of their slaves – their people whom she had never given up hope of setting free – as surety? How would he make her understand that this was the way of the world? More unsettling thoughts swirled beneath this one. How could he bring himself to raise a loan on Meg, who had already suffered so unjustly for his failings? How could he imperil Nate, who despite his reticence and his dark disapproving looks had once been Cullen's dearest friend? Or Elijah, always faithful, or dear little Lottie who had her whole life in front of her? Just because they were his property didn't mean he didn't care about them. He had a duty to care for them, to protect them, and at the very least a duty not to gamble with their lives.

"Well, there's your cook—" Madsen began.

"Head woman," snapped Cullen, eyes flying open again and blazing with a ferocity he could not have hoped to control.

"What?" the banker yipped, clearly mystified.

"She's my head woman," said Cullen. "Bethel. My father wouldn't raise a loan on her, and neither will I."

"Your father wouldn't raise a loan on any of those five, and that's why you still have them," said Madsen. "Unless the old man's dead? Not that he'd be worth two hundred dollars anymore."

"He ain't," Cullen growled, suddenly hating himself for sitting here and listening to this. Now the banker, one of the wealthiest men in the county, was dismissing Elijah as worthless – patient, tireless Elijah, who never complained on his own behalf and always did his share and more. This year Cullen had worked beside his field hands, matching hour for hour and sucker for sucker, furrow for furrow with Nate while Elijah and Meg did scarcely any less than the two strong young men. He understood, as he never had before, the weight of labor his people carried and the fortitude with which they bore it. He owed them better than this: to haggle with their futures against two hundred dollars for railway costs.

He dusted his hands against his lap and shook his head. "I ain't putting up any of my slaves, Mr. Madsen," he said. "It's a matter of principle. Given the family history I'm sure you'll understand."

He had said it. He had made it obvious that he was afraid of making the same mistake his father had, and now he was in the banker's hands. But it was better than admitting to the other: to the strange feelings of camaraderie that were opposed to the most fundamental precept of Southern society. The black man and the white man were not the same, could not be the same. And yet…

Cullen could not mull the matter over, not here and not now when he had to salvage something out of this transaction. He needed the money, and he had just flatly rejected the lender's suggestions. He would counter with an offer of a parcel of land. Even if he did lose a couple hundred acres, and did have to see them sold up at the sheriff's auction to Abel Sutcliffe, that was preferable to risking one of his people, even on a near-certainty. He opened his mouth to speak, but Madsen's grin stopped him.

"Well then, Mr. Bohannon," the banker said; "what else do you have?"

_*discidium*_

"Gabe, dear, stop wriggling," Missus Mary said, smoothing the old towel over the child's shoulders again and switching the comb back to her right hand. The little boy was sitting on the corner of the kitchen table, feet planted on his pear box where it sat on the bench. His head had been wetted down, and his overgrown curls clung like a helmet to his skull. The damp hair seemed darker, and to Bethel the child looked more like his father than ever. For a tiny, jealous moment she wished that it was she, and not the mistress, who was holding the tiny shears and trying to make the impatient boy sit still.

"I ain't wrigglin'," Mister Gabe contradicted. "I's jus' sittin', like a good boy."

"Well, sit a little straighter and be very still," his mother instructed. "You don't want me to snip the wrong lock and leave you lopsided."

"I's 'opsided!" the boy exclaimed. "Bet'l! Mama goin' make me 'opsided!" Then he paused, frowned thoughtfully, and asked; "What 'opsided again?"

"Raggedly like a li'l Cracker," Bethel said, coming around in front of the child so that he would stop twisting to look at her. She reached out and chucked him fondly under the chin. "You don' wan' look like no Cracker. Set up straight an' min' what you' mama tells you."

"Yass'm." Mister Gabe nodded, and Missus Mary slipped her left hand around to cup his jaw, shifting his head back onto a forward plane. "Mama, ain't you goin' start cuttin'?"

"Not until you're still," she said, smoothing his hair with the comb again. This time she decided to seize the moment, and took a couple of swift snips. Coils of silken baby hair fell down onto the towel where it puddled around the child's bottom. "Good boy. Look at that peg on the wall and make sure it doesn't jump out of its hole."

"It goin' jump?" Mister Gabe asked avidly. This time he turned to the right so that he could look up at his mother with curious eyes. "I ain't never see'd it jump b'fore."

"It only jumps on Wednesdays," said Missus Mary; "and _only_ when Bethel isn't watching. Bethel wouldn't stand for jumping pegs, would you, Bethel?"

"No, ma'am," Bethel agreed, moving back to the stove to check her soup. It was a rich vegetable soup with venison broth and extra onions. She intended to make her flour dumplings to go with it, as a special treat. The family had been doing without biscuits for a long time now and they were almost at the end of the flour, but Mister Cullen would be in a sour mood when he came home. Between the strain and indignity of having to borrow money, the threat of tomorrow's plowing, and the cough with its attendant fever, he would need something to cheer him up and to warm him after the long drive. If everything did go well at the bank he would at least be able to stop by the railyard to make shipping arrangements, and that might brighten his day. There was nothing Mister Cullen liked better than striking a good bargain, and he certainly had a knack for it. He was much more talented in shipping and selling the tobacco than he was in growing it.

If only he didn't have to go to the bank for a loan! There was no more dreaded word on the Bohannon plantation, for everyone but Missus Mary and the children remembered what had happened last time. Bethel still dreamed of it sometimes, on long cold nights when the place seemed so vast and empty. For the first couple of years she had kept up with news of some of the homefolks, but almost all had been sold out of the county and such ties never held for long. Bethel's one comfort in their present situation was that Mister Cullen would never make the mistake that his father had: he would not sign over his people to the bank against any loan, not such a necessary one. She gave the soup a last vigorous stirring, and then moved over towards the récamier.

Lottie was lying on it, tucked under a quilt. She was wearing Missus Mary's bedshoes, which though dainty still made her feet look far too large for her legs. She had been napping, but Bethel saw that she was now awake. Her dark eyes were glistening with the dreaminess of the fever, and her lips were parted ever so slightly. Bethel could see they were dry, and reached to pour some cool water into a tin cup.

"Here, drink up," she said softly, feeling the girl's head as she raised it to obey. The fever was still smoldering, but not as fiercely as it had first thing in the morning. Lottie drained the cup and coughed a little, shallowly. Missus Mary glanced in her direction, but Mister Gabe was still watching the peg on the wall, shoulders rounded and neck stretched comically forward but head motionless.

"Thankee, Bethel," Lottie murmured. She scrubbed at her eyes and stifled a yawn. "I's surely havin' a lazy day." She lay back, tilting her chin so that her neck arced over the bolster. In that simple movement Bethel thought she could see the beautiful young woman Lottie would grow up to be, with her mother's soft curving cheeks and the strong sinews of her father made delicate in her throat and shoulders. Then she flopped onto her right side, and she was only a child again. "Mist' Gabe settin' so nicely fo' his mama," she said.

"I's nice," Gabe agreed. He stretched one leg, straightening his knee so that he could plant the sole against the wall. Then he let it fall back down onto the pear box with a clatter. Missus Mary stopped her scissors just in time.

"Gabe, be still!" she scolded fondly. "I very nearly nipped your ear."

Trying to get that child to sit for a haircut was like trying to make his no-good kitten behave. That was why the ordeal was generally reserved for a Saturday night when his father was available to distract him. It took all of Mister Cullen's natural magnetism to induce the lively child to sit still for the scissors, and even then not without toys or other diversions. Bethel believed that Mister Gabe might sit still for a reading of _The Dragon's Teeth_, but only from his pappy. When his mother read it to him, he tended to climb all over the couch, to get down on the floor with Stewpot or go wandering around the room. Mister Cullen had the unique capacity to make him sit, rapt with wonder at the story and the voice that spoke it. But Mister Cullen was in Meridian, and the hair could not wait another day. It would soon be long enough to plait into twin pigtails.

"But Mama, it borin'," Mister Gabe protested. "Dat peg ain't _never_ goin' jump out dat hole."

"I suppose you're right, lovey," Missus Mary said playfully. "You caught me telling a tall tale. But if you don't sit still I shan't be able to cut your hair. Then what will all the little birds line their nests with?"

"What you mean?" asked the boy, turning again. Missus Mary sighed almost inaudibly, her patient smile never wavering for a moment as she turned his head back.

"Well, when we're all finished you may take the little bits of hair that I trim away, and put them out in the grass," she said. "Then the birds will come and pick them up, and carry them to their nests. They'll make tiny pillows and downy little beds with your hair, and when the spring comes they'll lay their eggs, and the baby birds will be safe and warm."

"Wid my _hair?_" The child sounded incredulous, but his mother had anticipated this and her hand moved to stay his chin before it could turn again. Her other was still working with comb and scissors, palming one and holding the other, then reversing them smoothly. Over the last year Missus Mary had become quite accomplished at trimming her child's tresses. As Mister Cullen was not famous for sitting still himself, she had no doubt had some practice with him.

"That's right," she said.

"De birds goin' sleep in my _hair_?" Mister Gabe said again. His own hand crept up, patting the crown of his head. "Is my hair goin' make a good pillow? Wouldn' it be scratchy? Pappy's whiskers is scratchy when I tries to use dem fo' _my_ pillow."

His mama laughed. "Yes, Pappy's whiskers can be scratchy," she said, stroking his cheek with one fingertip as she combed out another bundle of curls. "But your hair is very soft and smooth. Feel it: isn't it soft?"

She caught the next falling coil, and put it in Gabe's hand. He stared at it, entranced by the dark ring on his palm, and then ran his fingertip over it. He did this a second time, and then a third, and then picked it up between thumb and forefinger and brushed it against his cheek. "It soft," he agreed. "'Ottie! 'Ottie, ain't my hair so soft!"

He turned towards the récamier, and again Missus Mary had to withdraw the scissors for his safety. Lottie pushed herself up on one elbow, took in the child twisted at the waist and his mother trying so tolerantly to wait while he showed his prize. Then she sat up the rest of the way, shrugging off the quilt. Tugging one of the bedshoes further up onto her foot, she stood up and came around, slipping between the bench and the wall. There was a gap of only a few inches, too little for either of the women to pass through, but Lottie managed it. Gabe's eyes followed her, and with them his head and shoulders. Now he was straight again, looking up only a little to meet the girl's face.

"It soft," he said, holding up the lock of hair.

Lottie petted it and smiled. "So it is," she said. "So soft. It jus' 'bout the softest hair I's ever felt. Since you been a baby, Mist' Gabe, you's always had such nice, soft hair."

"Does you 'member when I was a baby, 'Ottie?" Mister Gabe asked. The lilt of curiosity was high in his voice, but this time he did not need to turn in order to ask his question: Lottie was right in front of him. "But you ain't old!"

"No, but I's old 'nough," said Lottie. "When you was born, I was seven. Mist' Cullen let me come up the house to meet you, Ma 'n me. You was _so_ small 'n wrinkled."

"Was my eyes closed up?" the boy pressed. "When Stewpot livin' up in de barn, his eyes all closed up. You 'member dat too, 'Ottie?"

"Sure, I 'member," said Lottie. "You didn' even have him picked out yet, he was so tiny: too little to leave his mama. An' his fur was soft."

"Soft like my hair!" Mister Gabe said triumphantly, brandishing the curl aloft. Now reasonably assured that no sudden turns were forthcoming, Missus Mary was working more quickly. She would soon be ready to turn him so that she could clip the front.

"Well, almos' as soft, Mist' Gabe, but not quite," said Lottie. As she looked at the little boy she had eyes only for him, and her face was alight with love. Watching from the far side of the kitchen, Bethel felt proud fondness for the girl. She really did care for Bethel's little man: enough to engage him even when she wasn't feeling well, and to do it with patience most girls her age did not possess. Bethel made a note to mention to Meg how well her daughter was growing up. She was doing them all proud.

While the haircut and the conversation about the kitten's entry into the family carried on, Bethel fetched the broom and began to sweep the kitchen floor. The doctor was expected shortly, and the kitchen ought to be in good order when he arrived.


	78. Arrangements and Anomalies

_Note: Thanks again to csa-railroads .com! Best resource ever. And it should come as no surprise that there are pages and pages of calculations, shopping lists, and weight charts behind this and the subsequent chapters: the numbers are not simply made up. (This chapter was posted between 403 and 404.)_

**Chapter Seventy-Eight: Arrangements and Anomalies**

Cullen only just had time to clear the doors of Madsen's Bank, duck under the hitching post, and straighten up again before the cough he had been choking back burst out in a rattling flurry. His ribs heaved painfully and his throat burned. The second cough came swiftly upon the heels of the first, and Cullen's knees began to wobble. He seized a fistful of Bonnie's mane and bowed forward over her withers, trying to surrender to the cough as if by doing so he could make it forget his earlier rebellion.

The damage was done. In his desperation to appear at ease and unaffected during his negotiations with his banker, Cullen had fought his body's primal need, and now it was exacting revenge. He was blinded by the ferocity of the next few spasms, clinging to the mare's neck with Pike at his back and the tongue of the buggy digging into his hip. He was only dimly aware of the forenoon traffic around him: women on the boardwalk pausing to cast him wary glances, men coming into or out of the bank and looking askance, a laden rail wagon lumbering past with scarcely a pause. He was shielded at least a little by his horses, who stood fast despite their unease. Pike snorted piteously and tossed his head, and when Cullen's frantic effort to breathe rose into a shrill _whoop _Bonnie stamped one hoof, but they both seemed to sense the need to be still.

When the concussive bursts of coughing died to hungry gasps, Cullen remained buoyed against Bonnie's side with his face hidden against her neck. Now that the struggle for life's most elemental nourishment was waning, he was once more conscious of his surroundings and anxious to recover his dignity. At the same time he knew that if he looked up too soon he would only have to endure the sense of spectacle for longer, while he tried to recover his debt of air. The thought made him flinch, and he unknotted his gloved fingers from Bonnie's mane so that he could stroke her neck.

"Good girl," he huffed shallowly. After sucking in another lungful of blessedly unobstructed air, he added; "I'm sorry."

Bonnie dipped her head a little, nickering. Cullen felt the side of Pike's nose against his upper arm, and shrugged in towards the touch. He felt strangely secure here, with his horses at either side. He felt safe.

"Massa?" a high voice ventured, unsteady but determined. Cullen raised his eyes at last, looking over Bonnie's back. In the mud just past the edge of the boardwalk stood a barefooted Negro boy, both arms stretched to their limit to tote a bucket full of water. He was perhaps seven years old, skinny as a snipe, and he was wearing men's clothes cut down at sleeve and leg. Askew on his head was a cap that he could not doff without setting down his burden. His eyes widened as Cullen's gaze found him, but he squared his thin shoulders.

"Massa?" he said. "Is you awright? Dat din' look so good."

Cullen let out a heavy puff of air, glancing sidelong at the walkway where a pair of ladies wrapped in heavy silk shawls were trying to scurry past as quickly as propriety allowed. They averted their eyes from the man who only a minute ago had been struggling to breathe. Then Cullen turned back to the boy.

"I'm fine, son," he said hoarsely. "It's just a cough."

There was doubt in the child's eyes, but he had been brought up to know better than to contradict a white man. He nodded his head solemnly. "Yassir," he said. "Missus say dere be 'lot of it about. Does you wan' a drink of dis-here water, Massa?"

He tried to hoist the bucket higher, but succeeded only in sloshing its contents a little. The sound and the faint sparkle that showed despite the day's low-hanging clouds made Cullen's mouth burn. He did want a drink of water, and very badly, but he hesitated. He thought of Gabe and Lottie at home, of the four ill Ainsleys, of Doc Whitehead's mention of other cases further down the road. This thing was spreading like a grass fire already. It was known that some sickness could travel in contaminated water, and the most common way for water to become contaminated was through contact with a sick person. If Cullen drank from the boy's pail, he would either have to run that risk or pour the rest of it out and force the child to fetch more.

He shook his head. "Naw, thanks, son," he said. "You get 'long with your business, and tell your mama she got a good boy."

The child grinned broadly and wriggled his toes in the mud. "Yassir, thankee sir," he said. Then he snugged up his grip on the rope handle and started to waddle around the buggy so that he could continue on his way.

Cullen bowed his head again, shaking it slowly and forcing himself to swallow. His throat felt as if he had swallowed shards of glass, and his lower ribs ached miserably. He reached for the hitching post and unwrapped the reigns, tossing them into the buggy before ducking under Bonnie's head and out of his makeshift shelter. He rubbed the mare's nose vigorously, knowing how she scorned a too-soft touch.

"You're a good girl," he said again. "I don't aim to lose you."

In the end he had won Madsen over to the idea of securing the loan on one of the horses. Cullen now had a hundred and ninety dollars in banknotes crammed into his pocketbook, and a small sack containing thirty in gold. He had left ten dollars of the borrowed money in his account against Doc's draft, though he did not really expect it to be claimed before he could assure the man that his crop was sold.

He led the horses back three paces and then climbed onto the driver's seat. With a quiet word and a flick of the reins he had them trotting lightly up towards the depot. It was a short journey and almost not worth the effort of mounting up, but Cullen's legs were unsteady in the wake of the coughing jag and he did not want to chance coming over giddy in the street. If he was lucky he could finish his business before news of his very public display of weakness got as far as the railhead.

The office of the Southern Railroad of Mississippi was on the other side of the tracks and one block east of the main street. The prime location right at the junction had been secured by the Mobile and Ohio Railroad long ago, thanks in no small part to Cullen's grandfather's political acumen. With the completion of the line between Meridian and Jackson, Cullen had no need for the road his forbearer had helped to build. He crossed the rails, the buggy clattering beneath him and the gallon can of kerosene sloshing under the seat. He passed the handsome two-story stationhouse without a glance, making instead for the low building with its slate roof and shaded porch. Painted on the canvas awning that shaded the broad front window was the name of the company and the bold hawker's cry of _Passengers, Freight, Livestock Haulage_. A bony old Negro stood under the awning with an upended broom in his hands, brushing away cobwebs from the underside. As Cullen alighted he lowered his tool and removed his hat, bowing stiffly. Cullen nodded his acknowledgement, allowing the man to replace his cap and get back to work.

The depot's front office was almost empty: it was near enough to dinnertime that most of the staff had wandered off in search of refreshment. The parcel counter was abandoned, as was the ticket table, but at the freight desk nearest the back of the room sat a rangy young man. He was wearing a suit of clothes that, though coarse and obviously inexpensive, were still stiff with newness. His feet, too large for his body in that proportion unique to the middle years of adolescence, were each tucked around the respective foreleg of his stool, and he was leaning low over a ledger. Cullen had crossed the floor and drawn up in front of the desk before the clerk raised his head and grinned.

"It's you!" he exclaimed gleefully.

Cullen was momentarily taken aback. The first thought to cross his mind was that word had traveled more quickly than he after all, and the boy had reasoned that after the bank this would be his next logical port of call. Why else should he be expected? Then he realized that the expression on the clerk's face was not one of fulfilled expectation, but one of surprised recognition. His own eyes took in the bony shoulders, the prominent cheekbones, and the sallow Cracker complexion, and the youth's name popped almost unbidden into his head.

"Henry Jacobs!" he exclaimed. His fevered exhaustion and the discouragement the day both faded a little as he held out his hand. The boy pumped it enthusiastically. "I see you took my advice after all," said Cullen. "Got yourself a job _and_ a pair of shoes."

It was the Vicksburg boy with whom he had shared a cell in the county jail while awaiting his hearing in the matter of Meg's capture at Hartwood. Cullen had scarcely thought of him since the day when he had quieted his own nerves before his unexpectedly early court appearance by offering his thoughts on this young man's problems. Jacobs had been arrested for milking an old woman's cow, and Cullen had told him to get back home or find a job. Apparently he had chosen the latter option.

"Yassir," Jacobs said proudly. "Done just what you told me. They took me on as an errand boy, but I got a knack for numbers, so Mr. Dryden put me here instead. I's only a junior clerk for now, but it beats dock-handling all to hell. What can I do for you today? Got stock needs shipping?"

"Tobacco," said Cullen with a small shake of his head. Now that he was looking more closely he could see the boy looked better-fed than he had in prison. More importantly, the air of futile despondency was gone. There was life in his pale eyes and a genuine grin on his face. He had found something worth doing, and he was doing it well. Cullen envied him. "I got about eighteen hogsheads' worth in boxes, and I need to get them to New Orleans. Got to bring back supplies for the next year, too: I generally lease a car or two."

"Eighteen hogsheads… eighteen hogsheads…" Jacobs shoved aside the tome he had been working over, and started shuffling through the carpet of charts and diagrams beneath. Unable to find what he was looking for after fifteen seconds of rummaging, he looked up at Cullen with a sheepish smirk. "How much does a hogshead weigh, again?"

"One thousand pounds plus the weight of the barrel," said Cullen. "A box is about a hundred and ten, full-loaded."

Jacobs whistled softly. "What'da you get for eighteen thousand pounds of tobacco?" he asked, awed. "Costs five cents a pouch!"

"I don't see all of that," Cullen said dryly. "The dealers get their share, and the factories, and the dry goods store. Why don't you just give me an estimate of what it'll cost to ship?"

"Well…" This time the boy found the chart he needed almost at once: columns of weights and their corresponding prices. "A boxcar full-loaded carries between sixteen and seventeen thousand…" he mumbled. "Forty cents per hundred pounds per hundred miles regular freight… tobacco ain't on the list of high-risk goods, is it?"

"No," said Cullen, torn between impatience and amusement. Jacobs was new to the job, and apparently not quite familiar with its nuances. His supervisor never should have left him alone, not even to cover the dinner break. It would have been an excellent time for a man to press his advantage and use the knowledge of railroad practices he had gained over ten years to wrangle a slick deal out of an inexperienced boy. Had it been any other greenhorn Cullen might have done it, too. But he found that he could not bring himself to hobble this young man, in whose rehabilitation he had at least a part interest. "It's Class Two, and if the prices ain't changed you're right about the forty cents."

"You're best off renting the boxcar for certain, then," said the boy. "It's sixty dollars each way, and you got to make arrangements for the rest of your journey with the man from Great Northern." He glanced over towards the glass-windowed door that housed the office of the southbound sister line. "Mr. Foster's just stepped out, but I can tell you their prices is comparable."

Cullen frowned. "Last year I was able to use the same car on both lines," he said. "Paid a consideration fee to the other road, and I took out a liability bond with you folks. Best check them notes again, son."

His heart sank when Jacobs flinched. He had heard this before. "I know in previous years the railroad's done that, mister," he said in a voice that was injected with far too much bravado and a certain rote hollowness. "But it ain't feasible anymore. There's been trouble with rolling stock not returned in a timely manner, or coming back damaged from rough handling by other lines. Regrettably the Southern Railroad of Mississippi ain't able to accommodate transfer requests no more."

Cullen closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to focus his frustration into something other than an angry exclamation. When he opened them again he was taken with a wave of dizziness that made him clutch the edge of the desk and shift his foot to brace himself. His lungs constricted and he turned his face to the side to cough. Thankfully the one small outburst did not lead straight into another fit, but it made his side ache and his head throb dully.

"So that's two hundred and forty just for the boxcar," he said. "Half that if I just ship one way."

Jacobs nodded. "This is the part where you start shouting and tell me you'll ship it to Mobile instead, ain't it?" he asked, looking suddenly like a guilty child fearing a caning.

Cullen shook his head tiredly. "I'd have to charter space on a barge to New Orleans from Mobile," he said. "That's still more expensive than shipping all the way by rail."

"I know it is: I checked," said the boy. "Don't stop people from threatening. Just about all the cotton men tried it, except the one who ain't shipped yet and a tall man who was really pretty pleasant about the whole thing. Said the price was the price and he needed to get his crop to his broker anyhow."

"That'd be Boyd Ainsley," Cullen said. "He never did see much use in raging against things he can't change." He dared to let go of the desk and slipped his hands into his pockets. The thought of going back to the bank to renegotiate with Madsen filled him with dread. Not only was the banker likely to press the advantage to its fullest extent, but Cullen would look like a fool for not checking the rail prices before looking for the money to pay them. He _was _a fool. But he had to manage this somehow. "Listen. At forty cents per hundred miles we're looking at a dollar twenty for each hundred pounds of freight shipped in general cargo. So it only makes sense to hire a boxcar for the return journey if I'm going to be bringing back more than five thousand pounds in seed and stores, right?"

"Sure," said the boy, watching Cullen with great interest. He was clearly engaged in doing his job, and wanted to solve this problem almost as much as his customer did.

For his part, Cullen was now trying to estimate the weight of the stores he would need to bring back. Of course he did not have a list yet and he was working off his muddled recollections of last autumn's purchases – purchases that had proved to be inadequate. What he could say with certainty was that it had been pretty close to the five thousand mark, give or take a couple hundred pounds. He had shipped no heavy machinery, furniture or wagon parts, either; a year's worth of nonperishables, dry goods and seed added up quickly. They had managed to haul everything back to the plantation in six wagonloads, but not without straining the wheels and exhausting the mules.

"Can you book me four thousand nine hundred pounds' worth of space coming back, with the boxcars only the one way?" he asked. This time of year he could not be certain of securing freight space in a timely manner if he waited until he was in New Orleans. With the cotton crops sold and the planter class now flush with cash, the importers and wholesalers were shipping their goods up from the docks. Fabric, notions, sewing needles, hoopskirts, hats, boots and shoes would be crowding the boxcars. Iron wares from table forks to cookstoves, household goods and farm equipment, wine and spirits from around the world: all would be vying for shipping space. If he could have afforded to reserve a whole car, Cullen need not have worried. As it was he had to plan ahead.

"Sure; that ain't a problem," said the boy. "But what if you bring back more than four thousand nine hundred pounds?"

Cullen could not cope with this exigency now. The important thing was to get the damned crop shipped, and to get back into the buggy before he fainted dead away. The vacant room was hot with its two stoves stoked high, and he could feel his fever flaring. He should have been halfway home by now, and would have been if the business in the bank had gone more smoothly. "Then I'll take the loss," he said, hoping he sounded suitably offhand. "Can you make the arrangements with Great Northern, or do I have to wait around until Foster's back?"

"I can do it," said the boy. "You're sure you want to go this way?"

"You sure you can't save me any more money?" Cullen countered with a small, wry smile. "If I had a favor to call in, this'd be the time I'd call it."

Jacobs' eyebrows furrowed guiltily, and Cullen wished he had not said that. The youth was certainly not beholden to him for his suggestions: advice, after all, was cheap and often worthless. Cullen certainly did not consider the boy to be beholden to him, and neither did he want to put himself in Jacobs' debt.

The depot windows rattled as a train lumbered past, slowing for the station platform. Then finally the youth shook his head. "Them's our best prices," he said. "Associates of the railroad can take a ten percent discount, but that ain't going to save you much even if you do find someone to sign on as a silent partner."

"That's what the cotton planters do, is it?" Cullen asked. "Get someone from the railroad to cosign the shipping order so they can save ten percent."

Jacobs shrugged. "Sometimes," he said. "Though I understand some of 'em really are associates of the company."

"Trussell and the Ives brothers," Cullen agreed sourly. His family had never owned interest in the Southern Railroad, but he might have used the founding bonds in its sister company of Mobile and Ohio as leverage – if only he had any left.

"Don't know," said the boy, cheerfully enough. "Can't keep all the names straight. I'm afraid I don't even know your name, and you was my first friend in the county."

"Cullen Bohannon," he muttered absentmindedly. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The seam of his gloved forefinger bit into the corner of his eye and he gritted his teeth. Then, equally exasperated and desperate, he turned to the desk of the booking agent behind him and snagged the empty chair. Dragging it close to Jacobs' desk, he sat. "Can we get this moving?" he asked. "I got business in town yet, and work waiting at home."

"Sure we can," said Jacobs, opening the top drawer of the desk and taking out a blank bill of lading. He sucked the oil off of a fresh nib and dipped his pen. "When was you looking to leave?"

"Week after next," said Cullen. "Monday or Tuesday. Say Monday."

"Monday the… third of December," murmured the boy, consulting the calendar on the wall. Surprised, Cullen looked in the same direction. He felt suddenly dragged down by his latent exhaustion. Today was the twenty-first: three weeks to the day since he had ridden for Doc Whitehead to tend to Gabe. Almost the whole month of November had slipped by in a haze of sickness and frantic harvest labors. He had earnestly intended to ship his crop before the month was out, but that chance was gone.

"Guess so," he huffed, shifting his feet and slumping a little lower in the chair. He reached for his stock and loosened the knot, wishing he could whip it off altogether.

Jacobs noted the date, dipped his pen again, and let it hover over for a moment over the page before it slipped from his fingers. A black starburst splattered across the page. Startled, Cullen jerked his head back a little as the boy looked up. He was grinning. "There's Henrietta!" he exclaimed.

"Who?" Cullen asked, glancing over his shoulder at the door. He expected to see a young lady approaching, no doubt one whom Jacobs had been beauing about in his spare time, but he saw nothing but the noon-quiet street, and Pike and Bonnie standing patiently at the hitching post with their nosebags.

"Henrietta," said Jacobs, jerking his thumb towards the side windows instead. These, narrower and more cheaply glazed than the front one, looked out over the car shed and the rail yard, with the warehouses behind. The railroad slaves were gathered under an open roof, eating their simple meal. The cars they had been loading with sacks of potatoes and yams stood open on the sideline, and off on another disused-looking spur sat a lone car, shut up and somehow dingy looking despite yesterday's downpour. It was at this car that the boy was pointing. "We got her on reserve for Mr. Lloyd. He was supposed to be shipping candles this week, but he had to push it back to the sixth. It's just going to sit here, unless we can let it to someone who'll have it back before then. I could let you use it half-price."

"Half-price," Cullen echoed. A savings of thirty dollars was nothing to sneer at. The first thought that went through his head was, absurdly, that it would buy ten pairs of sturdy factory-made work-boots. Of course he only needed three, but that need stood high in his mind. His own were leaking like sieves, and Nate had started knotting loops of twine around his insteps to keep the soles from flapping. Elijah's were in only marginally better condition.

"Provided you get her back before the sixth of December," said Jacobs eagerly. "You'd have to leave a little sooner, but I've wrecked this form anyway."

He picked up the bill of lading and wafted it in the air to dry, then put it aside and drew out another one. Cullen hardly saw the motion. He was staring off into nothingness, mind scrambling. A moment ago he had thought the Monday after next to be the earliest he might be ready to depart. The tobacco had to be hauled, and the plowing finished and the wheat put in. But now, faced with the prospect of trimming his losses on the crop by a not-inconsiderable sum, he was forced to rethink that assumption. The plowing did _not_ really need to be finished before he left, now did it? Nate could keep on while he was away, and though the progress would be slower and the wheat consequently put in later they were still well within the window for a favorable planting. So it was just a matter of how quickly they could get the tobacco into town, and whether with that factored in he would have enough time to travel south, transact his business, and return within thirteen days.

Ordinarily the New Orleans journey lasted two weeks: two days for travel in each direction, and ten days in the city itself. This allowed for time to renew the business relationships critical to achieving a favorable outcome in the negotiation, the sales themselves, and the business of bargaining for the things he needed. If pressed, and if he skimped on the social preambles of gaming nights and opera visits that he could ill afford anyway, he could trim it down to a week. It might mean taking a less advantageous price on some of his purchases, but it would not hurt the tobacco sale. And despite what he had told his wife, coming in too late with a crop was never a good thing.

"Mr. Bohannon?" Jacobs asked tentatively. Cullen realized that he had been silent for too long. He flicked his gaze to the boy, who smiled. "Do you want to do that? Leave earlier and use that boxcar?"

"Hell, yes," Cullen croaked. He cleared his throat painfully and reiterated with a nod. "You find me a train that's back here on the fifth, and I'll take it."

Jacobs grinned. "You'll save on the freight back from Jackson, too," he said. "Just load your provisions back on Henrietta and bring her home. So you'll only have to ship them two hundred miles in general freight."

A thought struck Cullen. "You want me to pay both ways?" he asked. "Thirty dollars heading west, thirty coming back east?"

"Naw," the boy said. "I'll mark her as an empty car returning for a customer, and give you a note of leave to use her. You won't be loading her anywhere near full."

Not quite able to believe this small piece of good fortune, Cullen sat up a little straighter. "This ain't going to get you into trouble, is it?" he asked. "Doing a favor for a man you hardly know ain't worth your job."

"Naw, we've been waiting for a chance to get a little use out of her," said Jacobs. "Because she's reserved we can't just put her in regular use. Mr. Lloyd asked for her special."

"Why's that?" asked Cullen.

"No tin plating on the roof," the boy answered. "She rides colder than a lot of our newer cars: better for candles."

"Huh." Cullen sat back again, still figuring. The buckboard could take eleven boxes of tobacco. He had one hundred seventy-six at last count, with the last of the fire-cured and the rest of the air-cured still left to pack. He had revised his earlier estimate to a hundred and eighty-two boxes in total, which meant twenty-four trips. That was forty-eight hours in travel time alone, without the time to load and unload: almost two full days just for the driving to and from Meridian. For the unloading, he would have the slaves in the rail yard at his disposal, but the loading would be done by him and his field hands. Accomplishing it in three days would be grueling, perhaps downright torturous, but he thought they could do it. They would quite simply have to do it.

"Put me down to leave on Monday," he said. "An afternoon train, in case there's any last minute arrangements I got to make in town. Do whatever you got to do to get me home on the fifth, so you don't catch trouble over this. And book me a ticket in the second-class car coming back from New Orleans to Jackson with my freight."

"What about the rest of the way?" asked Jacobs, scribbling hastily to note all this on the back of the ruined bill of lading. "And the trip down?"

"I'm paying for the boxcar, ain't I?" Cullen asked. "I'll ride in it."

For a moment the boy looked like he wanted to argue, but he thought better of it. Shrugging, he began to fill out the waybill. Cullen watched for a few minutes in silence, reading Jacobs' schoolboy's hand upside-down to watch for mistakes. There were none: the boy was green, but he was careful. After a while Cullen felt confident enough to relax his inspection a little, and he sat back in the chair. The muscles that wrapped his ribs relaxed gratefully, but his lungs stirred up to muster three shallow coughs. The young clerk seemed oblivious, and Cullen ran his tongue along his bottom lip. He was now maddeningly thirsty, and regretting that he had not taken the Negro boy's water. In an effort to distract himself he let his mind wander back over the conversation he had just had. It was jumbled with his own thoughts and hasty calculations, but out of the mess came the snippet about the cotton planters shouting over the price increase. He wondered how much of his courteous treatment was owed to the fact that he had actually been civil, rather than his prior encounter with Henry Jacobs in the jail. He hoped it was a good portion.

"Hang on," he said, not aware he had spoken aloud until he hear his own voice. Jacobs looked up expectantly, pen poised in the air on its way to the inkwell. Cullen's eyes narrowed. "Who ain't shipped their cotton?"

"Beg pardon?" Jacobs said, clearly perplexed.

"Before." Cullen gripped the arm of the chair and pulled himself up straight, feeling his torn palm smarting under the pressure. "You said most of the cotton men hollered over the fact they can't transfer their loaded cars no more, except Boyd Ainsley and the man who ain't shipped his cotton yet. Who ain't shipped?"

"I don't know," said the boy earnestly. "It's just something the other men were talking about the other day: how so-and-so ain't shipped his cotton yet, and wasn't that odd?"

"Yeah, it is," said Cullen intently. "It is odd. Ain't the price favorable this year?"

Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. The price had to be good, or at least decent, or he certainly would have heard otherwise. Nothing caused such a stir in Lauderdale County as a poor market price for its biggest crop. Doc Whitehead would have mentioned it in passing, or Boyd would have complained, or one of the slaves would have heard something on the intangible Negro telegraph that ran throughout the state.

"Folks say it's fine," answered Jacobs. "Why?"

"It don't make sense," Cullen muttered, half to himself. More clearly he pressed; "You're _sure_ they didn't say who it was?"

The young man shook his head and dipped his pen. "They probably did," he said ruefully; "but I ain't got much of a memory for names."

_*discidium*_

By the time Cullen was finished in the depot, it was almost three o'clock. The other clerks had long since returned from the eating-house, smelling strongly of whiskey and fried chicken, and they had been able to confirm the proposed arrangements. This was a weight off of Cullen's mind, for though he wanted to trust Jacobs he had to admit to the boy's obvious inexperience. Now he had a copy of the initial shipping order in his pocket with his in-laws' letters, and an ache behind his eyes that would not go away. He would be able to collect the completed papers, along with the rail ticket and manifests, on Friday. As he intended to be in and out of town almost constantly for the next three days, this was no inconvenience.

Pike and Bonnie raised their heads to greet him, one with a nicker and one with an impatient stamp of the hoof. Instead of heading towards them, however, Cullen turned right and strode down the length of the narrow porch. He stepped down into the rail yard and made straight for the sun shelter under which sat the crude trestle table and benches where the slaves took their meals. There were pails of water there, one with a rusted-out dipper and another with a dried, hollow gourd. Cullen took the latter and filled it, gulping hastily. In the chill of the day the water was still cold, and he felt it soothing his raw tonsils and opening up his painfully constricted throat. It numbed the insistent tickle for a moment, too, and he helped himself to another measure.

"There sumthin' we can be he'pin' you with, Massa?" a burly black man asked, striding over from where the others were busy loading the next set of cars. He approached with the carefully servile manner of a clever darky who had learned through his own mistreatment or that of his friends to defer unquestioningly to any white man – even one helping himself to the slaves' drinking water.

A mild denial was on Cullen's lips as he lowered the gourd, but then a thought struck him. The matter of the unshipped cotton was still niggling in the back of his mind, and though Jacobs did not know who the hold-out was the slaves most assuredly did.

"As a matter of fact, there is," Cullen said. He set down the vessel with a low clatter and reached inside his topcoat. He brought out his well-loved cigar case, and opened it, tipping it enticingly towards the man. The slave did not dare to take the implied invitation, but a glimmer of desire showed in his black eyes. "I'll be bringing in my tobacco crop starting tomorrow, me or one of my men. I'd appreciate it if you and your boys give it priority in unloading: the quicker my wagon's back on the road each time, the better."

The Negro's fingers twitched as though he was ready to snatch up the cigar. "Yassir, Massa. We's surely can do that. You mus' be Mist' Bohannon from up Hartwood way, then."

"How'd you figure that?" Cullen asked, impressed. He was known throughout the county, but the man had not recognized him by sight.

The slave shrugged. "Only one man 'round here grow 'nough tobacco to bring in more'n two loads," he said.

Cullen grunted his assent and plucked one of the cigars out of the case. He held it out, and the man snatched it, huge fingers dwarfing the slender cylinder. "I'm grateful for the consideration," he said.

"Yassir," said the slave. "Thankee, sir. If'n there ever anything else…"

"There is." Cullen took out another cigar and rolled it between his fingertips. The smooth leaf wrapper, so carefully tended to maturity without a snag or a tear, crinkled enticingly and made his mouth water. He knew better than to try to smoke it, but dear God he wanted to! The conundrum he was investigating made a welcome distraction. "I heard somebody ain't shipped their cotton. I have to wonder who."

The small, anticipatory smile on the habitually grim face faded, and the amiable gleam in the eyes vanished. "We ain't s'posed to gossip," he said. "Railroad don' like it."

"Understandably," Cullen allowed. "I was just wondering. You don't got to tell me if you ain't comfortable doing so." He flipped the cigar around with a little flourish, and slid its tip back into the case. He was careful to leave all but an inch of its length protruding. For a breath he left it there, and then stretched his index finger to push it down among its fellows.

"Wait!" the slave exclaimed, and Cullen stayed his hand. He waited. It took another ten seconds for the man to make up his mind. "It one of you' neighbors," he said. "One of them that borderin' you' land. Cain't say no more than that, Massa. More'n my hide's worth if the overseer catch me gossipin'."

Cullen nodded. That was fair, and it was almost all that he needed. "Not old Mr. Washburn?" he asked in an offhand voice. He pinched the end of the cigar as if to draw it out again.

"Nawsir, not him," the slave said. "One of them other two."

A single dry chuckle popped from Cullen's lips, and he whipped the cigar back out of the case. "Thanks," he said. "Mr. Washburn's a friend, and if he needed a hand getting his crop to market I'd want to know about it. You take care, now, and be sure your men get to my wagon quick, awright?"

"Yassir, Mist' Bohannon," the darky said, taking the second cigar and tucking both into the neck of his coarse shirt. He touched his brow as if tipping a hat and bowed gracelessly. "Yassir, I surely will."

He hurried off to rejoin the other men, and Cullen watched him go. Without shifting his gaze he closed the cigar case and tucked it into his pocket again. His mind was turning slowly, mulling over what he had just learned and trying to work it out. What had been merely an idle mystery was now an anomaly of perhaps ominous significance. Why wasn't Abel Sutcliffe selling his cotton?

_*discidium_*

It was only when he rounded the curve of the road that brought the West Willows drive into view that the thought occurred to Cullen, and when it did he felt positively ridiculous for failing to think of it sooner. He turned the horses at a speed that would have been challenging for a lesser team, and the buggy's rear left wheel was briefly airborne as it veered off onto the neatly tended way. Pike and Bonnie pranced happily, and Cullen's heart pounded with the momentary thrill of the maneuver. It made him forget his aching head, his sore chest and his growling stomach, and put a loose grin on his face as the horses drew up before the house. Pip the carriage boy came running, skidding to a halt and bowing in greeting. Cullen tossed him the reins and climbed down, tugging off his gloves as he did so.

"I won't be long: don't unhitch 'em," he said. "I just need a word with your master."

"Yassir," Pip said, clicking his heels sharply. "Yassir, Mist' Bohannon: he goin' be glad to see you. Mist' Bohannon?"

The pert, professional tone wavered into a hesitant question, and Cullen paused with his foot on the first step of the veranda to look back questioningly. "What is it?" he asked, almost gently.

"Well, sir… Mist' Bohannon… er…" Pip was twisting the lines around his hand, his feet in their well-polished shoes turning awkwardly inward.

"Just say it," Cullen sighed, feeling a sudden dread. Was the boy about to tell him that one of the Ainsley children had died? Mary had said that Charity was through the worst of it, though her worst had been very bad indeed, but…

"My girl Hettie? She work up in the nurs'ry. She say you' wife… Missus Bohannon, I mean, sir. She say she been like an angel with them childern. I jus'… I thought you should know, Mist' Bohannon, I ain't never goin' stand fo' other folks's drivers callin' her a damn Yankee no more." Pip squared his shoulders. "Ain't goin' stand fo' that from _no_ black folks no more, sir."

Cullen inclined his head, muddled emotions tripping over one another. What he felt more than anything else was a longing to be back at home with his wife, with her wise words and serene presence to soothe him. It had been a difficult day, first in what was sure to be a series of very difficult days indeed.

"I appreciate that, Pip," he said, because there really was nothing else that he _could_ say. "Much obliged."

The boy beamed, and Cullen hurried up the steps. He did not knock, but he did pause to wipe his feet before striding into the entryway and down towards the library. As he approached, he could hear his friend's voice raised in a tone reminiscent of a university lecturer.

"You see, the Etruscan people had a unique aesthetic that makes it very easy to identify their bronzework. Notice the particular pattern of the curlicues on the edge of this brooch, where…"

Cullen stepped into the room, and Boyd looked up. He was sitting on the couch with one of his outlandish ancient gewgaws in one hand. His other arm was crooked around a very bored-looking Leon, who yawned enormously as his father paused in the narrative. Boyd smiled tiredly.

"Cullen," he said. "This is a surprise."

"How's all the little ones?" Cullen asked. "Mary said Charity's not so bad now?"

"She's not very good, either," sighed Boyd. "The doctor's up there now. But Charlie's on the mend. Daisy's getting worse: we're expecting her crisis soon."

"And the baby?" Cullen ventured, dreading the answer.

Boyd's shoulder twitched noncommittally. "No change," he said. He looked down at the boy sitting next to him. "But Leon's healthy as a horse, ain't you, son?"

The boy straightened up with a little snort, and nodded vigorously. "Pappy tell a story," he announced. Then his mouth wavered uncertainly and he added; "I think."

Cullen almost chuckled. He strode over to his friend's side, and plucked the discolored brooch from his fingers. It was adorned with a crowded motif of geometric shapes and symbols that Cullen could not even pretend to appreciate. He turned it in his hand, looked at it sidelong, and then handed it to the child. "Why don't you tell him the one about the king and the wild man?" he asked. "It's more interesting."

"Gilgamesh?" Boyd asked, puzzled. "But I've told him that before: it must have been half a dozen times."

Leon's whole body perked eagerly, and he twisted to look at his father. "Gilmesh?" he asked eagerly. "Tell it, Pappy! Tell it!"

"Told you," Cullen said, dropping down into one of the armchairs and stretching his legs. His riding boots followed the flex of his ankles perfectly, supple and close-fitting. It made a welcome change from the rigid old leather of his loose-fitting work-boots. "At this age they like to hear a story over and over again, 'til you're just about sick of telling it. Before you get started, though, I've come to ask a favor."

"Anything," Boyd said, a little too earnestly. Cullen shifted, uncomfortable, and Boyd's pale cheeks flushed. "I mean, you only got to ask," he amended, more casually.

"I need to borrow a buckboard," Cullen said. "One of the big ones you use for hauling cotton bales. I've just come from the depot, and I got three business days to get my whole crop into Meridian. I'm leaving for New Orleans on Monday."

"Monday?" said Boyd. "You're leaving things to the last moment, ain't you?"

Cullen shrugged. "I weren't expecting it," he said. "Can I have the wagon?"

"Of course," Boyd said. "It'd only sit idle otherwise. You need a team as well?"

"Naw. I got two teams," said Cullen. "I can pay you for the use when my crop's sold, or we could work out something in trade."

"Absolutely not," said Boyd. His voice was firm, but his eyelids fluttered. "You can't expect me to take anything for this. Not after… I won't take anything for it. I told you. I've shipped my crop, and the wagon's sitting idle."

"All right, then," said Cullen, conceding. He understood Boyd's feelings on the matter, and under the circumstances he would not be beholden for the favor. "I'll send Nate by with the mules to collect it. Thank you."

"You know you're always welcome," Boyd said. "How's Miss Mary? I was worried for her when I brung her home."

"She's fine," Cullen said. "She's wanting to come back and look in. And Boyd, while I'm gone…"

"You don't even need to ask," the other man said. He grinned. "She all right with you going off to New Orleans without her? Verbena always begrudges me the pleasure of doing her shopping for her."

"Mary's amenable," said Cullen. He thumped the heels of his hands on the padded armrests, and then gripped them in preparation to stand. "I got to be getting home. The business in town took longer than I—"

He stopped as another man strode unannounced into the room. It was Doctor Whitehead, drying his hands on a fine linen towel. His black bag was hooked over his left elbow. "I think she'll come through," he said, looking straight for Boyd. "She's got a good strong heart, and the will to live. It won't be an easy recovery: we're going to have to be very careful of her lungs at least until spring. She's a brave little lady."

Boyd slumped deep into the sofa-cushions, his face sagging with relief. Leon rocked uncertainly against his father and then snuggled close to him, still holding the Etruscan relic in both small hands. "Thanks, Doc," sighed Boyd. He raised an unsteady hand to draw across his eyes. "I thought she was stronger today."

"She is," the doctor said gently. He came further into the room and spied the visitor. "Cullen! I just came from your place, and your wife said you were late in town."

"I was," said Cullen. "Just on my way home. You got a report on my boy, then?"

"He's doing well," Doc Whitehead said. He dropped the towel on the sideboard and came into the circle around the blazing hearth. "His lungs are still crackling, but not so badly. His fever's almost gone. He's going to make a full recovery."

Though of course Cullen had known this just from watching Gabe over the last few days, it was such a relief to actually hear it. He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nostrils, sending the hairs of his mustache rippling. "That's good news."

"As for the girl, she's got a bad fever," Doc went on. For a moment Cullen thought he had turned back to Boyd, and then realized when he did not that the physician was talking about Lottie. "The cough ain't so serious, at least not yet, but I think it best she keep indoors. Bethel will know what to do for her better than I do."

There was a question in Boyd's eyes, but Cullen ignored it. "Thanks, Doc," he huffed, hoisting himself to his feet. His head reeled at the sudden change in altitude, but he thought he managed to keep himself from swaying. "And I'm grateful for the loan of the wagon, Boyd. As I said, I'll send Nate for it."

He tried to move for the door, but in doing so he had to pass the doctor. The older man seized the sleeve of his greatcoat and drew him nearer. "I was meant to get a look at you today," he said, a singsong note of chastisement in his voice. "You can't escape me just by tarrying a little too long in Meridian."

"Not here," Cullen muttered, annoyed and also plaintive. He had not told Boyd that he was ill himself, and although the secret was out now he could still be spared the indignity of a medical examination in his friend's home.

But whether intentionally or not, Doc misunderstood his objecction. "There somewhere we can go to get a little privacy, Boyd?" he asked. "I got to check his chest."

"The front parlor's empty," said Boyd. "Ring for Matthew if you need anything."

Cullen parted his lips to protest, but Doctor Whitehead already had a hand on his shoulder. He was shepherded to the door, conscious that the only way to maintain his dignity in this situation was to go without further argument. Doc did not release his hold until he had induced Cullen to sit down on one of the slick horsehair couches in the gloomy parlor. He went to open the curtains while Cullen, defeated, removed his coats and began to unbutton his vest.

"You're feverish," Doc said as he came back towards his impromptu patient. "I can see it in your eyes."

"Might be a bit warm," Cullen hedged. "Is my boy really all right?"

"I wouldn't lie to you, Cullen," said Doc. "Not about that. He's fine: getting stronger every day. Unlike his pappy, who seems to be well on his way to his own crisis if he don't slow down and rest."

"I can't rest, Doc," Cullen protested, twitching his head to one side in a feeble attempt to fling off the hand that was gauging his temperature. It moved to his throat and felt for his pulse while Doc drew out his pocketwatch with the other. "The tobacco needs shipping and—"

"Ssh." Doc watched the tick of the seconds dial as he counted. "Heart rate's higher than normal. How bad is the cough?"

"It's fine," said Cullen. "Annoying as all hell, but nothing I can't handle."

"Miss Mary says its worse," the doctor remarked mildly; "and young Gabe tells me you been waking him up with it. He was talking about that fit the other night. How'd he put it now? _It a real bad one, doct'r_, I think it was."

He reached for his stethoscope, and Cullen scooted to the edge of the chair. Knowing there was no use in debating the matter, he untucked his shirt and undershirt and hiked them. Doc gave him the usual instructions, and he obeyed. The older man's brows furrowed more deeply with each breath.

"Just as I thought," he said. He coiled the tool and slipped it back into his bag. "Bethel tells me you're low on soothing syrup."

"I just picked up another bottle," Cullen groused. "You don't got to nag."

"That's all right, then." Doc nodded approvingly. "I want you to take a dose one hour before bed every night for the next few days. Take another if you wake up coughing. You need more sleep. If you ask me, everyone in your house could do with more sleep. Miss Mary's looking peaked."

This was of far more concern to Cullen than his own condition. "You think she's coming down with it?" he asked.

"Almost impossible if she had it as a child," the doctor said reassuringly. "I think it's just exhaustion – not just physical, but emotional, Cullen. I'd encourage her to rest as much as she can, and take care of yourself so you're not rousing her in the night any more than you have to. And try to get her to do something she enjoys: her fancy stitching, or singing, or something. She's been hard at work for too long with nothing to distract her. And she ain't the only one," he added archly.

"I'll look after her," Cullen promised, ignoring the last comment. He rammed his shirttails into the waist of his trousers unceremoniously, reluctant to rise before he absolutely had to. He started to button up his waistcoat.

"And I want you to take the rest of the week to rest," said Doc Whitehead. "You're to limit yourself to indoor chores. That's in the _house_, Cullen, not in the barn. Have your men take up a little of the slack: that's what they're there for, after all."

"Ain't no slack to be taken," muttered Cullen. "We's strung as tight as we can bear."

Doc's hand moved as if to touch his face, and then slipped down to cup his shoulder instead. The green eyes were unsettlingly tender. "You need rest, son," he said softly. "You'll wind up laid up in bed if you don't get it. I know how much work needs to get done 'round your place, and I know you've got to help do it, but you need to take a couple of days to look after your health. You can't be out plowing in the cold mud, not with those lungs."

"All right," Cullen said, a little too quickly. "No more plowing this week. I hear you. Just don't you let on to anyone that you got me under doctor's orders."

"Do you mean don't let on to Boyd?" asked the doctor, almost playfully. "Or don't let on to Bethel? 'Cause I got to warn you, son. I'm only brave enough to prevaricate with one of them."

"Boyd, mostly," Cullen grunted as he got to his feet. He stretched his arms into the sleeves of his topcoat and flung his greatcoat over his arm. "Did Mary tell you we've got a new calf?"

"She did make mention," Doc said. "That's good news."

"First we've had in a while," said Cullen. "But Gabe healing up, that's more. Thank you for looking after him, Doc. I'll be able to pay you soon."

"I told you, Cullen: we'll worry about that when everyone's well again," sighed the doctor. "I declare you got more pride than is good for you."

"That's probably true," Cullen conceded. He moved towards the door and halted. "Say, Doc? You been up to see Miz Sutcliffe lately?"

"Just this morning," Doc answered warily. His shoulders and neck had stiffened a little. "Why?"

"I just wondered," said Cullen. "Has Sutcliffe said what he got for his cotton?"

"Not to me," said Doc. "Come to think of it, that does seem a little strange. Just about everyone else 'round here turned an excellent profit: it ain't like Abel not to boast of something like that. But what's it matter to you?"

"It don't especially," Cullen said as he turned to go. "I was only wondering."


	79. Figuring

_Note: (This chapter was posted between 403 and 404)._

**Chapter Seventy-Nine: Figuring**

Nate looked up from the basket full of potatoes, wiping his muddy hands on the bit of rag tucked into his pocket. "Monday?" he echoed dubiously, looking the master over. Mister Cullen had come straight from the barn after unhitching the horses. He was still wearing his good clothes, right down to the polished, whole and well-fitted riding boots. His silver watch-chain glinted in the light now filtering through breaking clouds.

Mister Cullen nodded. "Yup. I know it's goin' be tight, but we just got to do it."

"Ain't tight; it ain't possible," said Nate. "Took us most of a week to haul las' year's crop, an' we didn' have near as much weight to move."

"I've made arrangements to borrow a second wagon from Mr. Ainsley," Mister Cullen declared. "I'll drive one team, and you can drive the other. The railroad men will help with the unloading in Meridian, and Elijah and Meg can help on this end. It'll cut our transit time in half."

"Both of us driving, who's goin' plow?" asked Nate.

"The plowing can wait," argued the master. "Another week or two won't hurt the wheat. You know how many extra acres we'd have to plant to make up for the thirty dollars I'll save by shipping on Monday?"

Nate did not, but he grunted in agreement. There was sense to the argument, and with another wagon they just might manage to move the tobacco in the time allowed, but there was another consideration. "So them rail niggers help unload," he said. "That still mean that between the four of us we's liftin' eighteen hogsheads' worth in three days. You got that kind of strength in your arms? 'Cause I got to tell you Meg an' Elijah don'."

"I know," Mister Cullen said grimly, glancing over Nate's shoulder to where Elijah was stooping to fish the potatoes out of a broken hill. "Me and you's just goin' have to do the lion's share, that's all."

"I don' like it," Nate said. "An' I don' like this business of rushing off to New Orleans b'fore the plowin' finished an' the wheat sown. In the ol' days—"

"Don't you tell me how it was in the old days!" Mister Cullen snapped, eyes flashing. Then he grimaced as if his own voice pained him and scratched at his beard with the back of his thumb. "We ain't living in the old days now, Nate: we got to do what needs to be done, and we can't stop to think 'bout the way it was. If we can do this, that's thirty dollars more profit out of the crop. I ain't in a position to sneer at that. If you got some other suggestion how I can get thirty dollars for three days' work, I'll listen."

The fine lines at the corners of his nose seemed very deeply cut, as though the worries of a decade had descended unexpectedly upon him. Weariness was coming off of him in waves, from his defiantly squared but stooping shoulders to the half-curled hands at his sides and the widely planted boots. Nate's trepidation on behalf of the others and his doubts about his own stamina were suddenly joined by a concern for the master. He did not look well at all.

"Nawsir," he said at last. "I got no other suggestion. But if this don' kill us, I's goin' be awful surprised."

"It won't kill us," muttered Mister Cullen. "It's goin' be rough, and it's goin' hurt like hell, but it won't kill us."

This was probably true, Nate thought, but he could not resist looking back at Elijah regardless. "Is we goin' drive together, or is we goin' take it in turns?" he asked.

"We'll load one wagon, and it'll set off. Then whoever ain't driving it will start loading the other with Elijah and Meg," Mister Cullen said. "First thing I got to do is get the rest of the stuff in the barn packed up and labelled, but while I do that you need to get over to West Willows with Gus and Betsy, and bring back the buckboard. Mr. Ainsley knows to expect you. Don't stay too long visiting: I want you back in an hour and a half."

Nate raised his eyebrows at this. It would not take more than thirty minutes to accomplish the errand, if he rode one mule while leading the other. With the mass of work that lay ahead of them this was no time for the master to let slaves go visiting, but in effect that was just what Mister Cullen was doing. Nate had scarcely been off the plantation since spring, apart from his nocturnal excursions over the east fence and two harrowing journeys into Meridian to fetch the doctor, and he would have savored the chance to tarry a while at West Willows – but he did not think it wise.

"Go on," Mister Cullen said, gruff and grinning at the same time. "You've done good work all year. An hour ain't so much to lose." He looked down at his fine silk waistcoat and the bright silver chain of his watch and stretched his upper lip over his teeth. "Now to get this lot off, and explain to the women. Bethel ain't going to like it."

"Don't reckon she will," agreed Nate. He crouched to lift the laden basket, tired arms straining. A bushel of potatoes only weighed half what a loaded tobacco box did. Swaying his back to bear the load, he inclined his head towards the house. "Bes' git these int' the bin," he muttered.

Mister Cullen nodded, and they set off together. They walked in silence around the garden, and when they came to the place where their paths divided, the master paused and Nate went on. He had not taken more than three steps when the white man spoke.

"And Nate?" he said. "The next time you go over to Hartwood I want you to do something for me."

Nate turned laboriously, but very quickly. "I ain't never—"

Mister Cullen held up a staying hand. "I know you sneak over there sometimes for Meg," he said bluntly. "And I think you're a stupid ass for doing it. You got to know you're running one hell of a risk, but I guess maybe you think it's worth it. That's none of my concern, and I couldn't stop it any way but putting you in chains."

The words hung heavy in the air for a moment while Nate weighed their intent. There was an implied threat there, certainly, but also a certain degree of reassurance. Mister Cullen _could_ put Nate in chains if he wanted to: it was his legal right, and none of his peers would question the morality of locking up a slave that was inclined to wander. But the fact that he did not intend to do so, nor to try to stop Nate with a command or any other means, was telling. He was in effect sanctioning the unsanctionable: he could not actually give his field hand permission to trespass on the neighbor's land, nor offer him the protection of the note of intent that might have saved Meg much agony, but he could quietly look the other way.

"What you want me to do?" Nate asked cautiously.

Mister Cullen's head jerked neatly in a gesture he had learned from Bethel. It marked their tacit agreement that the Hartwood visits could continue. "Find out from Peter whether Sutcliffe's shipped his cotton, and what he's done with it if he ain't. Anything else the slaves been whispering about it I want to know, too."

"Why wouldn' he ship his cotton?" asked Nate. "Price been good."

"How good?" Mister Cullen's eyes narrowed curiously.

"Ten cents a pound fo' the middling stuff; thirteen fo' best;" said Nate. "That what I heard, anyways."

A knowing smile tugged at the corner of Mister Cullen's mouth. "Get them potatoes put away," he said. "Then tell the others what's going on, and get over to West Willows. Tomorrow's going to be a hard day."

Then he strode off towards the house, whipping off his stock as he went and starting on the buttons of his vest. Nate watched him for a moment, unsure quite what he was thinking, and then trudged on towards the small hatch that covered the chute to the potato bin. The tubers, still smeared with mud that would be impossible to remove until it dried completely, tumbled down into the darkness. Nate listened to the rumble of their passage, lost in indistinct speculation, and then closed the door and latched it. Balancing the empty basket on his hip, he shambled back to the potato field.

"What all that 'bout?" asked Elijah as he approached. He had finished two hills in Nate's absence, and was now cracking open a third.

"We's shipping the tobacco on Monday." Nate set the basket down beside the almost-full one.

"You means nex' Monday," said Elijah. "December."

Nate shook his head. "I means four days," he said. "We gots to get all the tobacco into Meridian b'fore close of business Sat'day."

Elijah whistled grimly. "Mist' Cullen really think we can do that?" he asked. "Or the bad luck fine'ly turned his head?"

"He think we can, awright," said Nate. "Or leastways that what he say. From the look he got in his eyes, he means it, too. He sendin' me over West Willows way fo' a wagon."

"That might make the difference," Elijah allowed. "But all the same…"

Nate shrugged his shoulders. "Says he can save thirty dollars. Ain't in no position to turn that down. Guess he want you to keep on workin' here fo' now: ain't said no different."

Elijah nodded wordlessly and turned back to his work. Nate watched for a moment, waiting for some further protest. Surely the one-time foreman had to realize how brutally taxing the work would be. Surely he had to know that it would prove too much for his old bones, to say nothing of Meg. Surely he would declare that he'd speak to the master and try to talk him around. But Elijah did not speak, and finally Nate turned away.

He found Meg, as he had expected, in the cowshed. She was perched on a pile of hay with one foot tucked up under her, darning a stocking while she watched the calf feed. The tiny, spindly little creature had found its legs a couple of hours before dawn, and started to feed immediately. By the time the men had been abroad for the morning chores, the calf was looking wobbly but determined to survive. Now, not ten hours later, she was standing sturdily with her skinny legs splayed wide, head canted to the left while she nursed. Flora had her nose in the feed trough, ruminating contentedly.

"She lookin' fine," Nate said, nodding at the calf. "You ain't goin' need to stay out here tonight."

"We'll see," Meg sang softly, weaving her thick needle through the threads of the stocking. "I ain't goin' let this one slip 'way."

"No, but you needs you' sleep, an' Lottie needs her ma," said Nate. "She don' wan' spend 'nother night bunkin' in with the men."

"I's grateful to you an' Elijah fo' seein' to her las' night," said Meg with a sweet smile. "She didn' ought to have gone wand'rin' that hour of the night."

"Weren't no trouble," Nate mumbled, suddenly abashed. Meg's smiles always seemed to have that effect, no matter how many years passed. He should have been ashamed of such a thought, having only just finished talking to the master about her husband, but somehow he was not. "We's shippin' the tobacco on Monday. Got to get the crop to the railhead by Sat'day night."

The sock and the wooden egg slipped from Meg's fingers, and she scrambled to catch them before they rolled off her knee and into the hay. "That madness," she breathed.

Nate shrugged his shoulder. She was right. "I's goin' to fetch one of the Ainsley wagons. That'll save us some time, makin' two trips at once't."

"All the same…" Meg shook her head tiredly.

"Listen, if you don' think you's up to all that liftin' you gots to say somethin' to the massa," Nate said earnestly. "Don' none of us need you rup… hurtin' youself." He had about to say _rupturin' one of them scars_, but caught himself just in time. He remembered what had happened the last time he had made an offhand comment about Meg's back and he did not want to distress her.

She raised her eyes and thrust out her jaw, making her lower lip seem even more full and enticing. Nate forced himself to look away, watching the calf instead.

"I's strong enough to do my share," Meg said firmly. "Don' you go sayin' otherwise, not to Mist' Cullen or anyone else.

"Them boxes is over a hunnerd pounds," he mumbled.

"An' we carry 'em b'tween two of us," said Meg. "You gots no call to fuss over me." She took another stitch, wrathfully, and then followed his gaze. Her expression softened as she looked at the calf. "Have the massa say what he wan' name her?"

"Don' think he's even thought 'bout it," Nate replied, glad of the turn in the conversation. "Didn' occur to me."

"She ought be named b'fore she a day old," said Meg. "Bad luck to have a calf 'thout a name."

"Seems to me you should be the one to name her." Nate scuffed the sole of his boot against the straw, feeling the unpleasant squelch of the mud that had leaked in to fill it. The twine he had used to wrap the vamp kept the leather from separating entirely, but it did nothing to keep out the damp. "You's the one been carin' fo' her. What you think she ought be called?"

Meg tilted her head charmingly to the side, and Nate cleared his throat. He was beginning to feel uncomfortably familiar sensations rising, and it irked him. He ought to be past all of that by now, but after watching her cope so calmly with the previous night's crisis and sitting up almost until daybreak to spare her worry over Lottie, he found that his desire still burned. She was clever, and beautiful, and brave. She was everything a man could hope for.

"I think I'd call her Mercy," Meg said at last. "'Cause it the mercy of the Lord that let her live when her sister born dead, an' it His mercy on us that we got her. Mebbe this right here be our luck changin', an' wouldn' that be a mercy, too?"

"S'pose it would," mumbled Nate. Even after all that had happened, Meg was still able to see the good in the world, and to find hope in their situation. He didn't know who she managed it, but he admired her for it. He shifted awkwardly, uncomfortable in her presence. "I bes' git on," he said. "Jus' thought you'd wan' know what happ'nin'."

"Thankee," said Meg with a little smile. After a moment's hesitation she added; "Don' you worry none, Nate. We's goin' manage somehow: Mist' Cullen goin' see to that."

Nate grunted. "What I's 'fraid of is _how_ he goin' see to it," he muttered as he slipped out of the cowshed again.

_*discidium*_

Gabe was perched on an overturned flour-barrel, feet tucked up close to his bottom so that his knees stuck out to either side. He was bundled warmly in his new blue coat that made him feel like one of his tin soldiers, with a knitted cap on his head and a muffler wound around his throat. Both the cap and the muffler were too large, so that he was constantly pushing up the one or tugging down the other to keep his face uncovered. He knew better than to try to take them off. If he did, Bethel would scold him, wrap him up again, and march him back into the kitchen to sit with Lottie. Lottie wasn't feeling well again today, so she had stayed up there in the warmth to rest. Gabe didn't want to go and sit with her in the boring old kitchen: it was much more interesting down here in the cellar.

Gabe liked the cellar. It was where they kept the flour and the potatoes and all the good things to eat that Mama and Bethel had put up as pickles or preserves in the summertime. There were shelves full of crockery, their waxed linen covers sealed with string and marked with Mama's neat notations. Those pots and jars and cruets held jam, and sweet preserves, and savory preserves: strawberries and blackberries and peaches and tomatoes all saved for winter. There were pickled beets and okra and cucumbers and watermelon rinds, and pickled beans and radishes and even little onions. The bigger onions hung in braids from the rafters, along with garlic and dried-out peppers. The lower shelves held baskets of walnuts and hazelnuts and hickory nuts. There were bins full of carrots and turnips and cabbage, and the big bin of potatoes that gave off a warm, earthy smell. Most of the yams were now down here, too, stored in big burlap sacks almost as tall as Lottie. There was corn as well: roasting ears in bushel baskets, and dried popping corn in an old pear-crate like the one Gabe sat on at mealtimes, and corn in brine or syrup for cooking. Soon, when there was time to shuck the corn in the barn, there would be sacks of dried kernels, too, ready for Bethel to add to soups or succotash. All of these good things had been grown on Pappy's land, and picked by Mama and Bethel and Lottie from the garden, or dug up by the field hands. Some of it Gabe had helped to lay by: he had shelled his own small share of peas, and picked the tops off of countless strawberries. Most importantly, he had always been a good boy and minded Bethel and Mama while they were working, so that they could go about the all-important business of preserving summer's bounty to feed them until next year.

Now Mama and Bethel were taking stock of the other things: the things they could not grow on their own. The process had begun upstairs in the pantry, with the contents of the pepper-pot and the spice drawers, but had moved down here as soon as the Thursday morning churning was over. Now Bethel was inspecting various boxes, bins, barrels and bottles while Mama wrote down what she said on a scrap of paper from Pappy's desk. Gabe watched, bored but unwilling to admit it. Mama and Bethel were busy doing grown-lady things, and it was supposed to be _much_ more interesting than sitting on the kitchen floor and playing soldiers with a drowsy Lottie.

"Bes' say six gallon white vinegar," said Bethel; "an' two dark. Be sure you writes down ten kegs salt, too, Missus: I don' aim to be runnin' short 'gain nex' August."

Mama nodded, and added these to her paper. Pappy had come in yesterday afternoon, and even before Bethel had time to scold him about missing his dinner he had told them that he was going to New Orleans on Monday, and they had to get their list together by then. Mama had tried to protest, and Bethel had said something about it being impossible to get the tobacco into town in three days, but Pappy had been firm. He was going to New Orleans on Monday, and that was his last word on the matter.

Gabe didn't think he liked that idea. He had been told that Pappy would one day take the tobacco down south to be sold, and he remembered vaguely his father's absence the year before. But he had imagined it to be a _very_ long time off: a week or two at least! But today was Thursday, which Mama said meant it was only four more nights until Pappy would leave. Gabe had wanted to ask what would happen when Pappy was gone: who would sleep with him at night, who would keep the cough away, who would take care of Pappy when_ he_ got to coughing, if Gabe and Mama and Bethel were all staying behind. But he had not quite dared. The grown folks were asking each other too many worried questions already. Bethel wanted to know how Pappy thought he was going to get eighteen hogsheads of tobacco into the depot before Sunday. Mama wanted to know what Pappy had promised the bank in exchange for the loan he had taken. Pappy wanted to know whether Mama thought she and Bethel could make a full inventory in time. The questions had gone 'round and 'round in a circle for a long time yesterday.

"Six barrels sugar: four white, two bes' brown," said Bethel. "Three barrels sorghum, an' a gallon jug of good molasses."

"Do we really need molasses?" Mama asked. "Surely we could do without. It's so expensive."

"I knows it 'spensive," said Bethel stoutly, thrusting out her chin. Gabe's lips pursed warily. Mama shouldn't have argued with what Bethel said! "That why I say _one_ jug. I cain't do my Christmas bakin' without it, an' with the year this fam'ly's had I aim to do my Christmas bakin'! 'Sides, molasses 'n beans be a treat we's done without too long."

Mama wrote this down, making neat little markings with the pencil-stub. She was turned now so that Gabe could see part of the paper in her hand, and he tried to study it. The circles and sticks made very little sense to him, but he was curious. Mama had said he was getting to be old enough to start learning his letters, and that's what those were: letters. He thought maybe some of them were numbers, too. He knew his numbers for counting, but not for writing. Silently he counted the hanks of onions hanging over his head. _One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, lee-leven, twelve!_

He gasped and clapped his hands over his mouth. He had counted higher than _lee-leven_! That had never happened before! The bigger numbers always got jumbled up in his mind. He bounced on his bottom, and the barrel resounded beneath him, hollow and drum-like. Mama looked over her shoulder and smiled.

"Are you ready to go up to the kitchen, lovey?" she asked. "I did tell you it would be boring down here."

"Ain't borin'!" Gabe protested reflexively. Then he pointed at the onions. "I's countin'! One, two, t'ree, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, lee-leven, _twelve_!"

He waited breathlessly for Mama to see his triumph, but she only smiled. "That's a good start, dear," she said. "There are a lot of onions to count."

"No, no!" said Gabe. "Lee-leven, _twelve_, Mama! _Twelve! _Dat what come next!"

Now she understood, and her smile grew brighter. "Very good!" she declared, her buttoned shoes padding softly against the packed dirt floor as she came to put her hands on his shoulders. She gripped his arms with her last three fingers, for the thumb and forefinger of one hand held the paper, and the others held the pencil. She bent and kissed him on the tip of his nose, inadvertently causing to too-large cap to flop down over his eyes. "_Twelve_ comes after _eleven_: very good!"

"I count dem onions," Gabe explained proudly, pushing the hat back up onto his forehead where it belonged. "We gots many an' lots of dem."

"Now that you can count to twelve, you can count a whole dozen!" Mama applauded. "Next time Bethel makes biscuits, you must be sure to count them for her."

Gabe smacked his lips. He loved biscuits. He loved them fresh and hot with butter melting on the fluffy white insides, or cold with jam spread across their bubbly golden tops. They hadn't had biscuits in an awful long time. "When Bet'l goin' do dat?" he asked. Then, to ensure an answer, he called out; "Bet'l? When you goin' make biscuits 'gain?"

"When you' pappy come home from N'Orleans," said Bethel. "He gots to bring me flour, an' then I kin make all the biscuits a li'l boy kin eat."

"When Pappy come home," Gabe echoed, digesting this. If Pappy coming home meant there would be biscuits again, maybe it wasn't such a dreadful thing that he was going away. "What else he goin' bring?"

"Cornmeal," Bethel said with relish. She turned to look at the place where the meal barrels had stood. There were circles scraped in the earthen floor to mark where they had been, before the cornmeal ran out and the barrels were taken away. "Six barrels cornmeal. That a _half_ dozen, Mist' Gabe. Kin you count to six?"

"Aw, Bet'l, dat _easy!_" Gabe declared. Flipping out one finger after another he recited; "One, two, t'ree, four, five, six!"

"Very good!" Mama applauded. She was writing again. "Six and six are twelve."

"Six an' six…" Gabe repeated. He liked the sound of it, so he said it again. "Six an' six. Six an' six. Six an' six an' six an' six."

"No, that's sixty," murmured Mama, almost to herself. She was looking at one of the high shelves near the rafters. "Should we buy more saltpeter? We still have an unopened box."

"Ain't made the sausage yet, that why," said Bethel. "With them hogs as fat as they be this year, we's goin' need at leas' two more fo' butcherin' time, an' another fo' nex' summer's pickles."

"Three boxes saltpeter…" Mama wrote it down.

"Bes' say five," said Bethel. "If there goin' be fightin', the price boun' to go up."

Mama whirled on her, skirts swishing. "What makes you think there's going to be fighting?" she asked breathlessly. Gabe's own eyes widened. Who was going to fight, and why? Were the bad men going to come back and hurt Meg, and take Pappy away again? Would Pappy hit them this time?

Bethel shrugged her shoulders. "Guess he ain' said nuthin' to you 'bout it, but Mist' Cullen done tol' me that Mist' Secrest from Scooba been tryin' to git him to join up in some sort of militia comp'ny."

"A militia company?" The paper fluttered in Mama's hand, and she pinched it more tightly. "What kind of militia?"

"State militia, he say." Bethel thrust out her chin and shook her head once, firmly. "Don' know what he got hisself thinkin', tryin' to join up in the nex' county when all he got in the world right here. An' I don' like that he ain't speaked to you 'bout it. Thing like that, a man ought tell his wife. Thought I raised that boy better'n that."

"You raise me good, Bet'l," Gabe put in hopefully. He didn't understand what they were talking about, but the intensity in their eyes and the gravity in their voices was beginning to be almost frightening.

All at once Bethel was at his side, hugging him to her with an arm that curled around to cup his head. She bent to kiss his fresh-clipped hair. "That so, honey-lamb," she said fondly. "You ain't goin' keep setch things from you' wife, is you?"

"Don' got no wife," said Gabe, giggling. He was _much_ too little to have a wife! Only old, growed-up people got married. "I's still jus' a li'l boy!"

"Perhaps he isn't keeping it from me," Mama said. "After all, there has been so much to think of lately, with the whooping cough and the plowing and now the tobacco again… Perhaps," she added, in a voice too quiet to be truly hopeful; "he's decided not to do it."

"Hmph." Bethel drew back from Gabe, giving him one last small squeeze as she went. She dusted her hands on her apron, and thumped one knuckle against the barrel on which he was perched. "Four barrels flour," she said. "An' four bushel sacks hominy."

Mama watched her for a moment, unanswered questions in her eyes, and then went back to work.

_*discidium*_

"…Two, three, _heave_!" Cullen counted, the last word fading into a grunt of effort as he and Elijah straightened their legs. Waddling awkwardly backwards to the door of the barn, Cullen shifted into an ungainly crab-walk to cover the four feet to the back of the wagon. Here they hoisted the tobacco box a few inches higher, and slid it onto the bed. The green boards squealed against the weathered ones as they shoved as far as their arms would reach. Then Meg, waiting in the wagon-bed, squatted to push the box into place beside the last one.

This was the seventh and last load of the day. As soon as the morning chores had ended, the loading had begun. But they had discovered almost at once that it was difficult and dangerous to carry the boxes one after another. Nate and Cullen, anxious to fill the borrowed wagon and start on the hauling, had almost dropped their third box. A hundred and ten pounds was not so much to hoist briefly, or even to carry across one's shoulders, but to grip it with fingers bent around a rough-cut plank and bear it half the length of the barn before lifting it up into the wagon was another matter. Last year they had tried to use work-gloves to spare their hands, but this had compromised an already tenuous grip. Whatever it cost them, they had to keep from dropping the boxes. The tobacco had to be handled gently, lest the leaves should crumble and lose their worth.

Cullen stepped back from the wagon, shoulders and upper arms burning dully. He looked down at his hands. Three of the plowing blisters were bleeding again, and there was a fresh splinter in the meat of his palm. He dug it out with his teeth, spitting it into the dirt. Elijah was leaning against the rear wheel of the buckboard, slumped and obviously exhausted. On Cullen's loads he had helped to lift nineteen boxes – better than two thousand pounds, on top of whatever he had helped Nate to carry. He was too old for this work, but it was difficult to argue with the time he was saving them.

"My turn," Meg said, hopping down from the wagon. "I ain't hardly done my share." She looked over her shoulder at the seven boxes already loaded. "Which ones is these, Mist' Cullen?"

He looked up blearily, blinking until his vision cleared enough to read the abbreviations scrawled in grease pencil on the side of the crates. "Seconds from the top two fields," he said. "The hail-damaged stuff."

"What you think we's goin' git for it?" Meg asked. Her dark eyes fixed upon him were hopeful but wary.

Cullen made the preliminary gesture towards a shrug, but a twinge deep in the joint of his shoulder stopped him. He gave a small shake of his head instead. "No telling," he said flatly. "Might be five cents, might be three. Depends on the market."

Meg's gaze flashed briefly towards Elijah, then back to her master. "But you cain't feed the family on three cents a poun'," she breathed.

Cullen's brows arced downward. Where had she heard that? It was true, but it certainly was not something he had ever said within earshot of the slaves. Darkies knew a hell of a lot more than most white folks gave them credit for. "It ain't all going to fetch the same price, Meg," he said, hoping that he sounded at least vaguely reassuring. "The leaves from further west in the middle field are better, and the seconds from the bottom field, too. Some of the prime stuff is top-quality. And we got more of everything than I hoped."

The final count had come to one hundred eighty-six crates. It was more than Cullen had expected even yesterday: the tobacco that had been curing slowly in the open air at the top of the shed had weighed much heavier than anticipated. He did not know whether this incongruity was a byproduct of his inexperience or owing to some other factor, and he did not care. The air-cured primings represented the very best of the crop: the flavor-rich middle leaves so prized for high-quality cigars. He had two full hogsheads' worth, and another three boxes on top of that. Left over was about another fifteen pounds that he would roll into cigars – for himself, for Boyd, and for gifts if the Bohannons happened to be invited to any Christmas parties. He would keep the odd weight in the lesser-quality stuff, too: the tobacco merchants were not interested in anything less than a round hundred pounds.

"Nate say if we didn' git twenty hogsheads you's goin' have trouble breakin' even," Meg ventured. Her lip was pressed beneath her two front teeth, and their tips glittered in the afternoon sun. "We on'y gots eighteen."

"Eighteen and three-fifths," Cullen corrected. He sighed and scratched at the loose tag of skin where the splinter had been. "Don't you worry, Meg. Getting a good price is my lookout, not yours. Yours is helping me get the last couple of boxes on the buckboard so's I can get back here before suppertime."

He scuffed his work-boot against the layer of dust drying over the drive, and strode off into the shade of the stable. It had been a clement day, blessedly dry. He did not like to think what he would have done if it had been raining. Put the bents on the wagon and pegged a tarp over it, he supposed. As the tobacco could not be jostled, so it had to be kept dry. Thankfully there was no worry on the other end: he had overseen the rail Negroes carrying the boxes straight into reliable old Henrietta the boxcar. His crop would be locked securely overnight, ready to be joined by the rest tomorrow.

Meg had followed him, and they now took up positions on opposite sides of the next stack of boxes. Together they lifted the top crate down, and the ungainly shuffling for the door continued. Pike had come wandering into the stable, and was standing curiously just behind the trough. As Meg and Cullen passed, the horse nickered softly.

"Attaboy," Cullen muttered, not daring to turn his head. He made the dangerous shift in direction, feeling his fingers slip a little, and ground his molars together. Meg leaned further into the weight and drew a deep breath as he counted down to the final lift. Cullen's elbows quivered as he hoisted, and he found that he was following Meg's lead instead of guiding her as the edge of the box found the bed of the wagon. The cross-boards kept their fingers from being mashed between the two surfaces as they let go of one side and pushed on the other. Then, breathless though she was, Meg climbed back up into the wagon to drag the box back towards the others.

"Thanks," Cullen sighed, leaning against the side of the buckboard. Cold perspiration was trickling into his eyes, and he strained his arm to blot them with his sleeve. Elijah was now sitting on one of the empty crates that had been brought in from the tobacco barn, bent low over his knees. Meg alighted from the wagon and went to bring the old man a dipper full of water.

Before Cullen could find the courage to straighten up again and suggest they go after the last box and finish this damned chore for the day, he heard the sound of feet upon the drive. Turning wearily, he was surprised to see Mary approaching. Her blue and gray tartan skirts were held out elegantly by her small travel hoop, and she had her silk faille bonnet on her head. She was slipping her left hand into one of her white gloves.

"Oh, good!" she said as she approached. "I was afraid I might have been too late. Are you almost ready to depart?"

"Just about," Cullen said, perplexed. Here was his wife at four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, dressed for calling with – so far as he was aware – nowhere to go. Mary had reached him now, and Meg was standing courteously erect with her hands behind her back. Elijah was in the process of lifting himself back onto his feet.

"Please don't get up," Mary said hurriedly, and the old foreman sank back. "I want to call on Verbena and see how the children are faring," she explained. "I thought I might ride with you as far as their drive."

"Sure," Cullen stammered, still not quite understanding. He looked at the buckboard with its heavy load and the two tired mules in the traces. If he took Mary along, it was an ironclad excuse not to haul a ninth box. It would not cost them an extra trip anyhow; they had enough leeway for that. "It ain't going to be a very gentle ride."

"Nor a very long one," Mary said cheerfully. "You can stop by the house to collect me on your way home. I don't think I shall be needed, precisely, but I would like to look in."

"Doc said Charity was doing better," Cullen agreed. He had not mentioned to Mary – or to Bethel – what else the doctor had said. His cough wasn't so bad today anyway, he told himself. Sure, he had had two fits loading this last wagonful, and half a dozen between the other three… and one in the rail-yard that morning, which had been awkward and embarrassing. But all the rest of the time he had been solid on his feet or steady on the wagon-seat. He was holding up fine.

He reached to close the tail of the wagon, pegging it on the off side and then moving to the other. Meg looked at him questioningly. "Go on and see if you can't get in another peck of potatoes before suppertime," he instructed. "Don't push too hard, but try."

"Yes, Massa," Meg said quietly. She offered her hand to Elijah and took the dipper as she stood up. "Does you wan' me to fetch you a bottle of drinkin' water fo' the ride?"

This would have been wise, and Cullen should have thought of it before, for himself as well as for Nate. But he shook his head. "Waste of time to do it now," he said. "I'll take the bucket." Meg handed him the dipper, and he took the pail from where it stood in the shadow of the barn. He went around to the front of the wagon and set it under the seat, bracing it carefully so it would not slide around or spill. Then he offered Mary his hand.

She hesitated for the tiniest instant, and he grimaced as he saw her white gloves. Then with a brave little smile she put her hand upon his, grabbed the edge of the seat, and planted one shoe on a horizontal spoke of the wheel. Dainty but determined, she rose up. Cullen hardly even had to exert the muscles of his arm: Mary moved under her own power. She gathered her broad skirts demurely, sitting gracefully and smoothing them as if she were seated in the upholstered coach of her father's walnut-inlaid carriage in New York City instead of in an unwieldy old cotton wagon in a Mississippi farmyard. Cullen rounded in front of Snort and Shadow, and climbed up beside her. He took care not to sit against her carefully-pressed skirts: though cleaner than usual, with neither mud nor tobacco-juice plastered over him, he was dusty from the road and the barn, and he did not want to soil her.

The two slaves had closed the stable's outer door and Elijah was well on his way towards the potato-fields behind the house, but Meg lingered, watching master and mistress almost expectantly. Mary leaned forward a little to peer around Cullen, smiling at the black woman.

"Lottie's resting," she said. "She had a little coughing fit, but not a very bad one. Her fever's down a little this afternoon."

Meg smiled and bobbed a curtsey. "Yass'm, thankee," she said. "I knows she in good hands with Bethel. An' with youself, Missus, meanin' no disrespec'."

"Perhaps you could make it half a peck of potatoes, and take the time to sit with her before supper," Mary suggested in a sweet voice that her Yankee servants had always understood to mean a firm command.

Meg's eyes flicked questioningly to Cullen, who nodded. "You do as my wife says, now," he told her. "Womenfolk mind the mistress first: you ought to know that."

Her color deepened, and Meg dipped again. "Yassir, yass'm, y'all have a safe drive, now. Watch out fo' them ruts."

Cullen clicked his tongue, and the mules started reluctantly into a walk. He had not told Meg about the ruts, either: that had assuredly come from Nate. He waited until the team pulled out onto the front drive before looking at Mary.

"She's likely been worrying all day, but she didn't say a word," Cullen sighed. "Don't know why I didn't think of that."

"You're not a mother," Mary said simply. She was watching the road, and though her expression was one of mild tranquility Cullen could not help but think there was something more going on in her mind.

"Something wrong?" he asked. "Have we gone and run out of something else?"

"No," said Mary. "Bethel and I took an inventory of the cellar and the smokehouse. I'll have to make up the list of dry goods tomorrow, after she's spoken to Meg. We'll be ready with plenty of time to spare."

"So will we," Cullen said hastily, responding to the unspoken query in his voice. The muscles of his arms were throbbing above and below his elbows, and he could have sworn he could feel them straining against the weight of a tobacco box right now, even though they were resting on his thighs as his hands held the loose reins.

Mary did not argue or even look askance, bless her. She smiled fondly towards him. "Gabe counted to twelve today," she said. "He's growing up."

"He didn't seem too happy to hear I'm going," Cullen said. Hesitantly he added; "He's still been sleeping on my chest."

"Yes, but only for security," Mary said. "His cough isn't nearly as bad as it was: he can lie down quite comfortably now. I might take him into our bed, if Nate can find the time to clean the flue."

"I'll see he does," he promised. "Going to see the glazier about panes for the front bedroom window too, as soon as I'm back in town. Got to get the house sealed up snug for winter."

"Winter." Mary laughed, and the sound was almost cynical. The tone was almost alien, and certainly shocking.

"What?" Cullen asked, turning to her.

Mary grinned playfully and squeezed the ropey mass of his forearm. Her grip eased the ache, but only for the few seconds it lingered. "Your winter," she said. "We'll be lucky to see half a dozen afternoons with snow on the ground, but you still talk as if it's a great black bear coming to hunt us down."

"Weather ain't the only challenge of getting through it," Cullen said. It was a relief to voice his doubts, even obliquely. So much was riding on the southward journey. So much was riding on his ability to carry out fruitful and favorable negotiations. It made him weary just thinking about it.

"I know," Mary said softly. They were on the main road now, winding down towards the West Willows lands. The wagon struck one of the deep ruts that had been carved into the mud and dried in hard, high ridges. The load jostled and the springs squeaked. Cullen felt the jolt of the hard seat right up his spine, but Mary only swayed serenely and settled her gloved hand back in her lap. Again her eyes fixed upon the road ahead.

"There something else you want to say to me?" Cullen asked. He could not quite escape the feeling that something was lying unsaid between them. It was a sensation he had experienced many times in the past year, sometimes through his silence and sometimes through hers.

For a moment Mary said nothing. Then her lips parted in a silent sigh and she shook her head. "Not now," she said. "Perhaps on the way home again."

Disquieted but too tired to press the matter, Cullen urged the mules on to a heavy trot.


	80. Pained Discourse

_Note: Once again, a horror not found in fiction. Nell's story was taken from the Congressional records of post-Reconstruction hearings in which former slaves testified about their experiences under the untenable horror of slavery. Only the gender of the infant has been changed. (This chapter was posted between 404 and 405)._

**Chapter Eighty: Pained Discourse**

This time, Matthew showed her up to the nursery himself. Whether this was merely because there was no gentleman visitor to attend she could not be certain, but she did notice that he addressed her now as "Missus Mary" instead of "Missus Bohannon". She gave him her bonnet and gloves, and thanked him prettily when he held open the door of the playroom. He bowed neatly and withdrew, clearly unwilling to trespass upon Mammy's domain. The anteroom was tidy now: the toys returned to their box, the overturned doll now sitting comfortably on a pint-sized rocking chair in one corner, and the floor freshly swept. It once more had the look of a house in some semblance of order.

The nursery air was stagnant with the smells of the sickroom: camphor liniment and bitter medicine, children's salty perspiration, and persistent worry. As Mary entered the room, a shrill _whoop_ cut the air. Her eyes riveted upon the source almost before her conscious mind could make sense of the sound. Lost in a tangle of bedclothes and anxious women, little Daisy was coughing.

There was nothing Mary could do to help her, and any attempt would have only added to the chaos. Verbena was kneeling next to the small bed, grasping Daisy's shoulders with delicate hands and imploring her to breathe. Ester had the little girl in her lap, holding her upright. The spit-rag was in Hettie's charge, and Mammy hovered over all like a dark bird of prey guarding her eaglet. Daisy was not suffering for want of attention, however she might struggle for air, and so Mary looked to see where else she might be of use.

Meelia, the senior nursemaid, was in the chair by Charity's bed. Baby Lucy was asleep on the soft, capable shoulder, and the hand that rested on her tiny back patted with practiced rhythm. The bigger girl was sleeping, curled on her side. The flush of fever was high in her wan cheeks, but her hair was damp with perspiration and her face was peaceful as she slept. She looked very thin and fragile among the handsome bedclothes, but the pall of death was gone from her corner of the room.

Sitting up in his own bed and scowling at the commotion surrounding his younger sister was Charlie. He had his knees drawn up to his chest, and his nightshirt tugged down over them. His arms were crossed around his legs, and he looked downright miserable. His pale hair was tousled and matted, and his eyes smoldering with discontent instead of fever. Mary picked up the hairbrush from the changing cupboard, and moved towards the boy.

"Good afternoon," she said, drawing up the chair that stood between his disordered bed and the neatly-made one belonging to Leon. "Do you remember me?"

"Course I do," Charlie said crossly. "You's Gabe's mama." A tiny flicker of hope ignited in his eyes, and he asked; "Did Gabe come with you?"

"Not this time," Mary said, earnestly regretful. She remembered now that she had intended to bring her son with her the next time she came calling. In her haste to catch Cullen as he left with the last wagonload of the afternoon, it had slipped her mind entirely. She sat down and smoothed her skirts, then reached to disentangle the knot of sheets and blankets rammed down against the foot of the bed. "You look like you're feeling much better today."

Charlie grunted noncommittally. "Guesso," he muttered. "They say I ain't better 'nough to go down and play with Leon. Mammy says I gots to stay in bed." He glared blackly towards the elderly woman, who was now joining in Verbena's worried refrain. Then Daisy whooped again, and Charlie cringed. "It's gettin' worse," he said.

Mary glanced towards the girl, but she was hardly visible amid the crowd of bodies. She smiled for Charlie instead. "Why don't I brush that hair?" she asked. "You'll feel better if it's tidy."

Charlie gave her a dubious look, but he was not in the habit of arguing with his elders. He shrugged resignedly and approached her on his knees, turning around and flopping back onto the mattress when he came within reach. He hunched up his shoulders and hunkered down his head in the unmistakable posture of a boy whose personal hygiene had lately been seen to by a brusque nursery attendant in a hurry to rake the brush through his tangles as quickly as possible. In times of sickness, gentle combing fell to the wayside.

Mary found herself smiling a little as she lifted the heavy silver brush and laid it gently against Charlie's crown. The stiff bristles settled in, and she took a cautious stroke. The brush snagged almost at once, but because she was expecting it she was able to stay her hand before it tugged on the little boy's scalp. Moving a little further down the knot, she began again.

"Did you sleep well last night?" she asked.

"No," Charlie said sourly. "Them girls kept coughing. Always one or t'other of 'em, coughing and coughing. When Charity coughs, it sounds all bubbly. And every time _Baby_ coughs, she gets to crying and won't stop." He drew his knees up to his chest and laid his chin upon them. Mary stretched her reach to accommodate him. "I wish they'd stop coughing."

There was irritation in his voice, but also a tremulous undertone that Mary recognized as fear. The coughing annoyed him not only because he was tired and ill himself, but because he was afraid for his sisters. Charity had drawn very near the veil of death before being snatched back out of the clutches of secondary pneumonia. Now Daisy was obviously nearing her crisis. On the far side of the room, Lucy grizzled unhappily and let out two coughs that shook her small body. Meelia shifted her arms to comfort the infant, and Mary turned her focus back to the child before her. She moved the brush again, and Charlie stiffened in anticipation. He was still expecting her to attack his head ruthlessly.

"We need to try to cheer you up, that's what we need to do," she said bracingly. "What do you suppose might brighten your day?"

"If I could go out and play with Leon," said Charlie grimly. "Uncle Jake's burnin' the leaves today, 'cause the piles is gettin' big. He said I could help this year, but Mammy won't let me go out!"

"You hush now, Mist' Charlie!" Mammy snapped, breaking away from Daisy to wag a chastising finger at the child. "You ain't well 'nough to be out in that smoke, an' you knows it!" Then with a decisive thrust of her chin, she turned back to the coughing child.

"See?" Charlie sighed. "Mammy won't let me do nuthin'."

"She's right about the smoke," Mary said. "Gabe can't even sit in the parlor, because our fireplace is too smoky. He needs to be in the kitchen or the nursery where there's a stove with a good draft."

"He must be bored, too," sighed Charlie. He did not flinch this time when Mary moved the brush, and his shoulders were losing some of their wary tension.

"Is there something else you'd like to do, apart from helping Uncle Jake burn the leaves?" she asked.

"I could go get some pecans," Charlie said hopefully. Then he scowled. "But I ain't 'llowed out of the house. Ain't even 'llowed to go downstairs 'til I'm well again. I don't even feel sick, apart from the cough."

Mary might have found this remark comical, save that she had begun to notice the same thing about Gabe. Except when he was actually in the throes of a fit, and for perhaps the quarter of an hour immediately following, he was beginning to seem almost perfectly healthy again. His energy was not what it ought to be, but he was happy and engaged and eager to get about his daily business. He had not yet chafed too badly against the necessity of remaining indoors, but only because he had his mother and Bethel and Lottie to entertain him. Poor Charlie, restricted to the nursery where his father was not encouraged to trespass, wanted for such attention while the nursemaids were busy with his much sicker siblings.

"I'm sure we could have someone bring up pecans for you," said Mary.

"Ain't the same," said Charlie. "Half the fun's hunting 'em out. That and tossing 'em at Leon." He flushed as he realized what he had said. "Not to be mean, you know, ma'am. Just… for fun."

"I'm sure," Mary said with a wry little smile. She had missed her own brothers' days of early rivalry, but Jeremiah's stories of Samuel's good-natured persecutions had given her some sense of an older boy's responsibility to needle the younger. She used her fingers to tease out one particularly unpleasant knot, and then scratched Charlie's scalp lightly. He leaned into the refreshing touch, and she rubbed a little more firmly. "Why doesn't Leon come up to play with you?"

"He does, sometimes," Charlie sighed; "but he gets bored, too, and now Pappy's letting him sit down in the liberry with him 'n Grandpappy…" He shrugged. "Ain't fair. Why do I got to be sick when Leon ain't?"

"It's like that sometimes, I'm afraid. Why don't we straighten up your bed a little? That will make you feel fresher." Mary took one last swipe with the brush, settling the downy blond hair into place. "There! Don't you look handsome."

The coughing fit was over, and Daisy was now huddled in Ester's lap, sobbing weakly. Hettie hurried away with the soiled linens, and Mammy blotted her brow with a corner of her apron. Verbena got tiredly to her feet, noticing the visitor for the first time.

"Mary!" she breathed, rounding the foot of the little girl's bed. "How kind of you to come by! I did not expect you."

"No," Mary agreed. "I came at the spur of the moment: Cullen was driving into town, so I rode along this far. He'll be back in a couple of hours to fetch me, but I wanted to see how everyone is getting on."

"That's so kind," said Verbena, putting on an effortful smile. Mary managed somehow to keep from wilting at the sight. It seemed that her presence was still merely tolerated by the sweet-tempered woman: not genuinely wanted. "And you've fixed Charlie's hair."

"It didn't pull one bit!" Charlie boasted.

"I'm glad, darling." This time her tone was earnest, and she reached to touch her eldest son's cheek. "Why don't you wash your hands and face while Hettie makes up your bed?"

Mary wanted to say that she had hoped to have Charlie do it himself, so that he might have some small sense of accomplishment to break up the monotonous day, but she did not. She thought perhaps that might be more than Southern sensibility could bear. Instead she asked; "Is Charity at all improved?"

Verbena's eyes flicked to her face again, now very soft. "A little," she whispered. "Doctor Whitehead said if it had not been for the diligent nursing… well, you had a hand in that, Mary. I'm thankful."

"There's no need," said Mary. "I'm so happy she's come through it."

"He says, the doctor says, her lungs might never be quite the same. She may have trouble all her life, just like Boyd…" From her cuff, Verbena plucked a rumpled handkerchief. She blotted hastily at her eyes and drew in an unsteady breath. "But she'll live," she said firmly. "She's going to live, and the fever did not addle her wits. And Baby…" She cast around the room, looking for her youngest, and Meelia hurried towards her. She handed off the drowsy infant to her mother. "Ssh, ssh, Baby dear," Verbena murmured as she settled Lucy onto her own shoulder. She rocked to and fro, smoothing the rumpled muslin gown and straightening the dainty lace cap. "That's my beauty. That's my Baby. Dear little Lucy," she cooed.

Mary looked on, trying to quell the pang of hurt in her heart. Something fluttered beneath her ribs: the memory of the baby who should have been making her belly round and unwieldy by now. "How is she?" she asked, trying to distract herself.

"No change," said Verbena. "The fever just burns on, low and steady. It doesn't matter how much of the purgative we give her: it won't come down. Even if we change her half a dozen times in a morning—" She stopped speaking and flushed. "I mean to say…"

"It's all right," Mary said, unabashed. "My Gabe was a baby once, you know." She glanced over her shoulder at Charlie, who was splashing despondently in the washbasin. "Verbena, I wondered if I might take Charlie to play in the next room? He's suffocated in here, and it's hard on his spirit when the girls are coughing. Perhaps a change of scene and a little time with his brother will put things to rights."

"Oh, yes, of course," said Verbena. "So long as _you_ were there to be sure he didn't overexert himself I wouldn't mind it. He can be very strong-willed, I warn you. Do you think you can manage him?"

Mary smiled, restraining herself from an ironic chuckle. "Why, Verbena, I think you must not know my husband very well," she demurred.

The other woman let out a puff of air that might have been a ghost of a laugh. "Whatever was I thinking!" she said. "Of course you can manage a willful disposition. Yes, do take Charlie to play, but we must get one of the housemaids to light a fire first. He mustn't take a chill."

"I'll find someone," said Mary, sudden inspiration striking. "When everything is ready I'll be back to fetch him."

Verbena nodded and then moved back towards Daisy, who had ceased her weeping and was now calling plaintively: "Mudder! Mudder…". Mary took one last quick appraising pass of the nursery, and then slipped out.

She had never had occasion to enter the West Willows kitchen, but it was not difficult to find. In the fashion of the newer mansions built after the patenting of more reliable stoves, it was a part of the main house instead of being offset at the end of a breezeway. Mary found it by slipping through the secondary dining room, used for intimate family meals and other casual occasions. The kitchen itself was large and airy, with clapboard walls painted an immaculate white. The cupboards and countertops were made of a handsome dark wood, which matched the stain on the long worktables. The room was a hive of activities, with the cook's three apprentices scurrying around to prepare the evening meal while the kitchenmaids and the scullion hurried along behind, cleaning as they went. Mary spotted the girl she wanted immediately, but did not summon her. She knew enough of Mississippi manners to know that a visiting lady would not simply approach one of the lowest-ranking house slaves.

She made for the cook instead. Cookie was a formidable woman, almost as tall as Cullen and broad into the bargain. She wore a black cotton dress with a vast pleated skirt, and a wide white apron starched so stiffly that it looked as if it might stand on its own. She dominated the center of the spacious room, dipping her hands in cold water as she handled a mass of pastry dough. As Mary approached, she set down her creation and wiped her hands hastily on a towel no doubt kept nearby for such a purpose. She curtseyed deeply enough that her cap bobbed below Mary's shoulders.

"What kin I do fo' you, Missus?" she asked. Then looking Mary over again as she straightened she repeated pointedly; "Missus… uh…"

"Bohannon. Miss Mary," she said. "I'm here to see the children, and I wondered whether you have any pecans."

"Yass'm!" Cookie said. She snapped her fingers over her shoulder and exclaimed; "You! Girl! Git some of them pecans!"

Immediately one of her assistants dropped the yam she had been paring, and disappeared into the larder. She returned a moment later with a bowl brimming with the tempting-looking meat, shelled and ready for use.

"Oh, dear," said Mary, looking at them. "I meant pecans still in the shell."

"Still in the shell?" Cookie echoed dubiously.

"Yes. The way they come off the tree."

The black woman frowned deeply. She was about forty, with her hair concealed completely by her impeccably white headscarf. Mary knew from her experiences as a guest beneath this roof that she was a talented artist of the culinary craft, but seeing her now Mary found she was wondering more about her personality than about her skills. What was she like when she left her well-kept realm and went down to the quarters to be with her family? Did she have a husband? Children? Perhaps grandchildren? And what was her name? Surely she had not always been known as "Cookie".

Now she was giving Mary an untrusting look tempered with awkwardness. It was clear that she thought the Yankee neighbor was soft in the head – or at least ignorant. "You gots to take the shell off to eat 'em, Missus," she warned. "That messy work, an' you might scratch up them pretty hands."

"I don't want to eat them," said Mary. "I want them for a game for Charlie and Leon."

"A game? With nuts?" The cook seemed no less skeptical of this.

"Yes. Do you have any?"

"Sure, we gots a whole sackful," Cookie replied. The lifelong habit of obeying her white superiors unquestioningly took over and she wafted an impatient hand at the younger woman with the bowl. "Go fetch some as got their shells on!" she said. "Did I tell you I want them nekkid?"

The girl ran off, and as Mary's eyes followed her she became uncomfortably aware that everyone in the room was now watching her. They were all still going about their work, but their efficient motions had slowed and they were peering out of the corner of their eyes or over rounded shoulders. Little thirteen-year-old Nell had been slicing apples. Now the knife stood poised in the midst of a cut, and her dark eyes were fixed eagerly on Mary. She was curious.

The apprentice returned, offering a bowl full of unhulled pecans with a curtsey. Mary took it. "Thank you," she said earnestly. "Thank you, Cookie."

"Yass'm, glad to oblige," the slave said.

"Might I borrow Nell?" Mary asked, a little more hurriedly than she had meant to. There was a clatter as the child in question dropped knife and apple onto the cutting board.

Cookie whirled around with a quelling glare that made Nell shrivel, but turned back to Mary with an obliging smile. "Sure, Missus, you kin have 'er. Ain't much use 'round here noways! _Nell_!"

She shouted the name so loudly that the copper pans rattled on their hooks. It was completely unnecessary: Nell was already approaching at a run. She drew herself up short about two yards from Mary, smoothing her skirts and folding her hands as Matthew had no doubt taught her.

"Please come," said Mary, handing her the bowl of nuts so as to make her usefulness plain. "I want you to help me prepare a little surprise for the boys."

"Yes, Missus. Thankee, Missus," Nell said as she hurried after Mary. Even as they left the kitchen, Cookie was turning back to her crew with brisk orders and rhetorical questions about their competence. The sounds made Mary smile. The expression must have encouraged Nell, for she asked; "What sort of surprise it goin' be?"

Now Mary felt her spirits lifting. The persistent weariness that had dogged her ceaselessly for weeks seemed to lift a little, and she found some lightness in her step as she crossed the vestibule and mounted the stairs. "We're going to hide the nuts around the nursery!" she said. "Then Charlie and Leon can look for them, and pretend they're out under the trees."

Nell giggled. "Oh, they's goin' like that, Missus! My ma say them boys jus' _loves_ a-huntin' fo' treasure. She say she think they's some pirate in Miss Verbena's side of the fam'ly, but I ain't s'posed to tell!" Her eyes widened as she realized that she had done just that.

"It'll be our secret," Mary promised, holding open the door to the playroom so that Nell could slip in, bobbing respectfully as she went. "Your ma is Meelia, isn't she? The head nursemaid?"

"Yass'm," Nell declared. "Mist' Boyd, he brung her up here from the laundry when Miss Charity born. Said he needed him a 'sperienced nursery maid, with Miss Charity bein' his firs' an' Mammy gittin' on in years. I's just a baby myself then, hardly come three, an' my brother jus' comin' 'long, but Mist' Boyd, he say Ma may bring us up here with her. We's been house niggers ever since then."

Mary took a handful of nuts and began to secret them about the room. She put one on the windowsill behind a drape, and several on the mantelpiece. Nell was hiding them under the edge of the rug and inside the wooden Noah's Arc. "Your mother was a laundress before she came up to the house?" she asked. "I suppose she must have been an experienced choice to take care of Miss Charity, with two little ones of her own."

"Oh, no'm," said Nell solemnly. With the air of one reciting an oft-repeated tale from distant history, she said; "My ma, she been a nurse b'fore over 'nother plantation. It jus' aft' my big sister been borned, an' that lady at t'other plantation, she didn' nuss her own baby. Ma done it. But she up there at the big house day an' night, a-feedin' that white baby, an' she didn' got 'nough milk nor time fo' my sister, an' that baby shrivel up an' she die."

Mary's jaw grew slack and her stomach turned nauseatingly under the reassuring pressure of her corsets. She knew her face was going pale, and she felt her hands grow cold. "Your sister died?" she breathed.

"Yass'm," Nell said matter-of-factly. "Aft' that, Ma say, she jus' couldn' love that white baby like a mammy oughts to. Her old massa say her work gettin' unsatisfact'ry, an' he sell her up. Mist' Boyd buy her so she don' have to go up the Delta pickin' cotton, an' he put her in the laundry 'til he got hisself a baby. Miss Verbena, she nuss her own childern, you know," she added with quiet pride. "Ma say it a woman with a good heart that nuss her own childern an' leave the black folks to nuss their'n."

"Yes," Mary said softly. She had never before questioned that Verbena – or any other woman who was capable – might nurse her own children. This story left her quaking with dismay and heartache. Poor Meelia: no wonder she doted so on Charity, grateful for what should have been an act of merest decency but was somehow, in this twisted system of human bondage, a gracious favor.

Her knees were trembling, and she clutched for the rocking chair, easing down into it. Nell had resumed hiding the nuts, now tucking one into the puffed sleeve of Daisy's wax doll. "Ma say Mist' Boyd a good massa, jus' 'bout as good as they gits 'round here. She would been sol' up fo' a fiel' hand 'cept fo' him, an' she wouldn' never have had me nor the little'uns."

"Where are your brothers?" asked Mary hoarsely. She did not know what else to say.

"Well, Zeke be learnin' how to look aft' ol' Mist' Ainsley, an' Tommy, he the turkey boy!" Nell said proudly. "When he gits a li'l older, Matthew goin' teach him how to be a footman. An' Jimmy, he on'y four. I 'spect he out playin' with the li'l folks down the cabins right now. Ma don' wan' him up at the house these days, on 'ccount of the cough."

"That's wise," said Mary quietly.

Nell shrugged. "Some of them kids is sneezin' awready," she said. "Ma say the doctor tol' Miss Verbena they might. So Miss Verbena give Eulalie some med'cine an' lin'ment to dose 'em needs dosin'. Eulalie, she our head woman. She goin' look out fo' us."

"Yes," Mary murmured, still struggling to compose herself. All the joy had gone out of the afternoon, and she could take no pleasure in anticipating the delight of the Ainsley boys. Here they were, with their mother and four nursery servants to wait on them – with a whole household at their beck and call. And Meelia's first baby had died because her mother was forced to spend too much time caring for a white baby on some nearby plantation.

Nell went on happily planting the nuts, now chattering eagerly about her little brothers' escapades. Mary scarcely heard her.

_*discidium*_

When the last tobacco box settled on top of the stack with a squeak, Cullen allowed a little of the tension to leave his sore back. The foreman of the rail gang slid the boxcar door closed and latched it. Through the boards he ran a stout chain, which he then clamped with a padlock. He turned the key and held it out to Cullen, then yanked on the hasp of the lock to prove it was closed.

"There you go, Mist' Bohannon," he said proudly. "That goin' keep you' crop safe'n dry all night. You goin' be back tomorrer with the res'?"

"Some of it, anyway," said Cullen. He tucked the key into his watch pocket and looked up at the sky. The sun was getting ready to set, and the ragged clouds seemed to glow against the more mellow shades behind. His throat was burning and his chest ached, and he was thinking longingly of a hot supper and the cozy comfort of Gabe's small bed. Mary had said their boy could lie down quite comfortably now. Maybe he would let his pappy curl up beside him tonight, instead of sitting propped up against the headboard. Cullen's whole body was coiled with unfamiliar pains from hauling the heavy boxes. He needed a night to lie flat.

"Well, we's goin' be here Sat'day, too, 'til three o'clock," said the big man, dusting his hands on his coarse pants. He looked around at the rest of the crew that had made such short work of unloading the wagon during each of its four trips. "Aft' that we's meant to be let to do what we please."

"I'll bear that in mind," said Cullen. Somehow it had not occurred to him that the railroad slaves might be let off early on a Saturday, even though it was common practice on the county's plantations. His eyes grew vacant as he ran through another course of figuring. If he had to be done hauling by three o'clock on Saturday, they would have to put in at least nine trips tomorrow instead of the seven they had today. Ten would be better. The thought of lifting that much tobacco in one day made him want to crawl under the wagon and lie down in the dirt. He was almost numb with exhaustion.

"That all fo' today, Massa," the foreman said. He rocked onto his heels, eyeing Cullen expectantly. It was customary to give the rail slaves something by way of a gratuity: a nip of liquor for each man, or a shinplaster or two to spend on beer. Cullen had neither whiskey nor money to spare, but he had planned for this moment and had something he was fairly certain would appease.

His shabby topcoat was lying over the wagon seat, waiting to be put on again for the cool drive home. He shuffled over and put his hand into the left pocket, bringing out a small canvas sack stuffed to capacity. He tossed it to the foreman, who caught it with the ease of a small boy catching a well-thrown ball. "Here you go," said Cullen. "Share it around, and there'll be another one tomorrow if you take care of my loads like you done today. And one on Saturday, too."

The man was fumbling with the drawstring. As he worked it open far enough to discern the contents of the pouch, he grinned. It was packed with tobacco: trimmings from the cigars Cullen had made, and remnants of leaves that had torn or crumbled in the sorting process. Though useless for rolling and worthless on the market, it was good stuff: no lugs in the batch. It was perfect for stuffing a corncob pipe – or for chewing, which was what the men who clustered around their leader undoubtedly intended to do with it. One by one they took a pinch, squeezing it into a quid before popping it into their cheeks. There were grins and muttered words of approval as they tasted the crop they had been working so diligently to move. At the very least, the Bohannon tobacco had just passed the rail-slave taste test.

The foreman was the last to help himself. As he started to chew, he came shambling up to Cullen where he stood near the head of the wagon. He offered the bag, tilting it so that the lip fell enticingly open. "Share it with us, Massa?" he asked, grinning.

Cullen hesitated. Such a gesture of camaraderie would have been perfectly appropriate between a labor boss and his white workers, but between a slaveholder and a slave it was somehow strange. Nevertheless he recognized the gesture for what it was: an acknowledgement of the camaraderie built of hard work. These men knew that he had bent his back to load the wagons. Even though he had only supervised at their end, they were fully aware that he too had put in a hard day's labor. The foreman's offer was not an act of insolence, but of deep respect.

"Thanks," he said, helping himself to a small pinch of the leaves. He slipped it into his lower lip and felt his mouth flood with saliva. With a flick of his tongue, he gathered the leaves into a ball and wicked them out of the way. "Tomorrow, then, gentlemen."

"Tomorrow," agreed the foreman, tipping his hat as Cullen swung up onto the wagon seat. His arms seared with the effort of hoisting his body, and he could not feel his hands as they closed on the reins. "Ha!" he called, flicking the lines. The mules groaned irately, but launched into action nevertheless. The wheels creaked, but followed, and the wagon rattled over the tracks and out of the rail-yard.

Cullen stopped near the stationhouse to expectorate a neat arc of tobacco juice. He had intended to spit out the quid as well, but found that he did not wish to. He had chewed occasionally as a student, chiefly when his funds were low and cigars unobtainable, but had left it aside entirely since his marriage. Mary felt it was an ungentlemanly habit, and though she had never really complained he had stuck to his cigars instead out of deference to her. Now, however, his rattling lungs would not let him smoke. Bereft of that pleasure, he found the shreds of tobacco leaf far too scrumptious to spit into the dust. He rolled the plug to the other side of his mouth and bit down on it again. The rich, burnished flavor was perfect: neither too bitter nor too bland. He spat again, curling his lip inward as he remembered the nuances of the habit. A shiver ran up his spine, and he stretched his burning arms into the sleeves of his coat.

The plug of tobacco was spent and the homeward road half behind him when Cullen was taken with the first serious chill. It sent his teeth clicking and his limbs trembling, and if he had not had such a slack hand on the reins it would have worried the mules to a halt. As it was they plodded on, oblivious to the tremors that shook their master. Frozen to the core, Cullen lapped the edges of his coat and hugged them to his ribs, hunching low in his collar and trying to warm himself. For the first few bewildered seconds he wondered if the wind had risen, or the weather taken some sudden and improbable turn. Then he remembered standing bleary and sleep-deprived in the hot, close air of the nursery while Gabe huddled against him and sobbed; "I's cold, Pappy. I's so cold!". His fever was on the rise.

He rode out the first two spells well enough, miserable though he was, but the third's violent shivering seemed to dislodge something in his chest. He began to cough, having just enough presence of mind to halt the mules before he lost all control over them. He rocked forward in the seat, bracing himself with one foot against the wagon box so that he could lean forward with his breastbone against his thigh. His vision swam with black stars as he whooped: a sure sign that he was not getting nearly enough air. The springs beneath the board seat squealed, and the buggy rattled. Snort and Shadow hawed anxiously, shaking the traces and pawing at the road. Just when Cullen thought he could sit upright no longer, and must soon slide down onto his knees in the bottom of the wagon, a whoop shifted suddenly to a gasp and he drank in the cool evening air. For a while he subsisted there, clinging to the edge of the seat and gulping desperately. Then finally his lungs settled and his vision cleared, and he was unable to uncurl himself.

It was then that he remembered the bucket he had put under the seat. He found the dipper by groping blindly, and drank, silently thanking Meg for her suggestion. He supposed she had only made it for want of some excuse to look in at the kitchen, but it served him well now. The water opened his throat and soothed it a little, and when he gathered up the lines again he did so almost certain that he could reach home without coughing.

He had passed the West Willows turn-off before he remembered that he had to stop by the house to collect his wife. He got out and led the mules backward the ten yards he had overshot. This maneuver would have been impossible with the wagon fully laden, but the road was too narrow to make a safe turning. He would have had to go all the way home just to turn around. Snort and Shadow disliked this work, but they did it – perhaps sensing that their master's patience was worn far thinner than his obstinacy. Finally Cullen was able to mount the buckboard again and drive on up to Boyd's front door.

Mary was waiting for him, sitting on the chaise under the stairs with her bonnet prettily tied and her gloves neat upon her hands. She looked pale as she came to him, standing carefully on the porch side of the threshold so as not to track dust onto Matthew's well-kept floor. Cullen offered her his arm and she took it.

"Thank you," she murmured as he led her down the steps and helped her to rise up onto the wagon seat. This time she leaned heavily upon his wrist, and the fatigued muscles of his arm protested. Somehow Cullen managed to keep them from quaking with enervation, and he even contrived to lift himself up beside her.

"Did you have a nice visit?" he asked, his voice rasping painfully in his raw throat. The ache in his ribs he had expected, from Gabe's sorrowful little imprecations, but the strain the cough put on his larynx was something else entirely. He would have to ask Bethel to mix up some sort of tincture to soothe it, so that he could be sure to be in good voice for his buyers next week.

"The children are holding on," Mary said hollowly. "Charity has come through the worst of it. Charlie was up out of bed just now, hunting for nuts in the nursery. But poor little Daisy is coming to her crisis, and nothing has changed with Lucy. Cullen…"

"Nuts in the nursery?" he parroted, his words tripping over her soft utterance of his name. Wounded blue eyes flickered to his face, made hauntingly beautiful in the gathering twilight. Cullen's brows knit together. "What is it, Mary?" he asked.

"Do you know from whom Boyd bought Meelia?" Mary asked, reaching to put her hand upon the reins before Cullen could jerk them.

"Who's Meelia?" Cullen asked. The Ainsley plantation was home to dozens of darkies, and he only knew about half of them by sight, much less name.

"The senior nursemaid. She was bought up by Boyd some years before Charity was born. Her oldes… her girl Nell was born here, and she's thirteen now." Mary's eyes were searching his face, looking for something, but Cullen did not know what.

"I'm sorry, angel: I got no idea," he said helplessly. "You could always ask him."

"I couldn't do that," Mary mumbled, flushing suddenly scarlet. Her gaze dropped to her lap, and she gathered her gloved hands into it, twisting them under a fold of her skirt. "Drive on, Cullen, please. I just want to go home."

"Sure," he huffed, utterly confounded. He clicked his tongue, and the wagon began to move again. "Sure, I'll get you home."

They rode in silence to the end of the drive, and through the ungainly wide turn that the large wagon demanded. But the mules had not taken a step beyond it before Mary spoke again.

"How old is Mr. Sutcliffe's youngest?" she asked. "She's fifteen, isn't she? Younger than Felicity Ives."

"You think Boyd bought one of his nursemaids off Sutcliffe?" asked Cullen, trying not to spit the name with more energy than he had the tobacco juice. "He don't generally sell up his young women."

"I was just trying to work out in my mind what kind of woman… in what kind of _household_… Oh, Cullen!"

Mary's voice rose tremulously, and then broke into a hitching breath entirely too like a sob for Cullen's liking. He hauled on the reins with all the strength left in his work-weary body, and the wagon lurched to a stop. He twisted on the seat, turning into her, and reached an unsteady hand to touch her shoulder. Mary fell in towards him, clutching his lapel with one hand while the other curled between his breastbone and her mouth. Cullen wrapped his other arm around her, as consolingly as he knew how.

"Here now, what's this?" he asked softly, holding her close as a silent sob wracked her body.

"The little maid, Nell," Mary moaned. "She said… she told me… oh, how can people be so cruel? So casually, heartlessly hateful! I just… I can't…"

She fell silent again, her backbone hitching with her weeping. Cullen could do nothing but hold her for what seemed to be some of the longest seconds of his life. He did not know what had so upset her, or why she cared to whom this slave had belonged before coming to West Willows, but something was obviously deeply distressing his wife. _Casually, heartlessly hateful_ sounded like Abel Sutcliffe, all right, but that was just about the only thing Mary had said that made sense to him. He waited wretchedly as the sobs abated, and hugged her close even after she fell still in her arms. Only when she tried to sit up, tugging against his sore arms, did he loosen his hold.

Mary found her handkerchief and blotted her eyes. She wiped her nose delicately, the square of white linen almost all that Cullen could see clearly in the gloom. Here, where the trees were close, nightfall brought a deep darkness. They would have been wiser to drive past this stretch of road before the light was lost, but it could not be helped now. Cullen saw Mary's dim silhouette straighten with a determined little jerk.

"It doesn't matter," she said softly, with the too-rich conviction of one trying to win an argument with herself. "It doesn't matter who did it. I just thought perhaps if it were Mr. Sutcliffe it would be easier to bear… but it isn't. We must find a way to free our people, Cullen. We _must._ Slavery has to end, and we have to do our part to stop it."

Cullen's irritation blazed hot for three dangerous seconds. She wanted to talk about manumission? _Now_? Exhausted as he was, and beleaguered with worries for tomorrow's labor and the negotiations of the week to come, he knew he would not be able to restrain his temper. He would tear into her, perhaps wound her terribly, just before he was going away. Rage was overtaken by terror at that thought: fear of his own temper and what it might make him say. Then he felt a slender hand gripping his arm, midway between wrist and elbow. She had taken off her glove and she was holding him.

"I know we cannot discuss it now," she said. He saw the shadow of her profile against the darker void of the trees: she was looking straight ahead. "We have to get the crop to market before anything else. But Cullen, you must get the very best price you can. We have to free our people somehow."

His lips parted, but no sound came out. He was torn between relief at this unexpected reprieve, when a moment ago he had been bristling for a quarrel, and utter confusion. He had thought there was something unsaid between them when he had driven her down to the end of the West Willows drive, but surely this could not be it. This had arisen as a result of something that had happened under Boyd's roof: something to do with some nursemaid named Meelia. To gauge from Mary's distress, it must have been something terrible indeed, but he could not imagine what.

"Angel…" he murmured, not knowing what else to say.

"It's all right," she said, her bonnet skirt swishing against her collar as she turned back towards him. "I'll be all right. After all, it's not as if I was the one who…" She gasped shallowly, as if swallowing something that had come perilously close to slipping down the wrong tube. She gave a little shiver and slipped her arm through his. She dipped her head to rest on his shoulder, careless of his dusty clothes against her clean ones. "You're very warm," she observed quietly. "You ought to have Bethel dose you with some of the 'nice' medicine."

Cullen snugged up the reins and urged the mules on slowly, hoping they had enough sense in their pedantic little brains to find their way home in the dark. "Whatever it is, you can tell me, Mary," he said. The words surprised him, and he did not know which matter he meant: the original one, or this new and mysterious horror.

"No," she sighed, her breath warm upon the cold night air. "You would try to explain, to make some excuse for the system, and we would fight. I don't want to fight."

Somehow this was the most painful of all. Cullen pressed his lips together and fixed his eyes on the darkness ahead. They rode on in silence broken only by the thud of the heavy hooves, and the settling groans of the hard-worked wagon.


	81. Consolation and Catastrophe

_Note: These details of Nell's story are my own, departing from the historical account but addressing another aspect of life that was both grossly misunderstood and often completely ignored in nineteenth-century society. (This chapter posted between 404 and 405.)_

**Chapter Eighty-One: Consolation and Catastrophe**

When the light of the mistress's candle vanished up the stairs, Bethel made a final swipe of the dining room table before tucking away the polishing-cloth in its drawer. She surveyed the neat and much-disused room quickly, replaced the best lamp in the middle of the table, and then picked up her own light. The cheap tallow candle sputtered as she lifted it, and she was compelled to move more slowly than she wished to. She had left the kitchen in good order, the stove banked for the night and the back door snugly latched. Now she passed into the entryway, where she checked the front door and tucked Mister Cullen's boots under the chair in the corner. She retreated back to the parlor door, overshooting it by three steps so that she could run her first two fingers along the top of Missus Mary's sewing machine. She held them up to the light, looking for dust, and was satisfied. In the parlor she checked the windows and drew the drapes, then cast a cursory glance at the hearth even though it had been days since they had last had a fire in this room. She would see to the dusting and polishing in here on Saturday, as was her habit, and so ended her nightly round of the house. The ground floor was shut up snug and tidy, secure for the night and ready for the morning. Bethel's work was done.

She opened the door to her own small room, the one that had been meant to be used as a study. The candle found its usual home on the small table by the bed, and Bethel drew the door in to a gap of two inches. It was far enough closed to satisfy propriety, but open wide enough to allow her to hear any sounds from the rest of the house. If Mister Gabe or his father woke coughing, she ought to be able to hear them. She hoped she would, at least. It seemed she did not always, and that worried her. Either Mister Cullen was trying to muffle his fits, or she herself was sleeping too heavily to be sure of overhearing them.

Bethel took off her apron and hung it on its peg behind the door. Her sure fingers descended the ladder of her basque, undoing the black horn buttons. She turned the sleeves as she drew her arms out of them, baring the muslin lining stained at neck and underarm by perspiration. The dress was three years old, and it had served her well. The outer fabric was still dark and whole, if worn a little thin at the elbows, but the lining was tired and shabby-looking. If there was no money for new clothing, at least she hoped she might have a yard of new cloth to replace the inner shell.

She hung the dress on its peg, basque turned inside-out to air while she slept. She untied her petticoats and laid them over the ladder-backed chair in the corner, and then sat down on the foot of the bed to untie her shoestrings. The shoes would not last another year: that much was certain. She was not walking on broken soles like Nate, or coping with leather sieves like Mister Cullen, but in another two or three months she would be. She swallowed a fearful flutter, chasing it down with cold determination. She could go barefoot if she had to; if it meant the family could survive another year. She had been in shoes since she was a pickaninny of seven, but she could go barefoot if she had to.

She still hoped it would not come to that. It was possible that Mister Cullen would get a good price for the tobacco, even the hail-damaged stuff. If he got a good _enough_ price, it might even make up for the shortfall in the weight. All his anxious calculations that spring had revolved around the twenty hogsheads that he needed to meet the year's expenses and put them far enough ahead to make it to next harvest without accruing more debts. Despite the year's losses, he was only fourteen hundred pounds short of that goal. If the quality was good enough, and the master's tongue clever enough, they might still scrape by.

And Bethel had faith in her young master. Mister Cullen was a hot-blooded and impulsive boy: he always had been. But he was also the most intelligent man that Bethel had ever known. He had his pioneering grandfather's business wiles, and his aristocratic mother's ability not only to discern what others wanted, but to win them around to doing his own will while imagining it was their own. In striking a bargain, be it over a sack of meal or a whole year's crop, Mister Cullen was at his very best. He could not plow a straight furrow, or mow an acre of hay in an afternoon, or predict when a crop would be ready by the feel of the sapling leaves, but he knew how to haggle for what he needed. If there was any hope of getting the best price for the tobacco, Mister Cullen was the man to do it.

With her stockings off, Bethel padded to her washstand. The pitcher and basin were old, the paint faded and the rims and spout chipped. The handle of the pitcher was cracked, so that she did not trust it with the full weight of water. Still they were of highest quality: cast-off from the front bedroom in the days of Mister Cullen's grandfather. Throughout the South, this was the house slave's legacy and her secret luxury: the cast-off finery of the family she served. Bethel lifted the old ewer with both hands around its elegant throat, and poured the water into the basin.

It was cool without the warmth of the parlor chimney to seep through into the small bedroom, but the coolness was welcome on Bethel's tired face. It soothed her stinging eyes and the shadows of aching weariness beneath them. No one in the house had had a full night's sleep in over three weeks: not since Mister Gabe had started coughing. They were all worn beyond the limits of acute exhaustion, grinding on through the daily labors as best they could and stealing their meager rest out of the broken nights. This bone-deep weariness was beginning to tell upon them all, except perhaps Mister Gabe, who was able to recover much of his deficit of sleep by napping on the récamier during the day. Mister Cullen's temper was short, Bethel's own patience was thin, and even Missus Mary was struggling to keep her ordinarily sweet disposition.

At supper tonight, the mistress had hardly spoken. It was a rare treat for the family to sit down together, all three, to eat their evening meal, and Bethel had hoped that it might be something like the old days: Missus Mary making pleasant conversation, Mister Cullen telling an amusing story or two, and Mister Gabe piping up with his innocent but often piercing observations as he saw fit. Instead, Missus Mary had kept her eyes on her plate and lifted them only to see how her son was faring with his braised venison and mashed yams. Mister Cullen had kept _his_ eyes on Missus Mary, bewildered worry now and then giving way to a rapidly calculating look and reverting back again. When the meal concluded with enticing dishes of custard and strawberry preserves, he had announced that he would take Gabe up to bed and she had merely nodded and called the child to her for his goodnight kisses.

Bethel had tried to make conversation while the two of them washed the dishes and set the kitchen to rights, but she had not succeeded. Missus Mary had replied to each of her observations as briefly as possible, from Lottie's somewhat reduced fever to Mister Gabe's arithmetical accomplishment that afternoon. When Bethel had asked after the Ainsley children, she had received the most noncommittal of answers. Missus Mary seemed lost in troubled thoughts, and it had been almost a relief to see her off to bed at last.

Stripping off her shift, Bethel washed. She had a small tarnished mirror hanging from a hook over the basin, but she rarely needed it. Her face was an old companion, growing only older as the years went by. She had learned to dress her hair without such tools even before Miss Caroline had been born, and when she was clean she let it down from its knot under her headscarf. She brushed it briskly, so the tight curls opened up into a halo of soft silver waves, and twisted it into a fat, short plait at the nape of her neck. She tied it off with a scrap of linen tape. She slipped into her long nightgown, fastened at the throat with a swift little bow. In the used wash-water she scrubbed her stockings, using a fingerful of the coarse soap. She wrung them out and hung them over the foot of the bed to dry. She had two pairs of stockings for everyday wear, carefully darned and always scrupulously clean. They were knit of white cotton; her Sunday pair were black.

This concluded her evening toilette, and so Bethel drew back the covers and slid between the sheets, snuffing the candle as she lay down. She lay still in the darkness, shivering a little until the bedclothes warmed around her. The day's strain began to ebb from her tired limbs, and her breath came slowly and ever deeper. One part of her mind was still mulling over the list of things to be done before Mister Cullen could depart for New Orleans. She had asked Meg to take stock of the slaves' clothing and sundries, so that they knew what had to be replaced and what might be made to last another year. Although tomorrow was not washday, Bethel and Missus Mary would be busy mending, laundering and pressing all of the master's good clothes. The valise had to be brought down from the attic and aired out, its hinges oiled and its leather body rubbed with bootblack. Lottie might be up to that last chore, if she took no turn for the worse in the night. It was at least something she could do sitting comfortably in the heat of the kitchen stove. The child had been fretting about her enforced idleness: it would be good to let her feel that she was helping.

These pragmatic ponderings began to give way to indistinct worries. Bethel never liked it when Mister Cullen was out from under her roof and so beyond her sphere of influence. When he was a small boy, she had distrusted the mothers and mammies of friends he visited for overnight or weekend stays. The spans of months that he had spent away at university in Tuscaloosa had left her in a state of almost constant distraction. When he had gone away to New York to explore as much of the wider world as his circumstances had allowed, she had done nothing but wait for his return. But although this time he would be gone less than a fortnight, and he was a grown man and could likely look after himself, Bethel felt more anxious than ever. She was almost certain it was because of the cough.

He wasn't well, and he had hardly paused to give himself a minute's rest since he had taken ill. He had even downed a dose of Mister Gabe's elderflower cordial tonight, and when Bethel had felt his brow she had found him burning with fever. If he wasn't yet too ill to be working, he soon would be – and even if by some miracle the kink cough did not worsen, Bethel did not want him away from her care until it was gone entirely.

She was growing too drowsy even for worrying now, but her mind kept turning over with increasing lethargy. She was now idling in drowsy memories of Mister Cullen as a little boy: chasing butterflies and climbing trees, climbing the paddock fence to try to mount his father's hunter barebacked, wrestling with an equally small and gangling Nate in the dooryard. She could almost hear the joyous howl of laughter when he finally managed to shinny up one of the poles of the butchering winch to straddle the crossbar, or the soft padding of bare little feet on the parlor rug as he snuck down to climb into bed with her in the wake of some senseless nightmare.

Then the door-hinge creaked, and Bethel realized she had not dreamt that last after all. She could hear shallow, anxious breathing in the blackness, and feel the presence of the other person just beyond reach of her hand.

"Mist' Gabe?" she asked, thinking first of the one most likely to seek her. Even as she said it, she knew she was wrong. The breathing was too far off the ground to come from a child, and in any case Mister Gabe was in bed with his pappy: Mister Cullen would have been the natural choice for the boy to take comfort from if he chanced to wake.

"No, Bethel. It's me…"

The apologetic whisper was unmistakably Missus Mary, but she sounded very young and fretful; so unlike her usual poised self. Bethel pushed herself up onto her elbow and reached for the matches.

"Sumthin' wrong, Missus? Is Mist' Cullen… lemme jus' strike a light."

"No, please don't," the lady protested quietly. "I didn't mean to wake you. I just thought perhaps you might not be sleeping, or… I don't know. I'm sorry, Bethel. Goodnight."

"Here now!" Bethel reached out into the darkness with the deftness of one long accustomed to tending small children through the nighttime hours, and caught hold of the younger woman's wrist. Under the crushed frill of the nightgown cuff, her hand was very cold. Bethel drew her in, compelling Missus Mary to take a halting step over the threshold. "Don' you run off on me, Missus Mary," she said firmly. "Jus' push that door a li'l further shut to keep out the draf', an' you tell me what troublin' you."

She did not release her hold, waiting for Missus Mary to nudge the door back into position, then guided her in to the edge of the bed. She drew up her own knees and shimmied nearer to the wall as the weight of the young lady settled on the tick. Her other hand found Bethel's and clutched it. She was trembling.

"Now you tell me what it is gots you out of you' bed at this hour, like to catch you' death of col'," Bethel said, scolding gently. She wanted to light the candle so she could see her mistress's face, but Missus Mary had implored her not to.

"It's… oh, Bethel, you'll think me such a fool, fretting over this when there's so much more to worry about and such a lot to do…" Missus Mary drew in a shuddering breath. "Do you know Meelia, the senior nursemaid at West Willows?"

"Oh." Now Bethel understood everything: the haunted look in the mistress's eyes when she had come back that afternoon, her unwillingness to engage with Mister Cullen, and even her reluctance to discuss the condition of the Ainsley children. Of course Bethel knew Meelia: they were of the same class in the hierarchy of the slaves, and their masters were not merely neighbors but friends. Bethel had spent many an all-day party comfortably sequestered in the Ainsley nursery while she awaited the hour when she would help Missus Mary change for the evening's dancing, enjoying tea and a tot of rum with Mammy and her girls. But even if she had not known Meelia personally, she certainly would have known _of _her. Such stories as that were heartbreakingly common, and seldom ended so well: they travelled far and wide, passed from slave to slave as tales of caution and commiseration.

"You do know her," said Missus Mary bleakly. "And you know…"

"Yes, honey, I know," Bethel said gently. Mister Cullen had found himself a clever wife, brave and honest and almost as determined in her own quiet way as he was, but he had also found one of the most tender-hearted women it had ever been Bethel's privilege to know. Like Miss Caroline before her, Missus Mary truly felt all of those most womanly emotions that most grand ladies only counterfeit to feel. Earnest, loving pity ranked high upon that list. The harsher truths of slavery were too much for her to bear. "Meelia tol' you 'bout it, then."

"No." Missus Mary's voice broke as if she were about to burst into tears, but she did not. "No," she said again, with a hard note of courage in her voice. She meant to speak of this, however it pained her. "It was her girl, Nell. She's only a couple of years older than Lottie, and she told me the whole thing…"

"Now, honey, I don' know that she did," Bethel soothed. "They's things 'bout that don't nobody talk 'bout, an' surely not Meelia. Don' know that she know it, heartbroke like she was. It a sin an' a shame what happen to that baby, Missus Mary, but 'twern't nuthin' nobody could help."

"Her first mistress could have helped it!" Missus Mary said defiantly. The ropes of the bed jerked as she sat stiffly upright, and her arm under Bethel's hand was suddenly hard with clenching muscles. "She could have let her keep her baby with her! She could have seen to it she was fed well enough to provide for them both. Women _can_ nurse two babies at once: I know they can! How else do twins ever live to see five years?"

"Hush, chile, hush," Bethel soothed. In the blackness her eyes rolled up towards the ceiling, above which her darling boys were hopefully asleep, cuddled together in the little nursery bed. "You's right: that jus' what coulda been done, an' shoulda been done. In a proper-run household it _woulda_ been done. Ain' no trouble havin' two babies in the same nurs'ry, even if one a-sleepin' in a walnut cradle an' the other in a willer basket on the floor. But out-county folks, they gots their ideas, an' that silly girl come from silly people. Mist' Ives, he didn' pick her fo' her breedin' like he done his firs' wife. He pick her fo' her looks an' his pleasure, an' he got him an empty-headed simpleton as wasn' used to having more'n two-three niggers on the place. She didn' know how it ought be done in a big house, an' didn' no one tell her diff'rent."

"Mr. Ives?" Missus Mary said hoarsely. "But he's such a friendly gentleman, and Theresa's very sweet."

"She sweet, but she a fool," said Bethel firmly. Elmer and Albert, the two middle-aged Ives brothers, had divided the family estate between them and raised two broods of ebullient, undereducated and utterly interchangeable boys who fairly overran the county. It was Albert who had taken a second wife after the untimely death of the first, and married considerably beneath him in both status and age. His new bride had provided him with only one child, the sole daughter of the Ives clan, and poor dear Meelia had paid a terrible price in rearing her.

Missus Mary's hand slipped from Bethel's, moving instead to hug her abdomen. "Oh, how horrible…" she breathed brokenly. "I thought… I hoped… oh, if it had been someone wicked instead of merely careless…"

"Carelessness do more harm than wickedness in this-here worl', Missus Mary. You oughts to know that," Bethel murmured. She slid down the bed a little, so that she was close enough to put her left arm around the young lady's shoulders. "Ol' Mammy Sue done died herself of that same pox kill't her missus, or she woulda tooked up fo' Meelia. Or if'n Meelia had known what harm it'd do, or if'n she been a li'l olderer an' sure of herself, mebbe she woulda foun' a way to talk Missus Ives roun'. But she on'y fifteen herself, an' she tooked that firs' no fo' final."

"Fifteen?" Missus Mary echoed. She huddled into Bethel's embrace, hanging her head despairingly.

"Yass'm, an' her missus on'y eighteen. An' I tell you what folks don' never say, an' what li'l Nell don' likely even know. That poor li'l white girl, she sick aft' havin' her that baby. Not sick in the body, Missus Mary: Doct' Whitehead's Ellie done tol' me that chile healthy as a horse. But sick in the heart. She didn' hardly know how to look aft' herself aft' Miss F'licity born, let 'lone keep an eye out fo' her wetnurse an' a li'l black baby. Didn' hardly eat, nor sleep, nor nuthin', not fo' weeks 'n weeks. So don' you go thinkin' too badly of Missus Ives, neither. If Sue been 'live, or Missus Ives been brung up proper, or Meelia knowed sooner her baby gittin' sickly an' why, well, wouldn' none of it have happened like it done."

Suddenly Missus Mary's arm was around Bethel's waist, and she was turned in to bury her face against the yoke of the old woman's nightgown. Bethel wrapped her right arm about Missus Mary's back and rubbed it, tracing slow circles as she did for Mister Gabe, as she had done for Mister Cullen, as once, long ago, she had done for her first beloved young mistress when the world's hurts seemed too much to bear. She held Missus Mary while she wept, silently but tormentedly. She held her until she could weep no more, and curled up on her side with her feet tucked up behind and her head in Bethel's lap. And Bethel stroked her silky hair in the darkness and waited for the pain to ebb a little.

"There, honey," she said when at last Missus Mary was still. "It a terrible thing, an' a mournful thing, but it long past now. Meelia she safe, an' she gots her four healthy childern. Birthed five, an' see'd four grow up an' start talkin': that jus' 'bout what any woman can hope for, white or black, free or not, now ain't it?"

The moment she had said it, she wished she could take it back. Missus Mary had lost a baby of her own this year, and mourned that loss in silence. But from under her hand the locked jaw loosened.

"I suppose that's true," Missus Mary sighed. She blotted at her eyes with the back of her hand. "But I shall never look at Theresa Ives the same way."

"Don' reckon you will," Bethel agreed. There was not a black woman in Lauderdale County who could not say the same. It was at once terrible and wondrous that Missus Mary, a white lady of wealth and breeding and an outsider – a Yankee – no less, was now among their number. "But you gots to know the Lord done forgived her fo' her part in what happen to that baby, even if there ain' no forgivin' her husband fo' sellin' Meelia up aft'wards. Even that comed out right in the en', on 'ccount Mist' Boyd got hisself a good heart. He ain' never grudged her keepin' her babies close, nor Miss Verbena neither. An' them white childern, they's better fo' it."

"Yes," said Missus Mary softly. "Yes, I think they would be."

"Mist' Cullen better fo' havin' him Nate to play with when he a li'l boy," said Bethel. "Even if it mean Nate don' always treat him with the respec' he due. It a hard worl', Missus Mary, an' folks jus' does the bes' they can to git 'long in it. That the on'y thing we kin do."

"It isn't." The words rose from a whisper into a firm, determined declaration. "We can try to change the world, too, Bethel. Even just in small ways. People saying that getting along is the only thing they can do… that's what stops us from trying to be better."

"Maybe that so," Bethel allowed. "But the meals still got git cooked, an' the gardens planted an' the clothes washed, an' the crops brung in an' cured an' sold, an' the ground plowed up an' the childern taught what childern gots to know. Aft' we's done all them things, ain' much time lef' to change the world."

"Perhaps," murmured Missus Mary. "But is that really any excuse?"

Bethel had no answer for this, but her mistress did not seem to want one. She sighed heavily and sat up, scrubbing at her face. "Have you a light, Bethel? I ought to wash before I go back upstairs. I want to look in on Cullen and Gabe, and if they wake I don't want them to see me like this."

"Sure I does, Missus Mary," Bethel said reassuringly, shaking off her feeling of immeasurable helplessness and shrouding her uncertainty in the comfortable mantle of capability. "Sure I does."

_*discidium*_

It had been years since Nate had awakened in such stiff, knotted misery as he did on Friday morning. Just lowering himself out of his bunk was a trial, and he had to stop midway through dressing when the biceps of his left arm sprang suddenly into a hard, twitching ball of protest. He set his teeth against the pain and kneaded at the lump, alternately stretching and flexing his elbow, until it loosened and vanished back into the sinews. By this time Elijah was awake and moving around by the dim glow of the embers, and Nate responded with curt dismissiveness to his concern. There was nothing to be done about the soreness, and the day's work would only make it worse. Nothing would come of talking about it.

In her warm and welcoming little kitchen, Meg had breakfast already on the table by the time the two men stumped in. There were strips of venison fried in hog fat, salty and pleasantly crisp but no real substitute for bacon, and thin-sliced fried potatoes without pepper. Instead of grits, Meg had mashed some yams with cream and butter. It was not the same at all, but Nate did not complain and tried to be thankful for what he had. Bethel was saving the last of the hominy to make porridge for the children, and Nate was not about to grudge two sick little ones their simple comforts. Lottie was not even up for breakfast: she was still sleeping in the warmth of the broad bunk she shared with her mother, the quilt tugged high up on her fever-flushed cheek. Meg would come back after she had seen to the cows, and make sure that Lottie got up to the house safely. Elijah would feed the chickens on the girl's behalf, so that she could be spared even that light labor while she was ill. They had heard her coughing in the night, and from Meg's tired eyes Nate knew that it had not just been the once.

In the barn, the morning chores were dispatched hastily. Mister Cullen was determined to squeeze at least another two trips into the day beyond the seven that had taken them almost to nightfall. Lifting that first crate was torture, even with the master on the other end. Nate dreaded the later loads, when Mister Cullen would be on the road and he would have to hoist more than his share of the weight to spare Meg and Elijah. The mules, no more optimistic about the day before them, brayed and balked as they were led into harness. Finally Mister Cullen had to smack Gus on the nose to get him to stop tossing his head away from the bridle. The master did it with none too good grace, either, and Nate was grateful that Meg was still settling her daughter in the kitchen because she was spared from hearing the language Mister Cullen used.

Soon enough, Nate was up on the hard board seat and guiding the mules down the gray lane towards the road. He hunkered down low against the bite of the frosty morning, the collar of his coat turned up to shield his ears. All the dreary ride into Meridian he kept stretching his arms, trying to work out some of the soreness while he could. It was important to keep them from stiffening up during these two hours of disuse.

The town was only just waking up when Nate drove through it that first time. House slaves were opening kitchen windows or sweeping stoops with willow-twig brooms. The dogs were out, shambling around their yards or venturing out to sniff the morning scents off of neighbors' hedges and ash-heaps. Somewhere a young child was crying lustily, hungry and ready to be fed. Breakfast smells were on the air: ham frying and biscuits baking. The mouth-watering scent of fresh cornbread reached Nate's nostrils as he passed one handsome stucco home, and despite his full stomach he was instantly ravenous.

The main street was still deserted at this hour. Even the lamp outside the drinking-house was out. Only the glow behind the windows of the telegraph office and the curls of smoke rising from the bakery chimneys gave sign of human life. At the rail platform a locomotive was waiting, its fireman scurrying back and forth between the furnace and the wood-car to stir up the inferno that heated the boiler. The first train of the day was still almost two hours from departing, but it took time to build up the necessary steam after a night in the cold.

At the Southern Railway depot the gates were open, and the railyard already swarming with activity. There were seventeen men who tended the yard, under the watchful eye of the railroad's overseer, and two dozen more on the crews building the new warehouses and the much-vaunted third car-shed. Nate did not know these latter men, but many of the regulars had been in Meridian for years. He waved a greeting to Job and Ferris, who were loading a flatbed with sawn boards, and whistled back when Shad called his name from the roof of a boxcar. Saul, the foreman who had been brought in from Jackson in the spring, was waiting by the car Mister Cullen had hired. Nate manipulated the reins and called out commands to the mules, navigating them in to where Saul's strong arm directed. Pike and Bonnie would have followed the lines alone, without the verbal orders, but they were too lively and too valuable to strap to a heavy old buckboard and a thousand pounds of tobacco.

"Fine mornin', ain't it?" the burly foreman asked, coming up to the wagon and holding out his hand. Nate shook it firmly.

"Well, anyway it mornin'," he said.

Saul snorted appreciatively. "Hope that massa of yours done sent the key," he said. "Ain' but one, an' if we's got saw through that chain we's goin' be here all mornin'. Guaranteed security when you ship Southern Rail."

Nate chuckled sardonically at this sarcastic recitation, knowing it was expected. Rail slaves could get away with a certain level of insolence that plantation slaves could not, provided they poked fun at the company and its owners instead of the white men who ran its depot for a salary. The stockholders of the railway almost never sullied their boots by treading the rail-yards themselves, and most of them were off in Jackson or Vicksburg or Natchez anyway. The overseers and the stationmasters had their own grievances against their employers, and could be counted on to ignore a little ribaldry at the company's expense.

"Mist' Bohannon ain' one to ferget nuthin'," he said, fishing in his pocket. He brought out the padlock key swinging from its leather loop, hooked over the tip of his first finger, and dangled it just out of Saul's reach. The big man rose up on his toes to snatch it, scowling amiably. He sprang the lock and flung open the boxcar door, then cupped both hands to his mouth and bellowed for his crew.

Instantly Nate's wagon was surrounded by a swarm of men, sturdily built and broad-shouldered. Two of them pulled the pins on the tail-gate, and four more hopped up into the wagon-bed. The axles groaned with the stentorian voice of old, stress-cured wood, and the off-loading began. With so many hands to help, the wagon was emptied in under ten minutes, and the crates transferred to the boxcar. Today Nate did not need to shout sternly at the men to handle the boxes with care or to be sure the stacks were squared: they knew the job now, and went about it with a willingness they had not exhibited yesterday. Watching them from the lofty vantage of the wagon seat, Nate had to concede that Mister Cullen was clever. He had seen his master packing the small sack with the best of their trimmings, assembling a parcel that would have cost at least three dollars at the dry goods store. It was an enormously generous gratuity to give to men who might expect two bits from a cotton planter, and all it had cost Mister Cullen was his leftovers. In hope of more, the rail slaves were now giving their very best.

When the wagon was empty and the tail once more in place, Nate tipped his ragged felt hat to Saul and guided the mules into their wide turn. Brief though his sojourn had been, he crossed the tracks and rode back through a Meridian now risen to meet the day. On the main street shopkeepers were opening their shutters and putting out their signs. Shop-boys were sweeping their masters' sections of the boardwalk, or filling the troughs at the hitching-posts. Among the houses he could now hear the calls of mothers rousing their children, or the laughter of men hailing neighbors across back fences as both trundled out to the privy. Dining room windows glowed with welcoming light, and through the open curtains Nate could see house women laying out china and silver. Further on, he passed through the less-afluent quarter where the working whites lived. He saw a woman hanging her first basket of laundry on a sagging clothesline: baby gowns and diapers in abundance. Two young men with scraggly yellow beards were walking up the street towards the center of town, tossing a laden dinner pail between them as they went. An old man was sitting in a porch-rocker, puffing on a blackberry root pipe.

Last of all Nate rode through the shanty-town, where dwelt the poor whites and Crackers on whom the planters' slaves looked down with unshakable superiority. These ragged, underfed men with their malarial wives and broods of shrill, skinny and often rickets-riddled children were just about the only sight in the world that made Nate think there might be something worse than slavery. There was no one to catch these wretches when they stumbled: no one to feed them in their old age, or tend to them in sickness. As harsh and often horrible as a slave's life was, at least he knew where his next meal would come from and where he would lay his head each night. Even the precarious position of the Bohannon finances was not desperate enough for Nate to envy the denizens of this tarpaper-and-canvas swamp on the edge of the pretty little city.

Not three miles out of town Nate saw a dark shape lumbering towards him from the direction of home. He called to the mules and turned them aside, dragging the off-side wheels into the ditch so that the wagon canted sharply to the right. He had just reined his team into a safe halt when the other wagon drew near enough for him to see that it was indeed Mister Cullen sitting on the box. He straightened as Nate's eyes focused on him, but it was obvious that he too had been hunkered down low for warmth.

"Fancy seeing you 'round here," he called as Snort and Shadow drew abreast of Gus and Betsy, pausing momentarily in their stride lest they should be allowed to halt and greet their stablemates. When no such command came from the driver they trudged on, and the borrowed wagon rumbled up. "Drive careful," said the master.

"Same to you," said Nate, and then Mister Cullen was behind him and the load of tobacco boxes followed. When they were safely past, Nate urged his team back up onto the road and continued on his way. He felt no bitterness for being obliged to yield up the road in this instance, as he might have for a pleasure-buggy or a rich man's carriage. Not only did he know that the master would do the same for him next time, but it was common courtesy and just plain sense: an empty wagon always gave way to a laden one. It was an unspoken and universal rule put in place for the safety of all concerned. If there was one thing Nate had learned this year, it was that he should not waste strength resenting necessities.

The only good thing about returning to the plantation – and the attendant strain of toting another nine boxes – was that first glimpse of Meg as she came running from the potato field at the sound of the wagon. She had to be dreading the work almost as much as he did, but she still rounded the barn with a smile on her face; the instinctive response of a woman greeting a friend. Her skirts were gathered in her hands, and her feet in their sturdy work-shoes looked slender and delicate beneath the broad spread of cotton. She was wearing the dress that Missus Mary had mended for her, one cloth on top and another on the bottom. The green print that had replaced the ruined bodice was a very becoming color on Meg, and Nate thought she looked all the prettier for it. He slowed the mules to a halt and jumped down from the buggy as she reached it, and for a brief, blissful instant he imagined that she would run right to him and he might sweep her into his arms and kiss her rich lips.

Instead she only seized hold of Betsy's traces and rubbed the mule's neck. "You made good time!" she said cheerfully. "Seems like Mist' Cullen ain't hardly lef'."

"Railroad crew be eager today," Nate said, shrugging his shoulders. "Guess that tobacco Mist' Cullen give 'em be worth sellin' aft' all."

That was all the pleasantry they had time for. They were in the barn and affixing their hold on the first box before Elijah even reached them. He was moving more slowly than usual, no doubt suffering from yesterday's exertions. As his ravaged arms strained to hoist the heavy crate, Nate wondered grimly whether he hadn't been right after all. Maybe this haste really _would_ kill them.

He bolted down a hasty dinner on the wagon seat before departing on his second trip. It was just gone eleven, and the early meal sat uneasily in his stomach as the buckboard jolted over the ruts. It was a relief to turn on to the main road, which was kept neatly graded by the largess of several of the wealthy planters who used it. In the old days, Mister William had contributed both money and labor to the endeavor, but his son was too short of both to continue the tradition.

By the time Nate reached the outskirts of town, the noon hour was well under way. Builders and stoneworkers sat around half-finished shops and houses, lounging on stacks of lumber or sprawled in the shade of a half-finished wall to eat. Mothers were herding their children in out of the sun, even though it was the end of November and the heat of the day was no longer fearsome. The same habits of combatting Mississippi's heat had house-servants drawing the drapes in parlors and bedrooms.

The dinnertime lull still left the main street bustling. People were coming in and out of shops, and Nate's was not the only wagon in motion. The door of the gentlemen's club at the quiet end of the street scarcely seemed to close at all, so steady was the stream of patrons. The door to the telegraph office stood wide, held open by the third-last person in the line for the post office counter. All this Nate took in from the corners of his eyes. At dawn a black man might look around with impunity and hope to escape notice, for people were still half-asleep or too busy with their own morning haste to care, but in broad daylight a slave was wise to keep his eyes to himself – particularly a slave whose master was out of favor with some of the most powerful men in the county.

He reached the tracks without drawing attention from anyone but a boy so young as to be still in short gowns, who stopped dead with his hand still curled in his mother's to stare at the heavy wagon and the mules. When the woman turned back to urge him on, hoopskirt swinging, he pointed at Nate and babbled happily. But his mother only murmured absentmindedly; "Yes, darling, _very _big wheels!", and shepherded him on towards the drugstore.

Nate was beginning to think that he could relax his vigilance a little as he jounced over the railroad tracks, flinching at the sharp pain in his tailbone as he did so. He spent little enough time in his life sitting, and sitting on a bare board that bounded and bounced with bruising regularity was worse still. Tonight Elijah would be bound to tease him about rubbing his rump. He was thinking sourly about this, and not paying attention to the way ahead, and that was why he did not stop in time.

It was Betsy, God bless her, who had the sense to dig in her hooves, and so save them all from a collision that likely would have landed Nate in prison. Gus followed her lead and halted only a fraction of a second later. The wagon, laden with the inertia of its unwieldy load, continued moving. It likely would have been too much for the Morgans to stop so shortly: they would have been obliged to trot ahead a step or three under the sheer force. But the mules were heavier and far more bullheaded. They did not mean to move any farther, and even the tobacco could not make them move. The wagon tongue shot forward as far as the tack would allow, and though the straps tugged forward on the mules they stood fast. Mister Cullen had harnessed the team with his usual precision, and although the leathers squealed with the strain they reached their limit before the front of the wagon could slam against the mules' muscular backsides. Nate, however, was flung forward against the rain, jamming his foot painfully against the buckboard itself. His neck cracked with the force of stopping his head, and his teeth snapped together so fiercely that it was only the luck of positioning that kept him from biting off the tip of his tongue.

The other vehicle was a jaunty two-wheeled gig, shiny with new scarlet paint and pulled by a proud young palomino who had been going along at a canter. As the behemoth with its mules crashed to a halt, the small horse reared, pawing the air and causing the vehicle to jerk to a stop. The driver yanked upon his reins, shouting to the horse to stop. His tall hat flew back off of his head and landed in the dust of the street. It was followed almost at once by the pink silk parasol his passenger had been holding. They were both of courting age: the man not twenty and the girl in her middle teens. They were both dressed in costly clothes, he in English broadcloth and Holland linen, and she in a dress of stiff rustling silk, the skirts of which ballooned over her escort's leg and out the side of the tiny carriage. And of course, they were both white.

The girl gave a little scream and the boy, who had risen up on his heels to rein in the rearing horse, sat down hard enough to make the whole rig bounce. "Hellfire and damnation!" he cried. Then his hand in its dove-gray glove flew to his mouth and he glanced hangdoggedly at his companion. "Beggin' your pardon, Miss Felicity!" he mumbled breathlessly. Then his head turned sharply towards Nate and his eyes blazed with the dangerous indignation of a spoiled child who has grown up into the power of a man. "What the blazes do you think you're doing, boy?" he demanded.

Nate looked at the narrow alley through which the ridiculous little carriage had come, travelling at a speed much too fast for the middle of town, and the eating-house wall that had obscured his view of it until the last minute. His heart was hammering with the shock, and his head pounding with latent terror. For an awful instant he had feared he would strike the other vehicle and hurt or perhaps even kill one of the silly, pampered children riding in it. With that horror still bitter in his mouth, and his lungs still heaving, he felt his rage rise. He opened his mouth to shout back at the boy, and then closed it again.

From the platform and the stationhouse, people were already running towards the sight of the narrowly-avoided collision. Two or three voices cried out at once, calling to the other driver by name and asking if he was all right. The girl beside him had whipped out a lace fan and was flapping it frantically, her face flushed crimson with strain. In another minute Nate would be surrounded by white men, doubtless enraged that he had endangered one of their friends and – far worse – a young lady of obvious substance. His fury was swept away on a tide of sheer instinctive terror.

Falling back on the survival tactics he had learned in his earliest days in old Mister Bohannon's tobacco fields, he shrank down on the seat, trying to make himself look as insignificant and unobtrusive as possible. He tore his eyes from those of his challenger, and fixed them on the floor of the wagon box. He tucked in his elbows and hung his head.

"I's sorry, Massa. I didn' see you. I's careless, I guess," he mumbled humbly, letting the faintest servile whine slip into his voice. "I's on business fo' my massa, sir, an' I jus' didn' see."

"Well!" The boy smoothed his silk cravat, tucking it into his waistcoat again. His watch on its gold chain had flopped out of the pocket, and now dangled between his legs. He reeled it in delicately and tucked it into his pocket. "Guess I did come 'round that corner mighty fast. What 'bout you, Felicity dear? Are you all right?"

"Why, I think so!" the girl said breathlessly, fanning herself with all her might. Her other hand in its costly lace mitten found her beau's arm, and she looked up at him. Despite her obvious rattling and its lingering effects, she fluttered her eyelashes flirtatiously and gave a coy little smile. "It's _such_ a quick little carriage, Thomas. How clever!"

The first of the onlookers came loping up, swooping to snag the parasol as he came up beside the girl. He dusted it off gallantly, with no regard for his own silk glove, and offered it to her with a bow. "Are you all right, Miss Felicity?" he gasped.

"Yes, I'm all right, John. Ain't you a dear?" The girl took the parasol and folded it, then busied herself in straightening her bonnet. She looked at Nate and gave an effervescent little laugh. "The poor darky had the scare of his life, I think!"

Nate found his breath leveling out, and his pulse began to slow. It was all right. It was going to be all right. The young couple seemed inclined to take the close pass with calamity as a joke, and the gathering crowd would take their cue from them. With a few more scraping apologies and perhaps a little aping for the audience, he would be able to go on his way. It would wear hard on his pride, and sit sour in his stomach for weeks to come, but he could bear the indignity. It was better than the alternatives: a beating at the least, or even arrest, or – most unconscionable of all under the circumstances – attack by a mob that might despoil his precious cargo.

He was just opening his mouth to offer a humble; "Yes, Miss, I surely had that, Miss! Ain' _never _been so skeer'd!". But Betsy let out a long, startled _haw_ as a hard, hairy fist closed on the base of the rein where it buckled to her bridle. Startled, Nate raised his gaze and found himself staring right into a pair of cold cobalt eyes. Grizzled hair stood out coarsely beneath the brim of a beaver-felt slouch too costly to afford on a public servant's salary. Nate's hope of escaping humiliated but unharmed withered in his chest, and his early dinner lurched perilously under his ribs. It was Sheriff Brannan.

"Well now, nigger," he drawled, his lips stretching into an unpleasant grin that showed his uneven row of upper teeth. The left eye tooth was missing, leaving a gap that Nate had never noticed before. "Just what d'you think you been doing here? There's laws in this state 'gainst niggers threatening white folks."


	82. Disorder in the Streets

_Note: Well, after this week I'm giving serious thought to a war-years sequel. As depressing as I know it would be..._

_As for Punch and Judy, they were at the time a popular entertainment for all ages, but the scripts varied in their target audience. Some were more *ahem* adult-themed, and others very much _not._ (This chapter posted between 405 and 406.)_

**Chapter Eighty-Two: Disorder in the Streets**

"Get down from there!" the sheriff commanded. His free hand slid to his belt, where a long-barreled revolver hung ominously.

Even without the threat of the weapon, Nate would not have been stupid enough to argue. He looped the reins around the ring mounted on the buckboard and slid towards the edge of the seat. This brought him closer to the gig, its lace-edged passenger, and John the parasol-rescuer. The latter turned to face him, shoulders squared.

"You watch yourself, boy," he said sternly. "Don't you come near Miss Felicity!"

There was a murmur of assent from the gathering men. Nate's pride bristled to hear the youth, who was not more than twenty-two, addressing him by a diminutive that even his own master eschewed, but he did not even dare to raise his eyes. He slid awkwardly back up the seat and on to the left edge, bringing himself uncomfortably close to the grinning man with the gun. Slowly, so as not to startle Betsy, he stretched his foot out for the wheel and lowered himself to the ground. The toe of his right boot stuck against a stone in the road, snagging where the sole had split from the vamp, and he stumbled forward, catching himself by seizing hold of the wagon tongue. It rattled out towards the tip, which wagged beneath the sheriff's fist.

The lawman sneered unpleasantly. "Clumsy one, ain't you?" he asked. "Now tell me what you think you was doing."

Nate straightened as much as he dared, careful to keep his head down and his shoulders rounded forward. The crowd was tightening now: there were almost a dozen of them, from the frivolously dressed young men who had come from the direction of the eating-house, to heavy-booted rail bosses, to a pair of ragged-looking old trappers with old bone pipes clamped in shriveled lips. Their expressions ran the gamut from idly curious to moderately indignant and, in the case of young John, brewing outrage. The two in the carriage were still smiling, though the girl's eyes had shifted from playfully bright to clouded with wariness.

"Sheriff, I'm all right," she protested with a tiny laugh.

"I'm grateful to know it, Miss Ives," Brannan said; "but that don't answer my question. What was you doing, nigger?"

"Takin' my load to the depot, sir," Nate said, as meekly as he could without mumbling. He did not want to anger the man by making his answer in any way difficult to hear or understand. "I's on business fo' my massa."

"I see." The grip on Betsy's halter tightened, and the mule shifted uneasily. Gus read her discomfiture and hawed in protest; the same reflexive protectiveness that the boy beside the carriage had show a moment ago. It was a harmless animal sound, and coming from the beast furthest away from Nate, but nonetheless it made the sheriff stiffen into a posture of discomfited alertness.

"Here, you!" he said, jerking his thumb at one of the trappers. "Hold these animals, and see they don't bolt."

It was ridiculous to suppose the mules were even capable of bolting, strapped as they were to a wagon that, fully-loaded, weighed almost three-quarters of a ton, but Nate kept his face from registering his disdain. The white man was a fool, all right, but he was a fool with a gun, and a fool with the power to make a lot of trouble for him and for his master without even lifting it from its holster.

"They's goin' behave, Mist' Sheriff," he promised quietly. "They knows their business."

Brannan handed off the line to the old man and took two swift, predatory steps towards Nate. "That so?" he challenged. "And what 'bout you, boy? Does you know _your_ business?"

A frank affirmative might seem too much like defiance, and in any case did not do to let hostile whites think a Negro was of even average intelligence. They tended to dismiss the ignorant and bewildered with far more leniency than the clear-minded and skilled.

"I does my bes', Mist' Sheriff, sir," Nate wheedled. "Reckon my massa know it better'n me."

"Reckon he does," sneered Brannan, and Nate remembered too late that his last encounter with Mister Cullen had not been a favorable one. "For instance, what's he got you haulin' in to the depot? Them don't look like sweet potato sacks."

"Nawsir," said Nate carefully, debating whether to profess ignorance. It was too great a risk. If Brannan suspected him of lying, there would be terrible consequences. "It the tobacco crop, some of it. Massa be shippin' her south by way of Jackson."

"Jackson!" one of the young men laughed, slapping his hand on his thigh. "We got us a geography scholar, boys!" He grinned condescendingly at Nate. "Jackson's _west_ of here, son, not south."

"Yassir. Thankee, sir," Nate murmured, keeping his eyes fixed on the sheriff's boots. He had said _by way of_, not _to_, but he could not say that. It was still possible that if he kept his head he might get out of this with his hide in one piece.

"Tobacco, huh?" Brannan mused. In the edge of his field of vision, Nate could just see his face as it shifted into a look of cunning stupidity sparked with recognition. "Only one man 'round here gots 'nough of a tobacco crop to be worth shipping."

He took another step, and Nate's heart began to hammer again. Instinct told him to straighten up and stand his ground, to stare down the threat or to prepare to fight. But common sense told him to stay as he was, in cringing servility, and to keep calm.

"Has your master learned his lesson, nigger?" Brannan asked. "He give you permission to be off his land?"

This had been the subject of some irate comment yesterday morning. Under the law, so Mister Cullen said, a slave did not need written permission if they were off their master's land on lawful business, and hauling the tobacco to market was certainly lawful business. But although excess caution was not something that came naturally to him, and although he bridled against unjust authority, this time he had decided not to take the chance.

"Yassir, he done that," Nate said quietly. He moved his hand towards the pocket in which the note was folded.

Quick as a viper, Brannan's hand shot out and closed on his wrist. It clamped so tightly, calloused fingers digging between the tendon and bone just above the joint, that Nate's fingertips went suddenly numb. He had to clamp his lips closed to keep from shouting out at the sudden jolt of pain that tore up towards his elbow.

"That's enough of that!" the sheriff snapped. "How'd I know you ain't got a weapon?"

Roughly he flung Nate's coat open, pawing at the band of his trousers. He thrust his left hand into each of the lower pockets of the coat, and then found the inner breast-pocket. There was a _crunch _as his fist closed on the page, and he drew it out in a ball. He slapped it down on the side of Betsy's rump, and the mule brayed uneasily. From her voice Nate knew that she was every bit as frightened as he was, and the restrictive weight of the thick traces and the wagon behind suddenly seemed like a very good thing. One-handed, still holding Nate's arm in an iron grip, Brannan spread the paper out against the mule's flank.

"Can't hardly read it: it's all crumpled up," he complained. Then he tucked his chin and squinted, lips moving tortuously as he read the note. Then he craned his neck to look in the back of the wagon, and then glowered at Nate. "Well," he said.

He glanced at the paper again, and then balled it up in his fist, tossing it idly over Betsy's back. It landed in the dirt between the two mules. "Well," Brannan said again. He looked at his detainee, and then around at the expectant crowd. Once more he hissed; "_Well._"

Then he twitched his arm outward, dragging Nate with him. Caught off-balance in his cautious slouch, Nate stumbled and lost his footing, crashing to one knee in front of one of the railroad men. Brannan released his hold with a flinging motion, as if the contact disgusted him, and strode past the fallen slave to the back of the wagon. There was a squeak and a dull _crash_ as he pulled the tail pins and let the gate fall without a staying hand. Nate twisted to look back towards him, not daring to rise before he was bidden. Brannan reached for the nearest box and tried to drag it towards himself one-handed. Of course it was much too heavy to shift under such pressure: it had scarcely moved in the sudden stop. The man's pale lips shrivelled in irritation, and there was a rustle as he poked a finger between two slats, followed by an ominous crackling sound.

"You take care with that!" Nate snapped, forgetting himself. The boxes on the wagon were full of fire-cured primings: not quite the very best of the crop, but very nearly. Their value depended on presenting a whole, unblemished leaf to the New Orleans buyers.

"What did you say?" the sheriff snarled, pulling back from the crate to leer menacingly at Nate. "You don't talk back to me, nigger."

"It tobacco, Massa, jus' like I say," Nate mumbled meekly, but he knew it was too late.

Brannan cast his gaze in a broad sweep over the crowd. "Somebody fetch me a prybar!" he ordered. Then as if to himself he muttered; "No telling what the sly bastard might have hid in here."

Nate did not know whether the man was referring to himself or to Mister Cullen, but it did not matter. If Brannan went rooting through the tobacco, he would ruin it. The long days in the fields, plucking endless suckers so they would not sap the growth of the bigger leaves; the slow, precise process of cutting each leaf just when it was ripe; the curing and the sorting and the careful, light-fingered packing; and even the last painful effort to lift the box into the wagon bed: all would be wasted. There was fifty dollars or more sitting in those crates, and Brannan might destroy it all.

"Please, Massa, lemme do it," Nate begged. "Lemme show you: ain't nuthin' but tobacco in them crates."

"Shut your mouth and mind your place: I ain't finished with you yet!" snapped Brannan. Several of the men in the crowd were smirking now. Whether they had heard rumors of the dissent between Cullen Bohannon and the sheriff, or whether they were merely enjoying the spectacle of seeing an uppity darky put in his place Nate neither knew nor cared. His mouth was dry now, and his fears for his personal safety were beginning to give way to a fierce protective indignation. That was their tobacco, damn it: not just Mister Cullen's. It belonged to all of them, to the ones who had bent their backs and stained their hands and worn out their boots to grow it. It was his tobacco. It was Elijah's. It was Meg's. Even little Lottie had done her share to raise it.

The girl in the light carriage shifted uncomfortably. "Is this really necessary, Mr. Brannan?" she asked. "Nobody was hurt."

"Hush, honey," her escort hissed warily. "Sheriff ain't angry with us. That's so, ain't it, sir? You ain't angry with us? I know I _was_ driving them a bit fast, but there ain't a law against it."

Brannan turned towards the two young people with an almost courteous smile. "That ain't the point, Mr. Tucker. You and young Miss Ives might have been seriously hurt by this here nigger, and I don't take kindly to slaves threatening white folks."

Nate seized the opportunity afforded by this distraction to get slowly to his feet. He did so with care, still attempting to look as shrunken and insignificant as possible. The sheriff's attention was diverted, but some of the men were still watching him with avaricious eyes. These ones, five at Nate's best count, would love any excuse for violence. Attacks on local slaves were rare, for such acts were seen as an affront to the owner and could even be persecuted as an act of wilful damage of property, but Mister Cullen was out of favor with the sheriff – to say nothing of one of the most influential men in the county. His reputation would not be enough to protect Nate's person, even if it would probably save his life.

"I'm willing to let the matter rest," Thomas Tucker said unsteadily. "He stopped in time."

"He's right," one of the railroaders said. "It was close, Sheriff, but not _that_ close."

Nate's pride bristled at the idea of feeling grateful to a man just for telling the truth, but he was. He raised his gaze, and the man's eyes caught his for a moment before moving indifferently onward. He was not interested in the plight of the slave: only in the truth. Nate was compelled to respect that, for the man seemed unique in that regard, but nonetheless he felt his already shrunken hope shrivel. He had no ally in this after all.

One of the younger men in coarse working clothes came running back from the platform, brandishing a long iron prybar. "Here you are, Sheriff," he panted, handing it off.

"Good," Brannan said curtly. He ran his hand along the tool, then rammed its beaten end between the body of the crate and the lid. He bore down on the shaft, and there was a sound of splintering wood and slipping nails as the lid lifted. A second prizing on the other corner was enough to finish the job. Brannan shifted the crowbar to his left hand, and used his right to fling the lid backward. It landed on the next crate with a _crash_.

Nate's tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth, and though he tried to swallow he could not. "Please, Massa," he tried again. "Lemme show you. Them leaves needs careful handlin'."

Brannan turned to his voice, and a cruel smile flashed across his face before it set into lines of deliberate sternness. "You hush that mouth, nigger," he warned. "Or I'll shut it for you."

He leaned forward over the crate, where the carefully cured leaves were packed in smooth, meticulous layers. Nate could tell by the almost grid-like alignment of the long central veins that Mister Cullen had packed this crate. He always took a little more care than was strictly needed, as if trying to compensate for his clumsiness in other areas of the growing process. Now, looking at the order about to be flung into chaos, Nate could see its handsomeness: the ineffable professional touch that might sway a buyer without him even recognizing it.

"Please, Mist' Brannan, sir," he begged, now in deathly earnest. "Please don'—"

With defiant swiftness, the sheriff plunged his hand into the crate. The top leaf buckled up towards his palm, while the others were driven into divots by his fingers. Brannan closed his fist, and the tobacco crumpled just like Nate's paper of permission had, shrinking into a ball. Unlike the paper, the leaves cracked and crumbled, thin flakes slipping between the man's fingers.

"I says _don'_!" Nate roared, forgetting himself and his very reasonable fears for his safety. He lunged forward and seized hold of Brannan's elbow, yanking his arm out of the crate. The hand opened in surprise, and the leaves fell, sagging towards openness again. The veins were broken and the edges torn, and holes had opened up in the smooth centers. Nate's other hand clapped onto the sheriff's arm, and he dug in one heel as he dragged the man away from the wagon.

Brannan came, too momentarily flabbergasted to resist. His cruel eyes widened in disbelief, and from the crowd there came a collective gasp of alarm. It was a rare thing to see a nigger put his hands to a white man; even rarer to see him defy a lawman. The combination of both was a spectacle that Meridian would be talking about for years to come.

Nate did not care. All that mattered was getting that brute away from the tobacco he seemed bent on destroying so wantonly. In that first fevered instant he hardly saw the man's astonishment morphing into blazing rage. What he saw was a hail-ravaged field of muck-splattered plants, and in it four stooped figures toiling in the cold, driving rain. He saw old Elijah, his rheumatic back bent like a fiddlehead as he cut the broken leaves. He saw beautiful, brave Meg with her face set hard against tears of disappointment and her apron laden with muddy trash from the furrows. He could feel the ache of the chill in his own joints, the weight of wet cloth on his back, the drag of the mud on his arms and legs. And he could see Mister Cullen, pale and fighting off the tobacco sickness, his eyes hard as slate with a determination that even the storm had been unable to crack, working on because he knew there was no other choice but to salvage what they could.

Blinded by this image and the tumult of emotions tangled up with it – anger, terror, despair, unexpected admiration – Nate did not see the prybar, either, until it blasted against his right eye-socket as Brannan swung his left hand into the fray. Agony exploded into his skull, jarring the base of his neck and sending his jaw shut with an audible _click_. The roar of pain that wanted to burst from his lips was driven through his nose instead, a trumpeting of raw animal suffering. The momentum of the blow sent him reeling, his left leg wrenching sickeningly in the moment before his knee gave way. Instinct tightened his hands into fists – or would have done, had not the sheriff's forearm been clamped between them. As it was, his grip grew suddenly unshakeable and Brannan reacted accordingly.

One gabardine-clad knee came up, catching Nate under the chin as he fell. Only luck spared his windpipe from a strangling impact, but Nate had no chance to feel grateful for that as his head snapped back. His right hand released its hold, as somewhere in a world that was growing increasingly distant someone gave an alarmed little cry.

Brannan's leg swung back and into a savage kick that landed square in Nate's stomach. This was enough, at last, to force him to forfeit his hold on the white man's arm. He crumpled, sliding into the dust and then rolling intuitively onto his front. Then the wind was driven from his lungs as the crowbar came down across his back, just below the shoulder-blades. Blind and breathless, groping desperately in a muddled mind for some iota of sense so that he could get himself out of this, Nate flung his arms up to shield his head. His fingers scrabbled against his collar as Brannan tossed the heavy iron tool to his dominant hand and brought it down again.

The mob-mongers in the crowd were watching hungrily, thin lips stretched with malicious enjoyment. Their breath came in quick pants, and their hands were balled into fists that jerked as their shoulders twitched as if to mime the punches they were all-too-eager to rain down upon the fallen man. They were held back only by the authority of the sheriff's badge and their reluctance to supplant Brannan's right to administer justice one-handed if he wished to. They might have fallen on Nate regardless, but for the others: the men who stood stiffly and uncertainly, leaning unconsciously backward as if recoiling from the spectacle. They were the men in whom the instinct for violence was unformed: the young, the rural or the educated. John the parasol boy was among them: standing up to protect a lady from a Negro who drew too near was natural to him, but the sight of such a savage beating was not. In the carriage young Tucker was sitting tight-lipped and pale, head bobbing forward as if he wanted to speak, and then drawing back when he dared not. Beside him, Felicity Ives sat like a porcelain doll with her shoulders thrust back and her hands driven deep into the pillow of her billowing skirts. Her blue eyes were round as saucers.

Nate saw none of this. Through the filter of black blobs that pulsed and whirled before his eyes, he caught glimpses of his knees against the road, of Brannan's brown leather boots, of the dust darkening to mud in small round patches where a dark fluid had fallen. As the prybar came down upon his back again, he realized that the fluid was blood. When Brannan's foot caught him under the ribs, he realized that the blood was his own. Then something – bone or iron, he could not tell – struck the back of his head, and he was no longer in a condition to realize much of anything.

_*discidium*_

Cullen found himself half-dozing on the hard seat as the borrowed wagon trundled tiredly towards the top of the last rise before Meridian. For weeks now he had been fighting a pernicious exhaustion with some success, but all it had taken was one rough night to sway the tide in the direction of the enemy. It seemed as if he had hardly slept the night before, so frequent were the fits of strangling coughs that woke him and disturbed the little sleeper at his side. Gabe had consented happily enough to the idea of lying down with his head on his father's shoulder, and Cullen had been able to stretch out flat for the first time in days. It should have helped him to sleep, but instead it only seemed to make the coughing jags more numerous. After one especially bad one that had brought both Mary and Bethel running – he thought, inexplicably, both from the direction of the stairs – he had given up trying to lie down and had propped himself up against the headboard again. Gabe, who took Pappy's illness with almost the same equanimity he now afforded his own, had happily climbed into his lap and gone straight back to sleep while Cullen languished in breathless misery for what seemed like hours. Just as he began to nod off at last, it was the little boy's turn to sit bolt upright, fighting for air.

At least Gabe's fits were coming much less frequently now. He had only had two last night, to Cullen's five, and although the whooping was still awful to listen to, at least he did not gurgle as if drowning in his own phlegm. Cullen, who had wished countless times that he might take the sickness upon himself to spare his son, found a certain absurd irony in the fact that as he grew worse, Gabe grew better. Although it was a worthwhile trade, the timing could not have been worse. Cullen was beginning to become concerned about the implications his illness might have for the negotiations in New Orleans. Any sign of weakness undermined a man's bargaining position, and few things made a man look weaker than being stricken with a childhood disease.

The mules picked up to a quick trot as they started down the hill, and the wagon rattled down to the edge of the town. Cullen shifted on the seat and tried to sit up a little straighter, spitting out one last satisfying spurt of tobacco juice before rolling the spent plug up with his tongue and expectorating it over the side of the wagon. He had brought some loose leaf to chew, recalling how it had soothed his sore head and eased his longing for a cigar yesterday. It seemed to be accomplishing the latter, anyway. After the night he had had he was not sure that anything but a good solid six hours' sleep would cure his head.

The early afternoon hush had fallen over the shanties and tents on the outskirts: the men were out working, and the young children put down for their naps. Their older siblings were either down at the one-room school, or laboring themselves – digging potatoes for some small farmer, or shining shoes at the rail platform. Here and there a thin-faced, weary looking woman was stirring a pot of laundry or kneading dough for ash-cakes. One came out of a mud-splattered tent carrying a heavy slop pail with both arms straining. Clinging to her ragged skirt was a baby, naked but for a sagging diaper and just learning to walk. He toddled awkwardly after his mother, until she reached the edge of the wooden platform over which the tent had been pitched. There he lost his balance and sat down hard upon his rump, startled for a moment before letting out a high, shrill wail of indignation. The woman glanced over her shoulder, body sagging further into its posture of defeat, and staggered on down towards the midden, leaving the child to cry.

Snort and Shadow were still moving and the wagon dragged past, tearing Cullen's eyes from the pitiful sight. He sighed tiredly and scrubbed at his eyes, thinking of his own wife and boy at home. That was the reason he had to succeed in getting at least a reasonable price for the tobacco. He had to keep a roof over his family's head, and food on the two tables, white and black, and lay by seed for next year so that the whole futile business could begin over again. Suddenly the weight on the back of the buckboard seemed slung around his neck, and he slumped lower on the box. The mules had slowed their pace again, marching doggedly towards the main street.

The afternoon business was just starting to pick up, but Cullen had no interest in noting who was abroad today or why. He smothered a yawn with the sleeve of his old topcoat and poked the brim of his hat to tilt it back a little. He was just rolling past the saloon when a trio of towheaded young men came out, arm in arm and laughing uproariously. Cullen flicked the reins to urge the mules on, but it was too late: the tallest of the three spied him and let out a gleeful, wordless holler.

"Hey there, Cullen!" he called, disentangling from his left-hand brother – or cousin – in order to flail one arm vigorously in the air. Cullen answered with a tiny wave that did not even take his thumb from the reins. In another minute they would have the mules stopped, and he would have to spend ten minutes listening to their opinions on the presidential election, the debates about Mississippi independence, and life in general before being asked to present his own. There was no escape: the loaded wagon could never outrun three Ives boys.

"Afternoon gentlemen," he drawled, leaning his arms against his knees to rest his aching shoulders. He gathered in the lines, and the mules slowed but did not stop. The young men hopped down off the boardwalk and came up beside him, stepping sideways so that they could look him straight on. "I'm on my way to the Southern Railway depot, if you want to go my way."

"Hauling the crop?" the oldest one asked. He was either Tony or Thaddeus – Cullen could not tell unless the two of them were standing next to each other. He nodded, making a little wry smile. The other two boys looked at one another and smirked playfully.

"Got any going spare?" asked the tall one.

Cullen almost grinned. "All right, then," he conceded, reaching into his inner pocket and pulling out his cigar case. He tossed it to Thaddeus – or Tony – and clicked his tongue to quicken the mules a little. He did not want them to pick up too much speed, for they were approaching the tracks and might have to make a short stop for a rail cart or some carriage coming from the other direction. The Ives boys had stopped to share around his thin cigars, but Cullen had eased to pay them any mind. His attention was drawn to the far side of the rails, where some kind of commotion seemed to be underway. There was a heavy grunt and a jeering chuckle, and the sickening _thud_ of iron on bone. Then a high feminine voice rose up in a tiny cry of horror.

Cullen was urging the mules on and focusing on the tight-knit ring of bodies ahead, but he did not miss the clamor as the three Iveses stiffened like hounds to the horn.

"Hear that?" one said.

"That's Felicity!" the tall one declared. "Ain't she out riding with Tommy?"

"If he's gone and tried to kiss her I'll tan his backside," the third put in.

Then the girl cried out again, more loudly this time, and exclaimed; "Oh, stop it! _Stop!_"

Cullen slapped the reins across the mules' rumps, and despite the load they picked up into an unwieldy canter. The wagon thundered over the rails, axles protesting. Just short of the edge of the crowd, which seemed to be comprised chiefly of men and numbered at first glance a little more than twenty, Cullen dragged them to a halt again and jumped down off the box, flinging the reins over the seat as he went.

"Here now, what this?" he demanded, elbowing his way through to the centre of the ring. There he stopped, momentarily stricken dumb by the sight.

He was only dimly conscious of the eager, leering faces around him, and of the fact that Felicity Ives was standing up in a saucy red gig with a very startled-looking boy on the seat beside her, half-smothered by her flounces. What he saw was his discolored old wagon, with Gus and Betsy hitched to it while a stranger held their lines, and on the ground beside its rear left wheel Nate, tireless if sometimes recalcitrant Nate, huddled in a ball in the dust while Sheriff Brannan stood over him brandishing a wicked-looking prybar.

"Hey!" he shouted, flinging himself forward and seizing hold of the upraised arm. It flew forward as he did so, arcing into a vicious descent, and Cullen had to thrust his shoulder up into the other man's armpit to stop it. The bar wagged impotently in the air at his back, its quartered butt just grazing the armscye of his coat.

Brannan roared in consternation and tried to twist away, but Cullen had one hand wedged under his right arm and the other flung around his chest. Cullen had twenty years on the sheriff, and his lean frame was hard with muscle after the months of backbreaking toil about the farm, but he was exhausted and his arms unsteady with fatigue after this last day and a half of heavy lifting. For a moment they grappled awkwardly, each exerting a tremendous amount of strength but in such perfect balance and opposition that neither seemed to move at all. Then Brannan changed his tactic and pulled back his head so that he could see his assailant's face.

"Bohannon!" he spat, still trying to break free from Cullen's grasp. "I done told you manhandling a man of the law ain't permitted!"

"It is if I catch him abusing my man!" Cullen bit back. "What the hell d'you think you're doing? I sent him on business. I gave him a damned paper!"

Beside his boot, Nate stirred and took a rattling breath, struggling to shelter his head between shoulders that stood out in cords of strained muscle. Cullen felt his pulse hammer in his temples. He was seething with a hot wrath, and he did not know if it was because of the abuse his man had obviously been suffering or because of the injustice that abuse represented. Brannan had been put onto Cullen's scent by Sutcliffe, but the indignity of the hearing and the burden of the thirty-five dollar fine were not enough: now he had to prey upon another of the Bohannon darkies. It was not to be borne.

"You unhand me, or you'll spend the night in jail!" Brannan commanded. "That's where your nigger's headed: he threatened a white girl!"

"He didn't!" cried Felicity Ives, indignant as a child denied the bonbons she had begged for. She stamped one small foot and made the gig rock. Tommy Tucker reached up towards her elbow, trying feebly to shush her. "He didn't threaten me! He didn't!"

"You got no right to beat him with a crowbar!" Cullen snarled, eyes still locked with Brannan's. "That's enough to kill a man, and if the girl ain't hurt you got no cau—cau—_cause_ to… ooo…"

Not now, he thought frantically. Not here. But his body had other ideas, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Though he tried to swallow the first spastic burst of air he could not. It burst from tightly pressed lips and Brannan squinted and flinched away as his face was showered with a thin spray of spittle. It still had a faint yellowish cast from the chewing tobacco, and showed bright against his grizzled whiskers. This would have been amusing and quite likely inspiring, if only Cullen had been in any position to relish it. As it was he was struggling to keep his grip on the right arm with its potentially lethal weapon while another cough tore through him, and then a third.

The fourth was one of those long, ferocious ones that clattered on and on without surcease until his lungs were so empty that he simply had to take a breath – a breath that came in as a sharp, shrill _whoop_ cut short by the next cough. His right arm fell away from Brannan's ribs, curling to clutch his own as the muscles that bound them strained tormentedly. His hand, still clutching Brannan's upraised triceps, faltered as the next cough seized him. His vision became occluded with brilliant sparks of light, and his awareness of the environment around him slipped a little. In the throes of the cough he was all but helpless, and it did not look likely to let up soon enough to save either himself or Nate from whatever the sheriff tried next.

Someone was shouting, demanding to know what was going on while another voice hollered at someone to get the hell out of the way. Distantly Cullen heard young Miss Ives shout again, but he could not make any sense of her words except to wonder what she might have said that sounded so much like his name.

The next series of small explosions tore from his lungs and took the strength from his knees. His grip faltered and Brannan yanked his arm away, stepping back too suddenly for Cullen to compensate. Without the other man's body jammed against his, he overbalanced and crashed to his knees, still hugging his chest with one arm while the other hand thrust out to break his fall. He felt the jar of the impact up into the sore muscles of upper arm and shoulder and neck.

The small red carriage bounced again, this time as Felicity Ives jumped down from it. One foot, clad in a flimsy blue morocco slipper with silk ribbons dyed to match, sprang lightly against the ornate cast-iron step affixed over the hub of the wheel, and her hoop was dragged briefly backward so that for an instant the contour of one shapely leg could be seen beneath it. One or two of the men with the clearest view pulled their lips tightly over their teeth in appreciation, but Cullen saw only the colorful blur of her silk gown behind a fog of involuntary tears. His eyes were watering as he strained against another violent cough to whoop in a teaspoonful of air.

"Leave him be, Sheriff! _Stop_ it!" she demanded, pushing past the young dandy standing nearest the carriage and ducking under the elbow of a lanky laborer. From the corner of his right eye Cullen caught sight of a blur as Brannan raised his arm again, and he tucked his head hastily as the prybar whistled through the air. Instead of smashing into the back of his skull, it came down hard upon his right shoulder, deflected away again by his scapula. The blow would have been enough to wind him, if he had had any air in his lungs at all. As it was it only caused his diaphragm to skip mid-paroxysm, and he managed a frugal gasp of air to fuel the next cough.

Then he was lost in a world of blue taffeta, billowing into his lap and pressing against his face and arms. Somewhere above him he heard Felicity Ives as she declared; "I said _stop it_!". Then he heard a stout _fwap_ as something struck Brannan, and the skirts were whisked away from him as the sheriff whirled and seized hold of the girl's wrist.

"Young lady, you _don't _raise your hand to an officer of the law in this town!" he scolded.

Then a chorus of voices rose up in protest.

"You get your hands off of her!"

"Don't nobody manhandle my sister!"

"Who the hell d'you think you are, Brannan?"

"Hey, he can't grab a lady like that…"

"Giving a darky a few licks is one thing, Harvey, but you can't just—"

"Let her go, damn you, or I'll…"

Cullen finally managed to choke back something like a full breath, struggling to his feet as he did so. Groping for a body that was little more than a dark shadow contrasting the bright cerulean one that was Miss Ives, he grabbed Brannan's left elbow with one hand and reached under that arm to wrench the prybar from the other. Then he squeezed with his right, digging the thumb into the joint until he found the nerve that ran along the outside of the arm. With a howl of alarm and sudden tingling pain, Brannan released his hold on Felicity. She danced backward, away from him and straight into the three young men who had forced their way into the fray to rescue her. At once they enfolded her into a triangle of anxious questions, but Cullen was too busy trying to force his vision to focus before Brannan came after him or Nate again.

But Brannan was caught backfooted. The gate of the wagon, unpegged and dangling, clattered noisily as his backside struck the back. He was looking over Cullen's shoulder with mingled horror and indignation.

"Here, now, I didn't mean to do her no harm. I just… you can't just… Miss Ives, you oughta know better'n to grab a lawman when he's…"

"Shut up," Cullen said flatly. To his utter astonishment, Brannan did. His mouth snapped closed and he shifted wide, astonished eyes at the man who a moment ago had been at his feet struggling for air. "If you's intending to arrest me, go on and do it. But I got to point out there's witnesses seen just what happened."

"Your boy didn't do anything, Mr. Bohannon!" Felicity chirped, hopping onto her toes to be seen through the crowd of brothers and cousin – or brother and cousins? "Tommy – _Thomas_ and I came 'round the corner too fast and cut out in front of him. He stopped the mules just in time; saved us a nasty crash!"

"Yeah!" the boy in the buggy said emphatically, having apparently found his voice at last. "Then the sheriff checked his papers and started talking 'bout what might be hid in them boxes…"

"But the darky grabbed him," one of the railroad men snapped viciously.

"Only 'cause he was digging 'round in the leaves," said another. "Tobacco ain't worth a thing if it's crumbled: any fool knows that. Protecting his master's property, he was, just like he been trusted to do."

Then suddenly everyone was arguing at once, shouting to be heard over one another and waving hands or hats in the air to punctuate their points. Cullen had no interest in any of the debate. He fixed his glare still more coldly on Brannan, trying to forget his own humiliation. The sheriff stared back, and it seemed as if a nucleus of quiet settled between them, the noise of the throng somehow muted by the damper of their mutual loathing.

"You got charges to bring?" Cullen hissed.

Brannan tried to curl his lip in disdain but it trembled, betraying him. "I'm willing to let the matter rest provided you and that nigger don't make no more trouble."

"Wasn't us made the trouble," said Cullen, refusing to yield even an inch. "If you done any harm to my man, I'm coming to take it out of your hide. I'm entitled to compensation for wanton damage of property."

Brannan glanced towards Nate, making his final mistake. The contact was broken, and in looking away first he had conceded his superiority. Cullen kept his own gaze locked as the man said dismissively; "He ain't damaged. Didn't get more'n two-three licks in, and the uppity bastard had 'em coming. You best teach him there ain't _no_ time it's right for a slave to lay hands on a white man."

"I taught him there ain't no excuse for letting my product get damaged," Cullen countered. "Reckon you owe me for that, too, and that's the kind of claim a court would find mighty hard to refute – unless you're goin' tell the judge that the tobacco was getting uppity with you, too."

Brannan shifted uncomfortably and rammed his hands into his pockets. Cullen, who was still holding the crowbar, let one corner of his lip twitch warningly. "What you reckon it's worth to you?" the sheriff hedged.

"Two dollars, if you pay up now," said Cullen without hesitation. "Crate's worth twenty if I got to make a claim for the whole thing."

This was a lie. He could not expect more than eight cents a pound, and that in a very good market. But Brannan believed him. His face crumpled into disdain, no doubt meant as much for himself as for his adversary, and brought out a pair of Liberties. "Two dollars," he said. "And no more trouble about the nigger."

"So long as he ain't much more'n bruised," Cullen said, conceding only a fraction. "If anything's broke, or he's crippled up and can't work, I'm coming for my due. If he dies, I'll be suing for full value and going after you for murder."

He knew it would not come to that. Nate was still on the ground by the wheel, deathly still but curled into a tight ball with his head tucked between chest and knees. It was a position that required an unnatural exertion: completely impossible for a severely injured body to maintain. Nate was much too intelligent to move and risk inflaming tensions afresh.

Brannan, however, shifted his eyes as a flare of genuine worry showed in them. Cullen felt his anger rising afresh. The man believed he could have done Nate serious harm. At the very least that had been his intention. "He ain't gonna die," he muttered.

"We'll see," Cullen said coldly. He took a purposeful step backward, clearing the way for Brannan to retreat. "Now why don't you get on out of here and find yourself some real policing to do?" he demanded. "Take your rabble-rousers with you."

Brannan squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. He had to save face in front of the crowd. "You tell that nigger he best watch where he's going when he comes to town. We don't want no young people gettin' hurt." He took two sidesteps away from Cullen, then turned to wag a finger at Tucker where he sat looking utterly helpless on the smooth leather seat of his silly little carriage. "And you slow down a bit, son, when you're beauing your lady about." This made him whirl again, this time to face the knot of Ives offspring. He bowed clumsily, straightened only to realize he had not doffed his hat, and hurriedly snatched it off his head before dipping again. "I do beg your pardon, Miss Ives. I surely do."

Two of her champions opened their mouths, showing teeth that had precisely the same crooked incisors, but Felicity slipped between them and inclined her head regally, like a princess granting a stay of execution. "I'll forgive you, Sheriff, but only if you apologize to Mr. Bohannon. You _did_ strike him, after all, and you only grabbed me."

"But you're a lady!" Brannan protested. "And Bohannon's only a—"

"Only a tobacco farmer?" Cullen asked, grinning broadly. He had never felt less like grinning in his life, but the crowd of men was still unsettled and if he did not give them a bit of theatre they might fall upon him and his man the moment the sheriff was out of sight. "That may be true, Mr. Brannan, but I's been received in the best homes in the county. That of Miss Ives included."

There it was: the cloak of respectability he had never been comfortable with. Born under its shadow, he had spurned it in his youth and defied it in his manhood. This year he had all but thrown it away, retaining only the corner he needed to shelter his wife and child. Now he picked it up again and waved it over his head like a battle standard, just to get himself out of a sticky situation. But Nate was bleeding in the dirt, and time was short. Cullen had to know how badly he was injured, and he could not go to him until the mob dissolved.

Brannan looked like he had been sucking lemons. His mouth shrivelled into a little purse of displeasure, and his face began to darken to an unpleasant shade of puce. But he nodded his head jerkily and huffed out; "My apologies, Bohannon. I done it in the heat of the moment."

"Don't take that too much to heart," Cullen said coolly. "I know just how you'd treat me if you thought it through."

The sheriff's lips moved in a ghost of a protest, no doubt longing to rise to the bait, but he did not. Turning with what was no doubt meant to be a disdainful snort, he shuffled off. The crowd parted for him, and closed once more into a ring as he went. Cullen stared after him until he vanished around the corner of the stationhouse, then pivoted on one foot and went to Nate. He flung the crowbar into the dirt, and reached for his shoulder, kneading the place where it had struck him.

"You all right?" he asked quietly.

Nate did not answer, but his hands slipped down from the back of his neck so that his forearms bared his head. His tired old felt hat was in the dust, and Cullen bent to retrieve it. Then he cast a cold eye on the crowd.

"Show's over, gentlemen," he said in a firm but deliberately nonchalant voice. "Ain't nothing left to see here. Go on, now. _Disperse_."

His voice rose into a command at the end, and four or five of the men bolted. These took a few running steps away before recalling their dignity and sauntering off. Others turned and moved away as if bored by a children's Punch and Judy show, or the ranting of a travelling preacher. Still others buried their hands in their pockets and slunk away as if they had been a party to something unspeakably ugly. In less than three minutes only a handful remained: Tucker and the well-dressed young man beside his gig, the three Ives boys and their bold little bluebird, and a lanky railroad man with smears of oil on his pants. Satisfied that the worst of the crowd was gone, Cullen dropped to his knee and reached for Nate's shoulders.

The slave raised his head by his own power, but once he was drawing close to vertical he swayed, sitting though he was, and Cullen had to catch him. There was blood running from his nostrils and blood at the corners of his mouth, and his right eye was already swelling rapidly. It would be puffed shut and black as a lump of hard coal in an hour. His other eye had the dazed, glassy look of a man who did not quite know where he was or how he had come to be here.

"Nate? You all right?" Cullen asked, his voice low but carefully not too gentle. The onlookers be damned: he did not want to hurt Nate's pride any more than whatever Brannan had done.

"Mist' Cullen," Nate mumbled thickly. He rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth and leaned forward against the other man's palms to spit on the ground before his boot. A glob of blood splattered into the dust, oozing into mud. "The tobacco…"

"Hang the tobacco," Cullen snarled, all of his rage and frustration suddenly pivoting back onto the hated crop that lay at the root of all his troubles. "We got to get you out of the street. Can you stand? If I can get you up in the back of the wagon…"

But there were two wagons, and four mules, and close to two thousand pounds of tobacco. Cullen looked up, over Nate's head and down towards the rail yard not three hundred feet away. The Southern Railway slaves had been drawn to the commotion, but because they were forbidden from leaving the confines of the four-acre yard they were crowded along the fence and in the gap left by the open gate. Cullen caught sight of the tall foreman and beckoned to him.

"Come here and help me!" he shouted.

Saul hesitated, looking to his fellows. Before he could make up his mind there was a clatter of expensive boots, and Cullen was flanked on either side by two of the Ives boys.

"We'll help," said the tall one.

"Up into the wagon?" asked the other, who Cullen was growing increasingly certain was Thaddeus.

"Gentle, now. Mind his ribs," said Cullen, hefting himself up and standing back. He looked into the bed of the wagon, where one of the crates had been pried open and its top layer of leaves disturbed. A few were crumpled, but not many, and his shrewd calculating brain danced through the estimate even though his attentions were still focused on Nate. An eighth of a pound ruined, maybe a quarter. He could make good the deficit out of the odd weight he had at home. And two dollars for a quarter of a pound of tobacco was practically usurious. He felt his spirits lighten just a little bit.

Nate stifled a cry of pain as the two young men hoisted him, lifting him under each arm. He got his feet under him and tried to shrug them off. "I kin stand," he muttered resentfully. "I kin drive, too. Let's git this lot int' the yard, Massa, an' git it over 'n done. We gots 'nother ten thousan' pound to move."

"Ten thousand pounds?" said Felicity wonderingly. She stepped forward and put one hand, daintily clad in a white lace mitten, on Cullen's dusty sleeve. Her eyelashes fluttered as she looked up at him. "Why, that's twenty bales, Mr. Bohannon! What sort of a price can you expect for that?"

"Tobacco ain't measured in bales, Miss Ives," Cullen said as courteously as he could. He did not have much patience for her coquetry now. Nate had finally thrown off his escort, and was hobbling gingerly towards the front of the wagon. He passed the wheels without climbing up, and shuffled around Betsy. His hand stretched out and downward, reaching for something, but he froze with a grimace of pain midway, clutching his chest with his other arm. He grunted heavily and swayed.

Cullen slipped away from the girl. "What is it?" he asked.

Nate was trying to catch his breath without showing his agony, but the railroader answered. "His paper," he said. "Sheriff tossed it down there for spite."

Cullen ducked under Betsy's neck and came up between the mules. There in the muck beneath them was Nate's writ of permission to be off his land. Cullen looked at it, nose wrinkling in distaste, then shook his head and slipped out past his slave. "I'll draw you up another," he said. "There's paper at the depot."

Carefully he clapped his hand on Nate's shoulder. Even under this gentle contact he stiffened, but he nodded his head. "I kin drive," he repeated. "Jus'… if one of them niggers comes out and give me a leg up."

"I'll do it," said Cullen, impatient and anxious all at once. He shepherded Nate to the side of the wagon and dropped to one knee again, cupping his hands on his thigh. "C'mon: daylight's wasting."

Nate looked sidelong at the smaller carriage, where Tommy Tucker sat staring, and then at the Ives boys where they stood exchanging puzzled looks. But he planted his cracked boot on Cullen's hand and grabbed the edge of the wagon-seat. Cullen hoisted with all his might, bearing as much of Nate's weight as he could in order to spare his shoulders and back. Even so Nate moaned as he rose, and sat perspiring and breathless when he reached the board. Cullen unlooped the reins and slipped them into one dark hand. The paler skin of the palm was clammy, and the fingers shook as they closed with fierce determination. Resolved to respect that, Cullen nodded.

"Just a few yards," he murmured under his breath. Aloud he said; "I'll be right behind you. Y'all get ready to do some toting!"

This last he directed up the street to where the other Negroes stood watching. Saul nodded, and a couple of them cheered. Cullen supposed it was not every day they saw one of their own beaten by the sheriff and then put back up on his wagon where he belonged. Nate seemed to appreciate this, too, for he exerted the effort required to wave.

Cullen turned back towards Boyd's wagon, at which Shadow stood with admirable patience. Even Snort seemed to understand the gravity of the situation: he had not tried to run off or in any other way make trouble. Cullen expected to meet disapproving looks from the Iveses for the unthinkable act of bending to boost one of his slaves, but the three boys were now fussing over Felicity.

"Did he bruise you, honey?"

"You didn't ought to have took him on like that: that's what we're here for."

"Did you see her whack him with that parasol?"

"I think I've broken one of the spines," Felicity said mournfully, turning the silk confection in her hands. "And it was the very latest style, too, straight from the rue de la Paix."

"I'll buy you another one!" Thad pledged gallantly. The other two laughed and slapped him on the back.

"Buy it with what?" asked the shorter of the pair. "Pretty words and gaming debts?"

"I'll ask Papa for the money," said Thad with a shrug. "He'll want to buy it for her anyways when he hears what happened!"

"Ooh, you won't _tell_ him!" Felicity squealed in mingled horror and delight.

Nate clicked his tongue and the wagon started rolling. Cullen swooped hastily down to catch the tail-gate and trotted after it for the four steps it took to secure the pins. Then he started back down towards the tracks again. Felicity broke away from the boys and came hurrying after him, hoop swinging.

"Mr. Bohannon?" she said, catching up to him as he stopped to find his footing on the wheel. Again her hand slipped onto his arm, and her brows knit together in a charming pantomime of deepest concern. It was one of those tricks that Southern mothers taught their daughters, but as he looked down at her bright blue eyes Cullen thought he could see sincerity beneath the façade. "Did he hurt you _very_ badly."

"Hardly at all, thanks to you," Cullen said. His shoulder was throbbing, but the sight of Nate's increasingly distant silhouette, bowed forward in agony, put that in perspective. "Serves me right for jumping into another man's fight." This came out rank with bitterness, and he tried to smile. "I'm much obliged to you for taking up for my man, Miss Felicity. It's a pity about your parasol."

"Oh, Tony's right," said Felicity airily. "Papa will buy me a new one. It's just a _shame_ I made a spectacle of myself. Mother will be mortified!"

He could tell from the glee in her voice that whatever her mother thought, Felicity herself was not the least bit ashamed of her conduct. Suddenly Cullen found he had a new respect for this brave little coquette.

"Well, I thank you," he said, this time in utmost earnest.

She flushed. "Oh, I couldn't let him hurt you," she breathed. Then her mouth turned down in a petulant little frown. "And I don't understand _why_ he didn't stop when I told him to, either."

"People rarely do," said Cullen. "Seems it takes a beating with a parasol to bring a madman to his senses."

"That's our li'l firecracker!" said Thad – no, Tony. He came up and put his arm around his sister. "Though I do think me and the boys ought to have a little word with that beau of yours. Seems to me he promised us he'd take you for a nice quiet ride in that new gadget of his."

"I'm sorry!" Tommy Tucker said. He had been scrambling down out of the high seat of the gig, and now came running up. He was red-faced and looked as ashamed as if he had been the one molesting innocent darkies in the street. "I didn't know what to do! And I thought maybe Sheriff Brannan would be angry on 'ccount of us coming along so fast in town, and—"

"It's all right, darling!" Felicity declared blithely, sweeping away from Cullen to rest one palm on the front of the boy's vest. His discomfiture shifted from misery to delight as his hand crept tentatively around her waist: clearly this was the most intimate physical contact the belle had ever offered him. "Though in future you _must_ not let me fight all my own battles like that, or my reputation will be _ruined_!"

The Ives boys were crowding around the couple, teasing their friend and erstwhile playmate. Cullen took the opportunity to climb up onto the wagon-box and take the reins. He flicked them sourly. Fighting _his _battles, more like, he thought as the wheels began to turn. He had been smitten down by a child's sickness and saved by a sixteen-year-old girl. He was torn between irritation and amusement. There was a funny side to this, he thought, or would have been if Nate had not taken such a savage drubbing. Looking ahead he could see the other wagon was now safe in the rail-yard. The slaves could bring water and rags to clean Nate up a little, but then they had to get back home. There was still half the crop to move, and only a little more than a day in which to move it. Whatever happened, their lives were ruled by the damned tobacco.


	83. Limping Homeward

_Note: (This chapter posted between 405 and 406._)

**Chapter Eighty-Three: Limping Homeward**

In the short time it took Cullen to drive Snort and Shadow into the rail-yard, Saul and his men had Nate off the wagon-box and out of the sun. He was sitting on an overturned barrel, feet braced wide and elbows resting on his thighs. His right hand hung between his knees, fingers curled halfway into a fist. In his left he held a gourd of water into which he was staring one-eyed. His right was already swollen closed, the lid as glossy and purple as an overripe grape. The entire socket was inflamed, and the bruise bled out towards the temple and into the crook of his nose. His whiskers were choked with blood from mouth and nostrils, and when he took an unsteady sip from the gourd, the remaining water grew immediately rusty. One leg of his pants was torn out in the knee, and the leg beneath it scraped and bloodied. His cracked boots were smeared with dust, his coat hung open wide, and the first two buttons of his shirt had popped.

Saul the foreman was standing over him, watching with dark inscrutable eyes. Two more darkies stood a few feet removed, one with a pail of freshly-drawn water and the other with a handful of oily rags. The others were gathered about the wagon, conferring quietly amongst themselves, and the topic of deliberation appeared to be the open crate.

"Here, unload mine first," Cullen said, looping off the lines as he swung down from the seat. "I got to take a look and see what damage has been done."

Glad of the direction, the rail slaves moved quickly to the rear of the Ainsley wagon. Cullen was confident now that they did not need his perpetual supervision, and he ran the few yards to where Nate sat under the open roof. As he approached, the black man swished a mouthful of water and spat it out wearily. The lurid red spurt turned dark upon contact with the packed earth. Cullen stared at it, momentarily transfixed and faintly nauseous, and then forced himself to look at Nate's ravaged face. In closer quarters he could see that the slave's lower lip was split and beginning to bloat with the impact, and there was a large, dark bruise spreading up the left side of his jaw, obscured by his untended beard. Slowly, almost drunkenly, his one open eye lolled towards his master.

"You lose any teeth?" Cullen asked, wanting to ask so much more but unable to compromise either his own authority or Nate's remaining dignity in front of the railroad laborers. He shifted one foot uneasily.

Nate moved as if to shake his head, then cringed and inhaled sharply. "Nawsir," he mumbled thickly. He cleared his throat. "Jus' nipped my tongue. Looks worse'n it is."

Cullen did not believe that for a minute, but he flicked his finger at the two hovering men. The one with the bucket set it down beside his boot, and Cullen took the rags from the other. He turned the bundle over in his hand, and realized with some relief that they were cleaner than they looked: still stiff from drying in the sun after a washing that had not taken out the stains. He took one of the thicker ones and dipped it into the water, squeezing out the excess before folding it into a pad.

"For your eye," he said. Nate's right hand shifted, but as he tried to lift it he froze, face tightening again in pain. Wordlessly Cullen reached down and took the gourd from his left hand, replacing it with the cloth. Nate squeezed it between finger and thumb, and then lifted it slowly to his eye.

"What 'bout your ribs? Anything broke?" Cullen asked.

"Don' think so," grunted Nate. He tried to straighten up, but stiffened and curled back down almost immediately

"Awright," Cullen sighed. "We got to get your coat off so's I can take a look. Here, help me out."

He jerked his chin at Saul, who reached in. Nate murmured a faint protest that died down into a miserable sigh as his master reached for the collar. His shoulders hunched a little further forward and Cullen paused to reconsider. From the way Nate was sitting, and the apparent immobility of his right arm, trying to remove the garment entirely would require contortions that he could not manage in his present condition. Cullen might slit the shirt up the back to make it easier to remove, but he could not justify the waste of a whole coat. And if he destroyed Nate's clothes here, what would he wear on the journey home? It was common enough for slaves to go bare-backed in summer, especially in the fields, but it was coming on to the end of the November, and the day was cool. Neither of them needed to have Nate take a chill on top of everything else.

"Never mind that," Cullen said, brushing the foreman's hands away. He sighed and scrubbed at his chin. "How many times did he hit you?"

"Five, mebbe six?" Nate muttered. "I think mebbe I los'… that I wasn' much thinkin' of coutin'."

Cullen stared at him for a long moment, wishing he could catch Nate's eye and perhaps gain some sense of what he was truly thinking. But then, it had been ten years since he had been able to tell what Nate was thinking. He had perfected the stony, inscrutable expression that was at once an act of self-preservation and one of silent defiance. What the Negro knew and what the Negro suffered were not for white men to understand, and that could not change simply because Cullen Bohannon now wished to.

"Think you can make it home?" he asked. "Six miles."

Now Nate did look up, tilting his head stiffly. His one open eye was bloodshot and strained, and his breath came shallowly through his bruised lips. Yet his jaw was set and his brow hard with an obstinate resolve that Cullen found anything but inscrutable. He recognized it, for he had worn it himself often enough – when staring down a cornfield from behind a pair of balky mules, when facing down old Madsen at the bank with five dollars to his name and assets he refused to borrow against, when stepping down into the tobacco while his head still reeled with the previous day's sickness. It was the look of a man compelled by circumstance and pride to do what must be done, whatever the toll.

"I kin make it," he said. "I's goin' be jus' fine the minute I catch my breath."

Cullen's eyebrows quirked upward in the faintest look of skepticism. He did not quite believe Nate, but neither could he argue. The rail-yard foreman was looking on, and Nate had had quite enough of an affront to his pride. Even a slave was entitled to some dignity, and after his courage in standing up to the sheriff Nate had certainly earned his. If he was determined to bear up and to put on a brave face, Cullen did not mean to undermine him. Even if he had wished to, what could he do? Leave one of the wagons here, he supposed, and come back with Elijah to fetch it. But in doing so they would lose a whole trip, when already there had been more of a delay than they could afford. And Cullen was not at all certain that he wanted Elijah driving a mule team, not with his eyes being what they were. Nate had almost collided with another carriage in a street that would only grow more crowded as afternoon business picked up, and there was not a thing wrong with _his_ vision.

"Awright, then," he sighed. "Sit and catch it." He turned and strode over to the wagon Nate had taken, and climbed up into the box. He used his left arm for leverage, because his right shoulder was throbbing where he had been struck. Brannan had a heavy hand, and Cullen's stomach churned uneasily as he wondered again just how much pain Nate was hiding. He stole a glance at his man again. He was hunched over again, chin tucked low so that his face was hidden from view. Grimly, Cullen squatted down in the wagon-bed and turned his attention on the tobacco instead.

Carefully he gathered up the broken leaves into his fist, then plucked up the scattered fragments. It was only a couple of ounces and almost not worth replacing, but for his reputation for straight dealing. He had always eschewed the sharp practices common among the tobacco planters of the South. He never cut a crate of best-quality tobacco with layers of lugs. He never hid broken leaves under an inch or two of good. And he never shorted his buyers on the weight, not even by a handful.

Saul had drawn near now, and was watching the white man expectantly. Cullen peeled a long strip of leaf from the side of a broken vein, rolled it into a little plug, and tucked it into his cheek, biting down and feeling his mouth flood with saliva. Then he reached out to Saul with the rest of the leaves now unfit to sell.

"Here," he grunted, and let them fall into the man's broad, waiting palm. Saul's lip curled appreciatively. Cullen planted his hands on his knees and boosted himself back onto his feet. "Put this one aside for me," he said. "I'll be back with makeweight and a hammer to seal her up again."

"Hammers we got," said the foreman. Then his eyes narrowed. "Why you put hands on the sheriff like that, Mist' Bohannon? You's a fool to try it. That man had folks locked up fo' less."

"He had no right to get rough with my man," said Cullen. He tapped the corner of the open crate with the side of his boot. "Or to damage my harvest."

He hopped down out of the wagon, and got out of the way so that the men could off-load the boxes. Saul and another man took the open one, and set it on the trestle table past the barrel on which Nate was sitting. The others were quickly moved into the waiting boxcar, and there was no further reason to delay.

"Ready to head out?" Cullen asked, drawing near to Nate again. He had managed to stretch far enough forward to fill the gourd again, and he took a last clumsy swallow before dropping it into the pail. He tucked his right arm in towards his abdomen, and clutched the rim of the barrel with his left hand. His fingers tightened so that the knuckles paled, and through the wool of his coat sleeve Cullen could see the sinews of his arms tense. One heel scuffed backward as he shifted his weight onto his legs and stood. For a moment it looked as though he would rise unassisted, but as his knees straightened they trembled, buckling.

"Ho, easy there," Cullen said, catching him around the waist and bracing hip against hip. Nate swallowed a low moan, and his untouched eyelid fluttered low. His left foot scrabbled feebly, then rose a couple of inches and descended in a heavy stamp. He locked his knee and canted his body away from Cullen, taking his weight off of his right side.

"I kin walk," he huffed, nudging out of the other man's grasp and staggering around to the wagon. He stopped by the wheel, looking up at the seat with ill-concealed dread. Then he looked at Saul, turning his whole body instead of just his head. "Gimme a leg up?" he asked staunchly.

Understanding, Cullen said nothing as the one black man hoisted the other up into the wagon. Nate sat with a clatter, clutching the ring that held the reins. A sheen of perspiration showed upon his brow and he panted shallowly, rocking a little as he tried to ground himself. Saul was fixing the pegs on the tail-gate now, and Cullen moved swiftly to the side of the wagon, reaching up left-handed to hold the reins just beyond Nate's grasp.

"You sure you can manage?" he whispered gravely. "They can put down some straw in the back and you can ride."

"Who goin' bring the other team home?" Nate countered. His voice was ragged and labored, but unyielding. "Le's git on out of here, Mist' Cullen, 'fore more trouble come down 'pon us."

Unable to argue with the wisdom of that, and unwilling to shame a good man who had taken a hard enough shaming already, Cullen nodded. Wordlessly he went back to the other wagon and mounted up. Nate was already turning his team around.

_*discidium*_

Meg straightened and drew her rolled-back cuff across her brow. Even in the chill November air, potato-picking was sweaty work. She was weary from stooping, and her knees were stiff with cold, but it was not her physical discomfort that troubled her now. The basket was almost full again. In the time between one wagon leaving and the other returning to be loaded again, she and Elijah could dig about a peck of potatoes. They had dug the first peck into a bushel basket between Nate's departure and Mister Cullen's return, before loading the borrowed buckboard and seeing it off again. Nate should have returned by the time the basket was full, but he had not. Meg had emptied it into the cellar bin and set back to digging, and Nate had not come. Mister Cullen should have come back before it was half full again, and he had not come, either. In the rhythm of her work Meg had forgotten the time, but now it came back to her. Now it was almost full: the master was three-quarters of an hour late, and Nate nearly an hour and a half.

She wiped her muddy hands on her grubby work apron and turned back to Elijah, who was cracking open another hill with the hoe. He felt her gaze and looked up at her. "What you daydreamin' 'bout?" he asked gently. "If'n you' girl take a turn, Bethel surely ain' goin' keep it from you."

"Ain' that," Meg said. Her voice was hoarse from the cold air, and she cleared her phlegmy throat. "It… Elijah, what kind trouble you think Nate an' the massa could git int' in town?"

"Trouble?" Elijah chuckled ruefully. "Chile, them boys raised a heap of trouble in their day, but they ain' goin' go backslidin' now. They know this-here work too important to lay by. 'Sides, ain't like Mist' Cullen goin' march Nate int' the drinkin'-house an' buy him up a whiskey."

Meg almost laughed at that idea. While it was true that coachmen or manservants could, at their owner's request, enjoy a mug of watered-down beer out the saloon's back door, the idea of a white man buying a black man a drink like an equal was foolish. But she was in no frame of mind for levity. She had had a sleepless night, and her worries for this last phase of the tobacco harvest had weighed upon her between Lottie's coughing fits.

"It ain' the trouble they's goin' raise that worryin' me," she said. "It the trouble that goin' find them. They oughts to have been back a long time since."

Elijah frowned and glanced skyward, gauging the light. "That so," he grunted. "Mebbe the axle give out on that ol' wagon 'gain. I done tol' Mist' Cullen it might."

Meg's heart fluttered fearfully. A broken axle was a delay they could ill afford, but lost time was not the greatest concern. If an axle broke while the wagon was loaded, the mules might be injured, the load overturned, the crates broken and the tobacco spilled and the driver likely hurt. Nate had been moving stiffly this morning: he did not need a hard fall.

"You think we oughts to go an' see?" she asked uneasily. "Missus Mary could draw up a paper, an' we could head down the road…"

Elijah shook his head. "Whatever happen, the massa right behin' him. Nate gots good sense hisself: ain' much he couldn' cope with even 'thout Mist' Cullen. Our business be diggin' these hills. Rate we's goin, we might jus' finish 'fore the tobacco shipped. Wouldn' hurt Mist' Cullen to have one less thing weighin' on him while he gone. You know he goin' be troubled 'bout the plowin' as it is."

Meg had to agree with this. She bent again, feeling through the damp earth for the heavy tubers. She broke off the tops that had not been severed by the hoe, and tossed them aside into the growing heap. When the sun began to set they would light the piles on fire to offer a little warmth to ward off the evening chill.

"He allus worry mos' 'bout things he poores' at," she said. "Jus' 'bout drive him crazy when he cain't do sumthin' half as good as Nate, an' plowin' be the worst."

"Don' know 'bout that," said Elijah. "He ain' much use at threshin' time, neither."

The remark was meant fondly, and did not prick Meg's heart as it might have done. She did not like it when Nate spoke ill of the master, because he was too inclined to show a hint of genuine scorn at such times. And she deplored it when Lottie did so, because it was disrespectful and disgraceful behavior in a child. Elijah's wry remarks were different: without rancor, gently amused, and in a way almost paternal. He, like Bethel, remembered the master as a baby, and it tinted the way in which he looked at him now.

"I hope it ain't nuthin' serious," Meg sighed. "S'posin' the railway ain't goin' give us the good shippin' price aft' all? S'posin' Mist' Cullen done runned int' Mist' Sutcliffe, an' them gots to arguin'? S'posin' he fall to coughin' an' put Mist' Ainsley's cotton wagon int' the ditch?"

Elijah shook his head wearily. "Meg my girl," he said; "you's all woun' up fo' worryin', what with your chile been sick. Ain' nuthin' goin' happen to them boys. Likely jus' one of them mules throwed a shoe, or snapped one of the traces. You know how ornery they gits when they's tired of workin'."

Meg nodded and forced herself to focus all of her attention on the potato she was fishing out of the earth, but the ill feeling remained. Something was wrong; something serious enough to cause a considerable delay where no time could be wasted.

_*discidium_*

Gus brayed irritably and the front wheels of the Bohannon buckboard creaked as its driver was forced to slow down, and from behind these sounds came Nate's husky question. "What you think you's doin', Mist' Cullen?"

"Taking a gentle right," Cullen called back over his shoulder, snugging up the off rein to turn Shadow's head. "Last time I took this bend too fast, I just about toppled the buggy."

"I mean why you – hol' up there! Mist' Cullen! _Ho_!"

Both teams halted at the familiar voice uttering what was quite possibly their favorite command – apart, of course, for "home". Cullen thrust out his foot to brace himself just in time as his wagon ground to a halt, and then twisted immediately on the seat, eyes blazing. "I thought we agreed I's the one leading this-here convoy!" he snapped. Then his eyes focused and the other man's face grew sharp, and he regretted his stern tone.

Nate was ashen, his face drained of blood except where the bruises stood dark and hideous on his weathered skin. His right arm was curled limply in his lap, and his left hand upon the reins was visibly unsteady even with the distance of the wagon-bed and team between them. And the distance was only just that: Gus and Betsy were so close to the back of Cullen's buckboard that they could have fed from a pail hung from its back. Cullen had slowed Snort and Shadow gently for the turn, and they had stopped no shorter than their stablemates, but there was almost no clearance between the teams. Nate was not keeping a safe distance between the wagons: with one eye swollen shut, he could not accurately judge how far away the lead vehicle was.

"What is it?" he asked, much more levelly but still without any overt sympathy in his voice. His own guilt over the skirmish in town was gnawing at him, for he knew that the sheriff had almost certainly allowed the bad feeling between them to drive his aggression towards Nate. But any attempt at gentleness would be rebuffed and resented. Courtesy was the best he could offer. "You want to ride on home, that's fine by me. Ain't but one more mile."

Nate was pushing himself up on the seat, trying to brace his body again. The last couple of miles over the rutted lane had clearly been harder on him than he wanted to admit. Cullen's own backside was smarting, and his bruised shoulder blade thrumming, and his head pounding dully, and _he_ had not been the one beaten down into the dirt by the tracks. Between them he and Nate had made five trips, and there were five more to be made. It was past two o'clock now: they were running short on time.

"What business you got down there?" Nate asked. He made the prelude to the motion of thrusting his chin in the direction of the West Willows drive, where Cullen had intended to turn, but thought better of it. Instead he twitched his left index finger tiredly. "Missus Bohannon rode partway with you 'gain?"

"No." Cullen glanced at the turning, squinting thoughtfully. When he turned back towards Nate, he did not pivot quite far enough to look him in the eye. "Thought I'd see if Boyd can spare a hand or two from plowing to help us load. Need us another driver, as well."

"I kin drive!" Nate protested hotly. "I kin lif' my share, too! I ain't crippled."

"I know you ain't, and I'm grateful for it," said Cullen. "But you took one hell of a good beating back there, and I don't aim to make it no worse. You's off tobacco duty. You can haul a hoe in the potato patch, if it ain't too much for you."

He could feel Nate's eye boring into the side of his head. "You got no call to put me out to pasture," he growled, his low voice falling still deeper. "I's driven all this way 'thout one word, ain't I?"

"You have, and I respect it," Cullen said. "But time's short, and until we know if any of your ribs is broke I don't want you doing yourself more harm."

"My ribs ain't broke," declared Nate. "I know the feel of a broke rib better'n you. That ol' peckerwood ain't got the strength to beat down a goat. He didn' hardly hurt me at all."

That was the pride talking, and Cullen knew it. But he also knew that it was dangerous to wound the pride of a man who was clinging so desperately to it. Nate had been through an awful ordeal this afternoon, and there was a chance that this final affront to his dignity might prove too much. And yet he had to be made to see that he could not risk straining himself now, and doing more harm.

"It ain't just you," he said. "Meg and Elijah can only just keep hauling like they been doing, and if both wagons are going to travel together we got to load faster."

"Why they got to travel together?" Nate asked resentfully.

This made Cullen turn the rest of the way, so that he could look his man in the eye again. The lopsided portrait he made with his grotesquely swollen right socket was painful to look at, but Cullen kept that thought from showing on his face. Instead he offered tight-lipped exasperation; a man stating the excruciatingly obvious.

"Because if Brannan or anyone else gets it into his head to pester a darky hauling my crop, I aim to be there next time to take up for myself straight away," he said. "I don't mean to let no one else take a beating on my behalf."

"Wasn' on your behalf," groused Nate. "It on the behalf of that young fool in his silly li'l carriage. _He_ the one puttin' that li'l white girl in danger, not me. Didn' hardly let my min' wander fo' a moment, and they's tearin' 'round out that alley straight int' my path."

Custom required that Cullen chastise his slave for implying the wealthy, white party was to blame in the encounter, but he did not. He was familiar with the antics of idle young men with frivolous new toys to enjoy, particularly when they found themselves in a position to show off for a pretty girl. Felicity Ives had half a dozen beaux chasing after her, and Tommy Tucker had most assuredly been trying to leave her with a favorable impression. That his efforts had put Cullen's man in peril was an unfortunate and unforeseen corollary to that, but Tucker's ignorance did not mean he was not at fault.

"On his behalf, then," he conceded. "I ain't letting it happen. It was a risk, driving separate. I thought it was worth it to save the time, but I was wrong."

Nate's good eye widened in silent surprise. Cullen set his jaw firmly, making it plain that he stood by what he had just said. Apologies were not his strongest suit, but this one was warranted.

"I'll see if Boyd can spare the men," he said. "If he can't, we got to manage somehow, but it's worth the detour to try it."

"No it ain't," Nate said stubbornly, and it was Cullen's turn to be surprised. He had honestly expected reason to prevail. "Why didn' you ask fo' them men in the firs' place? Tell me that."

"I thought we could do it," said Cullen. "It's tilling time, and Boyd puts in four hundred acres of wheat. He needs his field hands. The four of us, with the extra wagon… I thought we'd manage."

"Ain't all that much changed," said Nate. "I kin still tote my share. Ribs ain' broke: I tol' you."

"Broke or not, they's rattled around," Cullen argued. "You need to have Bethel get you out of that coat and take a look, and you need to do something about that eye. You can't see clear enough to drive, and the mules ain't smart enough to compensate."

"They's smarter'n you give 'em credit for, Mist' Cullen," Nate said. "It Betsy that stopped in time: I didn' give no order."

"So they's smart enough not to walk straight into a pony," countered Cullen, exasperated. "Don't mean they's smart enough to stop for a gopher-hole or a child in the road or a damned brick wall. Your depth perception's off: look there." He pointed at the back of the borrowed buckboard, and then at Gus and Betsy. "Ain't half a foot between their noses and my tail."

"We don' need no cotton hands!" Nate exclaimed. "I kin drive jus' fine, an' Elijah kin ride 'long with me."

"You ain't got but one good eye between the two of you," said Cullen stingingly. He wanted to bite his tongue the moment the words were out, but his irritation was mounting and his temper was badly frayed. He was too exhausted, too discouraged and too plumb beaten down to hold onto his patience, and for some reason Nate just would not start arguing. "You'll wind up in a ditch, or through some shopkeeper's fence, or hit by a train," he sighed. "And you'll kill yourself trying to lift them boxes."

"We kin take it in turns," said Nate belligerently. "Me, Elijah an' Meg. That is if you think _you_ got the strength to lift on each 'n every one."

It was both a proffer and a challenge, and Cullen felt his own insensible pride rising. Hell yes, he could lift on each and every box, and he'd damned well prove it! Then he caught himself, realized what Nate was doing, and chuckled softly as he shook his head. "I'm the master, ain't I?" he said. "If I say we's asking for help, we's asking for help. Boyd ain't likely to refuse."

"Mebbe he ain't," Nate agreed archly. "But do that make it right fo' you to ask him? What that you say 'bout pressin' folks as cain't turn you down?"

Cullen's jaw slackened in astonishment, and he sat up stiffly in an instinctively defensive posture. As extraordinary as it was, Nate had a point. Boyd was not likely to refuse him anything now, when he was still so grateful for Mary's aid with his children. Even if he did need every able-bodied man on the plantation at their work, he would loan Cullen a pair for the asking without so much as a question out of sheer obligation. It was a poor friend who pressed such an advantage, and if Cullen did it without being absolutely certain he could not accomplish the task with his own resources, he would not be able to live with himself.

There was something else, too. Did he really have a right to tell Nate what he was or was not capable of? The man was insisting, heatedly and repeatedly, that he could still do his share of the work. If Cullen declared that he could not, or forbade him from trying, he would be using his authority as master to strip Nate of his discretion as a man. That might be Cullen's legal right, but he was not quite so certain that it was his moral one. He trusted his people to tell him when to plant, when to reap, when to sucker and when to pick and when to box up the cured tobacco. He relied upon them to know how to birth a calf, to judge if one of the piglets had hog cholera or just a spring chill, and when it was time to put the roosters in with the hens for a while. If he relied upon their judgment of the crops and the livestock, but did not trust their assessment of their own bodies, what did that say about him as a master? Something, he realized, that he did not like in the least.

"Fine," he said flatly, narrowing his eyes at Nate. "We'll try it your way. But if I see you struggling with them boxes, you ain't goin' lift 'em. And I'll fetch men from West Willows straight away."

Nate's left eye was hard as granite as he inclined his head slowly and rigidly. "You ain't goin' need to," he swore grimly. "I kin do my share jus' fine."

Cullen cast him one last long, ponderous look, and then straightened himself on the hard board seat. "Giddyap," he called to the mules, and reluctantly they started plodding homeward again.

_*discidium*_

There was nothing to relish about this homecoming. The jolt of the wagon as it jounced over the last rut before the home drive sent tentacles of anguish from Nate's hips into his bruised spine, his battered ribs and his right shoulder, which seemed to have borne the brunt of the repeated blows that had rained down upon him as he cowered in the dirt. For an indeterminate span of time he could neither think nor see nor even breathe. He only kept his left fist tightly clamped on the slack reins, and prayed that the mules would not falter and betray him. Mister Cullen was just ahead, having led the way home at a walk that would have been infuriating under any other circumstances. As it was, Nate knew he never would have borne the bouncing and jostling of the empty wagon at a good trot, and he was thankful that his master had seemed unwilling to test this.

His vision was just starting to clear, and his breath coming in shallow pants that were all his ravaged chest seemed able to take, when he heard the sound he had dreaded all the long, slow ride from Meridian. It was a high, horrified little cry that burst from Meg's throat as she came hurrying around the corner from the direction of the potato field. It was obvious that even before catching sight of him she had not been running in good-natured welcome. She had been charging forward anxiously, her skirts held so high in mud-streaked hands that the hems were hiked halfway to her knees, and her eyes wild with worry. She sped right into the path of Snort and Shadow, who balked and snorted and ground the borrowed wagon to an inelegant halt, and took a sharp turn to come up beside the front left wheel as Nate called his team to a halt.

"What happened?" she cried. "Mist' Cullen! Nate! What _happened_!"

"It awright," Nate mumbled, partly from shame and partly because his bruised mouth made clear speech difficult. Mister Cullen urged his mules on, so that the rear gate of the wagon was aligned with the stable door – an act that left Nate in the uncomfortable position of dealing with Meg's anxiety.

"But you' face!" she cried. Then before he could react she was clambering up the wheel and into the box, forcing him to slide to the right so that he did not leave her balanced precariously on the edge. She stepped down off of the high side board and reached for his blackened eye. Though her fingertips scarcely brushed the hard, swollen ridge that overflowed the top of the socket, they sent daggers of hot anguish into his head. He shrank away with a hiss, and Meg stiffened. "Nate," she whispered, sounding almost on the verge of tears. "Nate, who done this?"

"Got me on the wrong side of the sheriff," he said. "Ain' so bad."

Mister Cullen was down on the ground now, already unpegging the back of the cotton wagon. Elijah came around the corner of the barn, his placid old face knotted faintly with concern. "Go and fetch half a dozen of the best smoke-cured leaves out of the surplus," the master said to him before he could pose any question. "Not a word to Missus Bohannon or Bethel 'bout this, you hear me?"

"They's goin' want to know what I's doin' in the larder in the middle of the day," Elijah warned. The words came out of the corner of his mouth towards the white man, but his eyes were fixed on Nate.

"Tell 'em I need the tobacco," Mister Cullen said exasperatedly. "I gave some to the rail foreman and I got to replace it."

This was true, and Elijah would know how to make it sound like a matter of general indifference. Nate was thankful. He did not want the mistress out here fussing over him, or Bethel either, for that matter. It was bad enough that Meg had to see him like this. She was digging in her pocket now, and came out with a handkerchief. It was clean, but stained with tobacco tar. Swiftly she licked a corner and began to blot at Nate's lip. It stung fiercely, but for a brief instant he was stricken only by the intimacy of the gesture.

"And ask after Lottie," Mister Cullen called after Elijah, who was halfway towards the house. The old man nodded and raised his hand to show he understood, trudging hastily onward. The sooner he returned, the sooner he could hear the whole story.

"I don' unnerstan' it," Meg mourned, moving her finger to a clean patch of the corner now bright with blood and wetting it again. This time she moved to Nate's upper lip, trying to clean the clots from his mustache. "Why the sheriff done this to you? Mist' Cullen gived you a paper."

"He had a close pass with a young fool in a racing cart, and by a stroke of incredibly bad luck Brannan was in the vicinity," Mister Cullen growled as he came up to the corner of the wagon and reached for the reins. Nate passed them off wordlessly, and the other man brought them around to the front so that he could lead the team. Meg swayed as the wagon began to roll, but kept her balance and resumed her gentle ministrations as soon as she was stable. "Beat him with a crowbar. He says he's able to keep on."

"Sure I is," Nate said, as Meg's brows knit down into a frown.

"A crowbar? He mighta kill't you!" she gasped. Her hand trembled and her legs gave way, and Nate caught hold of her apron to guide her down onto the seat beside him before she could fall. Her hands curled into her lap, and her head drooped. "I thought we was done with these troubles, Mist' Cullen. I thought…"

"Here, it awright," Nate said softly, reaching with his left hand to grip her wrist. His right arm hurt too much when he tried to lift it or to stretch too far, and he kept it tucked in against his throbbing side. "Meg, it wasn' nuthin' but a couple of licks. One jus' catched me in the eye, that all. It ain't as as bad as it looks."

Mister Cullen glanced dubiously over his shoulder as he walked the mules into a curve to bring them up next to the other team, but he said nothing. He did not believe what Nate was saying, but he seemed resolved to take him at his word regardless. Nate was thankful.

"It awright," he repeated, hating the way that Meg was curling in on herself like a wilted sunflower, hiding her face and veiling her eyes. He knew what she was thinking of, and the horrific experience she was reliving, and what he had just suffered was nothing in comparison to that. "Mist' Cullen comed up 'fore it got too far an' stopped him. Well, more or less."

Meg looked up, eyes flashing with sudden wrath. "What you mean, 'more or less'?" she demanded.

"He means it weren't me that stopped it," Mister Cullen said sourly, sparing Nate from an awkward evasion. He stopped the mules as smoothly as he was able and slipped in between the two wagons so that he was standing by Meg's leg. "Felicity Ives jumped in and gave the sheriff a good whack with her silk parasol while I was trying to snatch a clear breath."

For a moment Meg looked utterly flabbergasted, and then her eyes widened a little. "F'licity Ives?" she asked. "The li'l girl who…"

She shut her mouth with a soft _snap_, and gave her head a tiny shake.

"Yup, the little girl," Mister Cullen muttered. He dusted his hands on the front of his trousers in a gesture of self-disgust. "Fine mess we made of it. Hop down, Meg, and help me get a start on loading. I want Nate to wash off that blood before he does anything else. Can't have him driving back into town like that."

Meg had her foot down on the spoke of the wheel, but she froze like that; spraddled with her other shoe on the side of the wagon-box. She twisted her head to look down at her master. "Back to town?" she exclaimed. "You don' mean he goin' _back to town_?"

Mister Cullen shrugged helplessly. "Says he's well enough," he told her. "I don't aim to argue."

Suddenly Nate wanted to smack him. He was doing this on purpose: deliberately throwing up his hands as if he were helpless to stop Nate from doing what he was determined to do, while at the same time arousing Meg's worries. The master was hoping she would step in and persuade him otherwise. In another moment he would bring up the question of borrowing men from West Willows.

"Ain't nobody else 'round here to do it," he fumed, sliding towards Meg. As he moved into her space she stepped down, the hem of her dress bouncing. "I drived home awright, didn' I?"

But the moment he tried to stand, he knew he was mistaken. He had _not _driven home all right. Yes, he had covered the distance, and without any incident but the one precipitated by the master's unannounced move to turn off onto the Ainsley land, but not without a price. When he had climbed up into the wagon in the rail-yard, he had still been swept up in the strange euphoria that always followed a fight or an injury: heart racing, blood running hot, and pain somehow muted. Now he was cold, chilled deep into his joints, and riddled with agony from abused bones and muscles. When he lifted his backside off of the seat, his head began to swim immediately. He clutched the edge of the board with his left hand, and forced his right out to catch hold of the iron ring. As he extended that elbow he was overcome with a wave of frigid anguish that gouged a cry of torment from his throat. He rocked forward and then jerked back as he tried to keep himself from falling, and that was when Mister Cullen rose up to catch him, one foot on a wheel-spoke and the other thrust back to brace against the side of the other wagon.

He gripped each of Nate's arms just below the shoulder, and the pain that bit into Nate's back and side as the calloused hand closed on his right was almost enough to sever him from consciousness. He tried to pull away from the torturous contact, but had no strength to do it. Mister Cullen realized what was happening, however, and released his grip at once, snaking his arm around Nate's waist instead.

"Stupid ass," he hissed, and Nate did not know whether the epithet was meant for him or for Mister Cullen himself. Then he felt the pressure of a lean, strong shoulder against his stomach, and he pitched forward as the master hoisted him over it. Dizzy and nauseous with agony, Nate could not even attempt to keep upright. His left arm was slung around the back of the master's neck, and his right one swung limp and wracked with blinding misery. His feet lifted from the floor of the box and scraped the rim of the wagon as Mister Cullen lowered himself onto solid ground. Nate felt a cool hand, damp and smelling of the soil, upon his upside-down brow: Meg.

"We got to get him to the house," Mister Cullen said, but his voice was very distant and Nate would not have made sense of the words at all except that they were resonating up into his abdomen. "Run ahead and tell Bethel. Dammit, I _knew_ he was just putting on a brave face."

Then Meg spoke, but all that Nate could hear of that was the beloved timbre of her beautiful voice. It was the last thing he heard before slipping away into oblivion, and as he went he thought that there really was no better way to go.


	84. Pride Goeth

_Note: Oh, boy, this week's episode! Where do we go from here? The Twin Peaks girl in me was thrilled to see Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) as Old Porcupine, too. (This chapter posted between 406 and 407.)_

**Chapter Eighty-Four: Pride Goeth**

Mary held the basin with one arm while the other hugged Lottie's spasming shoulders. The girl's small, sure hands clutched the rim of the bowl as she bowed low over it, coughing. At the end of the rattling paroxysm she spat, milky mucus landing in a growing puddle. Standing over her mistress and the child, Bethel watched solemnly and, when Lottie sucked in a high, hard whoop, reached to brush the downy front curls off of her clammy forehead. The sound tore at Mary's heart, but she did not let herself flinch or even stiffen. She cradled Lottie's arm reassuringly and tried to smile.

"That's my brave girl," she said. "Cough it up."

"Cough it _all_ up, 'Ottie," Gabe agreed. He had slid down off of the récamier as soon as the fit began, so that his mother could take his place beside Lottie. Now he was leaning against Mary's knees, gray eyes large and tender as he tried to comfort his playmate. "It goin' stop soon if you cough it _all_ up."

Lottie nodded jerkily, still hacking, and bent her head still lower as she expelled a thick plug of phlegm. She took another meagre whoop of air, and then another, and finally a strangled gasp that sent her head tilting back as she began to breathe again. She took several deep, swift swallows, and then sagged wearily into the woman's embrace, resting her cheek against Mary's breast.

"Feel like I's chokin'," she panted softly. Bethel took the basin, and Mary was able to use her left hand to pet Lottie's cheek. "Don' know how Mist' Gabe be so brave."

"You's brave too, 'Ottie," the little boy told her. "Doct'r say girls kin be jus' as brave as boys."

"Here, chile, take a good swallow," Bethel said, returning with a tin cup of water. Lottie's hand shook as she reached for it, and so Mary took it instead, supporting the bottom as she did when Gabe drank. Lottie was able to take hold of the handle and guide it to her mouth. Bethel waited until she began to drink, and then nodded in silent approval and went back to the stove where the flatirons were heating. There was a small saucepan of starch and water sitting at a low boil, and Bethel stirred it.

"Is you hurtin', 'Ottie?" asked Gabe. "Sumtimes de cough, it hurt me." His small hand spread over his stomach, near the bottom of his ribcage, and he pressed against his woolen vest. "Pappy, he hol' me wid bo't hands, an' it don' hurt so bad. Mama? Mama, when Pappy go to sell de tobacco, who goin' hol' me?"

"I will, of course," Mary said gently. "Or Bethel. You mustn't worry, dearest: Pappy will only be gone a little more than a week. He'll be home before you know it."

Gabe frowned disbelievingly. "I's goin' know it," he warned. "I's a growed-up boy, an' I knows when Pappy ain' home."

"Yes, you do. You're a very clever grown-up boy, and I'm proud of you," said Mary. "I know you'll be brave while Pappy is away. You're my little man."

"I's a li'l man," Gabe said, thrusting out his chest happily. "Ain' dat right, 'Ottie?"

"That right, Mist' Gabe," the girl said sweetly. She sat up straighter and tried to smooth the collar of her dress. One of Mary's bedshoes had slipped from her foot when she had swung her legs hurriedly down at the start of the coughing fit, and she stretched to hook it with her toe before reaching down to draw it over her heel. Her hand ran over her pigtails and she gave a tired little smile. "I's awright, Missus," she said earnestly. "Ain' so bad now it over."

"I'm glad, Lottie," Mary said, rising up and reaching to plump up the bolster. "You should try to rest awhile. You need to keep up your strength."

In the urgent muster to turn out the master's wardrobe to its best effect, Lottie had been a diligent little soldier. She had blacked the old leather valise until it positively shone, and then had applied the same careful treatment to Cullen's riding boots. She had helped to sort the pile of shirts into those that needed Mary's attention and those that did not. And she had mixed the starch for the pressing. In between, she had done her best to keep Gabe entertained and out of the way of the women, who were engaged in all the usual washday chores on the wrong morning of the week. With the shirts clean and dry, and the trousers hanging out on the line, Mary had only just started the ironing when Lottie had begun to cough.

Now she tucked her feet up onto the récamier and crossed her arms over her chest as she curled onto her side, turned outward so that she could still watch the activity in the kitchen. "I ain' so tired, Missus Bohannon," she promised. "On'y awful hot."

The heat of the room could not be helped: the stove was stoked to capacity for Friday's bread-baking. Bethel had mixed the last of the flour with her helping of starter, and the big mixing dish full of dough was waiting to be punched down one last time before being divided into loaves. That it was the last of the flour was a secret the old woman had conveyed to Mary in a single long, weary look. Neither of them had said anything aloud because of the children: Lottie would of course have carried the news down to the cabins, and Gabe could not be relied upon to keep the secret from his father. Neither Mary nor Bethel wanted Cullen to suspect how very near to the end of the nonperishable stores they were. It would place too great a strain upon his negotiations with the tobacco buyers.

"I know you must be warm," Mary sighed; "but it is a good thing. You'll recover more quickly if you don't take a chill."

"Then I's goin' git better, Missus?" Lottie asked. She did not lift her head from the bolster, but her eyes grew large and pleading. "I ain'… I mean… Elijah say childern with the kink cough, sometimes they die."

"You ain't goin' die!" Bethel declared, punctuating her assertion by driving her fist into the bread dough. "I had it mysel', an' I wasn' no more'n eight, an' I comed through it jus' fine. An' I didn' have no Missus Mary a-fussin' over me like you got, nor no white doct'r givin' me a thump on the back an' a pass with the listenin' snake."

Gabe's droll name for the stethoscope was gaining popularity, Mary noted with a small smile. She let it broaden as she focused on Lottie. "Of course you shall get better," she soothed. "You're so very strong, and so brave."

She reached to rest her hand on Lottie's brow, but was interrupted when Gabe came marching around the corner of the table. He strode between his mother and his playmate, brandishing a dripping wash-cloth in one hand. He seized the trailing side with the other, stretching it into a thin strip, and then deposited it with a _plop_ on Lottie's forehead.

Lottie gave a little yip of surprise, and her hand flew up to the cloth. Water was streaming from it, into her hairline and along the rim of her eye-sockets and the crook of her nose. But even in her astonishment, she kept her voice cheery and playful as she asked; "What this, Mist' Gabe?"

"It goin' feel good," he announced, nodding stoutly. "When you hot, de col' water feel good!"

Mary did not affront his dignity by laughing, but she could not entirely hide her amusement as she took the cloth from Lottie's head. "It does feel good, dear, but we don't just dip it in the pail," she said. "We need to wring it out afterward, so we don't drown Lottie."

She held it over the basin into which Lottie had been spitting, now on the corner of the table, and twisted the cloth. Almost a quarter of a cup of fluid ran over her fingers and into the bowl. Then she folded the little towel into thirds, making a pad. She used one corner to wick up the worst of the damp from Lottie's eyes and upturned ear, and then settled the compress gently into place. Lottie's eyes closed blissfully, and she spread her palm over the cloth to apply a little pressure.

"There, you see? Now she can enjoy the cool water without getting all wet." Mary reached to stroke Gabe's hair lovingly. "That was kind of you to think of it, lovey. It isn't nice to have a fever, is it?"

"No'm," said Gabe, shaking his head vigorously so that her fingers ruffled his tresses. They still had the prickly, fresh-clipped feeling, and she moved her hand down to the side of his face instead. He nuzzled automatically into her caress, but Mary was gauging his temperature. There was still a hint of unhealthy warmth to his skin, lingering stubbornly despite his obvious improvement and regular doses of the elderflower cordial. She withdrew her hand, and Gabe turned his attention back on Lottie.

"Does you get col'?" he asked. "When I gots de fever, it maked me _awful_ col'."

"Sometimes," Lottie admitted. "I got cold last night, when I was in bed. Ma had to hold me close 'til I stopped shakin'."

The mention of Meg started Mary to wondering how the tobacco-hauling was going. Apart from Meg's brief visit to collect the dinner basket for the field hands and Cullen, and of course to look in on Lottie, there had been no opportunity for news. Even then Mary had only asked if they were managing, and had been assured quietly that they were. That was at least a couple of hours ago, and Mary did not recall hearing the rumble of a wagon since then. Of course, if the drivers had returned during one of the coughing fits – Lottie had had three since breakfast, and Gabe only one – she would not have heard it at all. She moved back to the ironing board where it stood near the stove, and spread one of Cullen's fine Holland shirts upon it. Pouring out a little starch to cool while she worked, she picked up one of the irons by its wooden handle and began to glide it swiftly and smoothly over the back of the garment.

Gabe was now interrogating Lottie about her cough, her throat, and the feeling in her chest. He had climbed up onto the foot of the récamier, and was sitting with his knees close by Lottie's shins, rocking contentedly to and fro as he spoke. Mary listened idly to his questions and the girl's patient answers. If there was one interesting discovery that Mary had made this week, it was that sharing the intimate details of ailments was not a pastime unique to old men and gossiping matrons. Apparently small boys liked to indulge in it as well. Gabe had been plaguing Lottie with questions ever since it had become obvious that the "bad ol' cough" had taken her, too. He obviously took comfort in knowing that he was not alone in his ordeal, and he found Lottie a more willing informant than his father.

Mary was beginning to wonder what she ought to do about Cullen. He was obstinately tight-lipped about his illness, but he could not entirely conceal the fact that it was getting worse. Last night's fits had been fearsome, and at breakfast he had been burning with fever. Yet he kept on working with an intense single-mindedness that would have frightened her if she had not learned long ago that it was only in his nature. He fixed his eyes upon a challenge, a goal or a project, and pursued it relentlessly to its conclusion for good or ill. It was what had made him such a bold and thrilling suitor, and it was what gave him the stamina to fight on against the odds and in defiance of those who might try to thwart him out of malice. Unfortunately, it also drove him to neglect his own needs in pursuit of his objective.

Bethel had finished kneading the dough and was now folding it into balls, and Mary had finished with one iron and changed it for another when there came a quiet knock on the back door. "Please come in," she said pleasantly, expecting it to be Meg and already trying to compose a comforting but truthful report on Lottie's progress.

Instead, Elijah came in. He had his hat in one hand, and he wiped his boots carefully as he entered. "Beggin' you' pardon, Missus," he said, taking in the tableau of the kitchen. His eyes moved from Mary, standing at the ironing board with Cullen's shirt beneath her fingertips, and then to the children on the couch, and finally to Bethel. He shifted uncomfortably. "Beggin' you' pardon," he repeated. "Massa sen' me to fetch 'im some the good tobacco lef' over from the packin'."

Bethel's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she slapped down the orb of dough she had been shaping with enough force to rattle the heavy table. She wiped her hands wrathfully on her apron as she demanded; "An' what he wan' that fo'? You tell 'im the doct'r say he ain' meant to be 'round no smoke, an' that includin' the smoke he git out a cigar or a corncob pipe!"

"He ain' goin' smoke it," Elijah said lackadaisically, coming further into the room and reaching for the pantry door. "He tol' me he done gived some to the rail foreman, an' he need to make it good 'fore that crate packed up."

"Oh." Bethel smoothed her rumpled front, eyes narrowed pensively. "Well, that diff'rent. Jus' so's he don' think he goin' light up an' puff like a chimney while he gots that cough."

"Naw, he don' aim to do that, I don' think," said Elijah. He disappeared into the larder, where Cullen had set aside the two baskets of surplus tobacco on a lower shelf. "Jus' tryin' to git them boys doin' their bes' work. Save time an' trouble if they does."

He came out again with several long leaves draped across an upturned palm. With an uneasy sidelong glance at Mary, he squinted in Lottie's direction. "How you feelin', chile?" he asked. "You ma goin' wan' know."

"Ain' so bad," Lottie told him placidly. She shifted the cloth on her brow, then turned it over to bring the cooler side into contact with her skin. "Mist' Gabe been takin' right good care of me. Ain' you, Mist' Gabe?"

"I's takin' care," the little boy agreed happily. "'Lijah, is you takin' dat tobacco to de train, too?"

"Not me, Mist' Gabe. Reckon you' pappy the one goin' do it. I's stayin' right here, diggin' the potatoes."

"I see'd de potatoes," Gabe informed him. "Dey's down in de cellar. I counted dem onions, too: lots 'n plenty onions. We's goin' have all dem good t'ings to eat dis winter, you know."

"I knows it," Elijah agreed with a man-to-man gravity that made Gabe square his shoulders proudly. "You' mama an' Bethel done good work in the garden this year: saved it from witherin' in the heat, brung in all them tomatoes aft' the hail, shelled them peas an' stringed them beans."

"You done good, too," Gabe said graciously. "Diggin' dem potatoes an' savin' de yams."

The old man's eyes crinkled as he smiled at the child. "Thankee, Mist' Gabe," he said. "We all done our bes'. I got to git 'long now: you' pappy be waitin' fo' me."

"Awright," said Gabe. He reached out and patted Lottie's ankle. "I's goin' stay here an' take care of 'Ottie. She gots de fever _an_' de bad ol' cough."

"But it ain' so bad, Elijah," Lottie said with anxious earnest. "You tell Ma I's doin' jus' fine."

"Sure I will, chile," Elijah promised. Then he bowed stiffly to Mary and retreated from the room.

Bethel resumed shaping the dough. She made four balls for each breadpan, plumping them up as she settled them into place. When baked, the bread would have a pretty clover-like appearance and cut neatly into petaled slices. Having grown up on bread from a busy Manhattan bakery, Mary had been surprised and delighted by Bethel's method when she first came to Mississippi. Now she felt that she would lose some of the pleasure in a piece of buttered toast if it did not have the two risen butterfly wings of Bethel's bread.

"What did he mean, Cullen gave tobacco to the railroad foreman?" Mary asked as she smoothed the left cuff of the shirt she was starching. "Why would he do that?"

"Keeps them slaves workin' hard an' handlin' the boxes gentle," said Bethel. "Little bit of a gift can save a lot of trouble, an' mebbe even damage. Mist' Cullen know what he doin', awright."

Mary did not dispute this aloud, but privately she wondered why Cullen would open one of the carefully-packed crates to do it. He might just as easily have brought along a supply from his overage. Perhaps there had been some dispute or disruption in the yard, and he had had to improvise in order to make it right? Whatever had happened, Elijah did not seem to think it worthy of concern. She took some comfort in that, and set her eyes back on her work.

There was scarcely three minutes of hush in the busy kitchen, while the two women worked and Lottie blinked drowsily and Gabe sat peacefully at her feet, plucking at the ruffle of her new dress. In that lull, Mary thought she heard something clattering outside, muted by distance and by the breadth of the house. Then there was a loud _thump_ as someone sprang up onto the back stoop without using the steps, and the door flew open.

"Bethel, there been trouble!" Meg exclaimed breathlessly. Her eyes were wild and her hands clutched huge handfuls of her skirt. She looked at once dismayed, terrified, and driven by determination. "Nate been hurt, an' he fainted dead 'way. Mist' Cullen bringin' him in, but we gots to have somewheres to put him. Sheriff done hit him with a crowbar, an' he bruised up bad. Drove the wagon six miles home, an' he couldn' hardly git up off the seat."

Bethel's face seemed frozen in horror as she stared at Meg, but her hands were already moving. She dusted the flour from them and gestured broadly at the table. "You cain't bring 'im in here!" she said. "Ain't nowheres to put 'im. Tell the massa to git him on down the cabins."

"Massa carryin' him over his shoulder," said Meg despairingly. "Don' know that he kin carry him that far. Mist' Cullen strong, but Nate bigger 'n him."

"He can put him here, Ma," Lottie said, pushing herself up onto one elbow before swinging her legs to the floor. She stood up, a little unsteadily, and offered a hand to Gabe. "C'mon, Mist' Gabe, honey," she said. "You kin sit in Bethel's chair."

Meg looked uncertain as she eyed the récamier. "He all bloodied up an' dusty," she said. "He goin' ruin the 'polstery."

"I'll run and fetch a sheet," Mary declared. The words came out with a brisk efficiency that surprised her. Her heart was hammering and a dozen anxious questions were swarming in her mind. Why had the sheriff struck Nate with a crowbar? Had it anything to do with the trouble about Meg's visit to Hartwood? Had Cullen intervened, and if so, how much trouble had he brought on himself? But there was no time to think about any of this. She only just remembered to put the iron in her hand back on the stove as she turned for the door and gathered her skirt and petticoats in one hand as she took off at a run.

The linen chest was upstairs, but Bethel kept a spare pair of sheets in the cupboard under the parlor sideboard for making up the récamier as a day-bed. Mary snatched them and turned so quickly that her gown was momentarily twisted around her legs like a winding-sheet. She dragged upon the cloth to free her legs and sped back. In the kitchen, Bethel had already dragged the ironing board out of the channel between stove and table, clearing a broad path to the couch that had devoured so much of the empty floor-space. Gabe was climbing into Bethel's chair, which Lottie had pushed into the corner by the door. Meg was filling the big brass kettle with water.

Mary unfurled one sheet, and Bethel seized the other end. Hurriedly they spread it over the seat of the récamier, tucking it between side and back. Mary took the excess at the foot and twisted it into a thick knot to draw up the excess. Then she and Bethel draped the other over the curved back. Bethel rolled the bolster into a towel that had at some point crossed the room from the washstand. Hung in white, the couch had a reassuringly sterile appearance, like a table in a city infirmary.

The task was completed without a moment to spare. A great, lumbering shape came into view of the gaping back door, toiling up the first two steps before Mary could make sense of the eight limbs and the unwieldy leftward bulge. Cullen had Nate's body slung over that shoulder, seat and lower back rounded over it. His left arm was wrapped firmly around the back of Nate's thighs just above the knee, and his right hand held Nate's left out to the side as a sort of counterbalance. He drew it in so that he could navigate the doorway, and Meg scurried hastily out of his way.

"Here," Mary said, taking a step back herself. She gestured broadly at the récamier. "Lie him down here."

Cullen did not argue, or even speak. His face was florid with exertion, and his expression almost brutally guarded. He took the four laborious steps to the end of the table, turned with the unwieldy grace of a battleship, and shuffled to the couch. He bent, lowering Nate so that first his calves and then his legs made contact with the sheet, then grunted with the effort of rolling him off of his shoulder. Mary danced behind her husband to cup the Negro's shaggy head in her hands, supporting it as it flopped backward. Cullen was clutching at Nate's back as he eased him down, and Mary guided the heavy skull. Then suddenly Nate was flat upon the récamier, and Cullen curled over him with his feet braced on the floor, one hip riding precariously on the edge of the cushion.

"What happened?" Bethel demanded. She was pouring water into the washbasin.

"Had a run-in with the sheriff," Cullen huffed, raking his hair out of his eyes but not even trying to straighten his back. Trickles of perspiration were bisecting his temples, and his breath was coming hard and shallow. "I was a few minutes behind – Snort may be an ornery beggar, but he's quick – and I drove right into the middle of it."

Mary found herself looking for any sign of injury to her husband. Nate's hurts were obvious: an eye black and swollen, blood in his beard and his nostrils, a hideous bruise just barely showing beneath his collar. Cullen's face appeared unharmed, but his posture worried her.

"He was beating his back and shoulders," Cullen went on as Bethel moved in. "Nate had the sense to get down and stay down. I don't think he took any blows to the head, apart from the one that got his eye."

It was this one that Bethel was now examining. Her fingertips hovered just short of the inflamed flesh, tracing the socket and the borders of the discoloration. Mary pressed her legs back against the table to allow Bethel as much room as she could: the older woman's swift move in had pinned her in the corner between the couch's curved and upholstered head and the heavy work surface.

Meg was now creeping up towards the knot of anxious adults, craning her neck to see around Cullen's shoulder. "Is he… has he…"

"Fainted dead away," said Cullen. "It's probably a blessing." He frowned thoughtfully. His gaze moved from Nate's face, which even in oblivion was creviced with deep lines of pain, to his right arm where it hung off the edge of the récamier. "He was holding it close to his chest," he muttered, as if to himself. "It was only when he tried to use it to catch himself that he shouted."

Bethel had completed her visual pass of the eye, and was now probing the floor of the socket with her first two fingers. Nate stirred, nostrils flaring, and Cullen bent further towards him, reaching to take hold of his wrist. Gently he guided it in, supporting Nate's right elbow with his other hand, and tucked the arm against his chest.

"No broken bones here," he said, running his hand down the forearm and squeezing at intervals as he went. Nothing yielded beneath his grasp, and the tormented fissures in Nate's brow and around his mouth eased a little. "He kept insisting his ribs ain't broke, but they got to be bruised. Brannan was whaling on him with all the strength in his arm. Damned summbitch."

"Cullen—" Mary began, glancing towards the corner where Gabe was perched, wide-eyed and open-eared, on the edge of Bethel's chair. Lottie was standing beside him, her hand curled protectively around one small shoulder. Mary swallowed her admonition with some effort. Cullen could not be expected to mind his language at a time like this.

Bethel spread her palm on Nate's brow, the arc of finger and thumb encircling his bloated eye socket. With the tip of that thumb and the opposite index finger, she tried to spread the swollen lids. For a moment it looked like she could not do it, but then a sliver of white appeared. Bethel leaned in, looking closely as she wedged the small strip a little wider. Then she withdrew her hand and sighed with relief.

"Eye ain't burst," she said; "an' I don' think the bone so much as cracked. It goin' be swollen as a ripe tomato fo' a few days, but I don' think he goin' take no permanent harm there."

Cullen, who was still holding Nate's arm in place against his abdomen, sighed wearily. "Thank God for that," he said. "How we going to get a look at his chest?"

"Cain't, not prop'ly. Not until he 'wake an' able to sit up," said Bethel. She wetted one of the rags in the washbasin and began to wipe the blood from Nate's face. "What 'bout his teeth?"

"Didn' loose no teeth," Nate grunted thickly, his fattened lower lip moving clumsily. His left eyelid fluttered and opened, and his iris pivoted from Cullen to Bethel, and then up to Mary. "_Dammit_."

"Hey!" Cullen scoffed hoarsely, a thin grin disguising a flood of knee-weakening relief. "Don't you use that kind of language where the children can hear you."

"You awright, honey?" Bethel asked, drawing Nate's attention to her stern but tender face. "That man hit you in the head?"

"Jus' once," said Nate. His left hand travelled up to touch his cheekbone, but he kept a good inch and a half of distance between his fingers and his eye. "Not 'round back. Got me good in the elbow fo' coverin' it, though."

"Right elbow?" Cullen said, reaching to probe it. Nate hissed and attempted to jerk his arm out of his master's grasp, but his whole body stiffened and he choked back a cry as he tried it.

"Broken?" asked Mary. The last time she had felt this helpless, Meg had been sitting bowed over the table with her back torn and bloodied.

"Don't feel like it," said Cullen, feeling the joint with care. He pinched the place where the three bones met. "It hurt when I do that?"

"Course it do," grumbled Nate. His good eye was screwed closed, and his chest was heaving shallowly. A sheen of cold perspiration glistened on his brow, and his jaw was taut with pain, but he did not try to pull away again. "Gonna have me a wicked bruise there."

"Can't be broke," said Cullen, adjusting his hold and squeezing again. "If it was you'd be screaming like you did just then. Trouble must be further up."

"Kin you sit?" asked Bethel. "We got to get them clothes off so's I kin take a good look at your back."

Nate did not look in the least bit certain, but he set his purpled jaw firmly. "Guess I got to," he muttered.

"Not alone," Mary said softly. Cullen looked up at her as if he had half-forgotten that she was there at all, and she fixed her eyes on his. "Not alone," she repeated, more firmly this time."

"She's right," Cullen said. "Getting up on your own was what got you into trouble out front."

Without waiting for consent, he bowed forward to slide his right arm under Nate's left, and Nate reached to hook his elbow around his master's neck without protest. For a moment they were motionless in this ungainly embrace, and then Cullen sat slowly up again, hauling the other man with him. Nate moaned, his eye rolling back into his head and his body tensing, but he did not lose consciousness. He slouched forward over his lap as Cullen drew back, raising one knee to brace himself. Cullen's palm remained steadyingly upon Nate's side until his breathing grew level again. All the while the gray eyes watched his face, gauging his state.

"You're staying with us," he said at last.

"Course I's staying," Nate huffed. His right arm was still pressed tightly to his stomach, the fingers curled lifelessly into their natural configuration. "I on'y fainted 'way in the firs' place b'cause of them damned. Ruts."

"What'd I say 'bout rough language?" Cullen asked, a small smile on his face. Mary could see the exhausted relief in his eyes, and her heart ached for him. He had been terrified for his old playmate's life. She wished she could say something to comfort him, but this was not the time.

"You bes' git back to work now," Bethel said, stepping forward and brushing at Cullen's wrist until he withdrew his hands. "Daylight be wastin', an' you's a man short. You goin' over to Wes' Willows to ask Mist' Ainsley to spare a couple hands?"

Cullen shot her a shrewd, accusatory look of the sort a sentry might give to a stranger trespassing deep in a secured fortress. She had read his thoughts.

"I guess I got to," he said, eyeing Nate almost apologetically. "You can't work today: that's plain enough."

Mary's view was only of Nate's back, but she read it clearly enough. His pride was wounded by these words and the undeniable truth behind them. He disliked the idea of another man's slaves coming in at the end of the race to finish the job he had been toiling at so diligently all year. He was like Cullen in that respect: driven to his very limit by the burning need to see the job through, whatever the personal cost.

"You got to," he sighed. His voice was scarcely audible, and blunted by an echo of despair that twisted Mary's innards. It tore at Meg, too, where she stood near the foot of the récamier watching the black man's downcast face with fear and sympathy in her eyes. "'Thout me you gots nobody else to drive."

"I can drive!" Meg declared suddenly, her hands ceasing their fretful clutching to close into fists at her sides. Her back and her arms were suddenly as straight as those of a soldier standing to attention, and her chin was tilted up defiantly. "Ain' nuthin' to drivin' a pair of mules, an' it ain' like I's goin' git lost jus' drivin' to Meridian. Them rail men takes care of the off-loadin' anyhow, don' they? Let me drive, Massa. We don' need no cotton-pickers a-rescuin' us."

Mary's astonishment at these words was nothing to Meg's own. In the brief instant it took the words "a-rescuin' us" to die upon the air, her brown eyes widened and her mouth quivered with shock and sudden fright. Despite this her determination did not waver, and when Cullen turned around to gawp at her, his outside leg shifting forward to keep his precarious balance on the edge of the couch-cushion, Meg was ready to meet his look of astonishment with a level gaze.

"You?" Cullen said inadequately.

"Why not?" demanded Meg. "I's hauled timber up from the creek bottom b'fore, ain't I? An' that on a grass bank 'thout no road. I might be too small fo' plowin', Massa, but I kin hol' a rein."

Nate raised his head with obvious, painful effort. Mary could not see the expression he fixed on the young woman, but it did not make her waver. It did, however, make Lottie's eyes widen considerably as she shrank a little closer to Gabe. The boy was watching the scene with great interest, as if watching a play that he did not quite understand but devoutly wished to.

"You cain' do that," Nate rasped, his voice rough with suffering but also very firm. "I ain' goin' have you takin' up my work fo' me, not even if it mean askin' help of the neighbors."

"Since when you took ownership of the work gots to be done 'round here?" Meg demanded indignantly. "I's done a man's share all year a-brinin' in this crop, an' I gots jus' as much right to see it brung to the train as you does. I ain' aimin' fo' Mist' Cullen to lose no money on this crop, an' I reckon I's got mo' reason than anyone to wan' it shipped safe. 'Part from Missus Mary, that is, beggin' you' pardon, Missus."

She nodded her head respectfully in Mary's direction, and Mary offered a reflexively gracious smile even though her head was reeling. This foolishness, this obdurate prideful refusal to yield an inch to the household's latest misfortune, was clearly contagious. She expected such stubbornness from Cullen, and supposed it was equally characteristic of Nate, but she had always thought that Meg had more sense. There was no shame in asking Boyd Ainsley for help, especially not in circumstances such as these. Nate's beating was not an act of God – it was the act of a stupid, cruel man behaving spitefully towards those who were helpless to defy him – but it fell under the same umbrella of events they could not have foreseen, much less controlled.

But the corner of Cullen's mouth just visible to her with his head turned to Meg twitched up into a shadow of a smile. "You think you can drive it? You got to make at least three more trips, you know. Six miles both ways, and it ain't exactly a comfortable seat."

"I ain't 'sac'ly a lady's maid, Massa," Meg said firmly. "I can drive her."

Finally Lottie could no longer keep silent. She stomped one foot, the sound much muted and the gesture losing some of its emphasis because of Mary's bedshoe. "Ma, you cain't!" she cried. "You _cain't_! You ain' been off the plantation since them men whupped you!"

For a moment there was complete silence. Meg whirled wide-eyed upon her daughter, and Bethel's fingertips flew to her lips. Cullen startled, drawing back with an abbreviated jerk. Nate stiffened and hunched lower over his lap. Mary's own heart seemed to have leapt into her throat, and she could hear her pulse thrumming in her ears. Then Meg straightened again, eyes upon her daughter. Suddenly her mismatched frock and coarse hands, her work-broadened shoulders and heavy shoes seemed to vanish as she drew herself up to her full height with the dignity of a queen.

"An' that jus' why I's goin' now," she said calmly. "That mean ol' white-trash rich man ain' goin' make me take scared. I migh' not shake no stick in his face, but I ain' goin' let him lick me, neither. Mist' Cullen goin' draw me up a paper like the lawman say I need, an' I's goin' drive that wagon int' town."

The awed respect in Lottie's eyes made Mary want to weep. The girl was looking worshipfully at her mother, her own shoulders straighter and her own head held higher. The expression was obviously not lost on Cullen, either: he was looking at Lottie and not at Meg as he said; "Fine. You can drive the wagon. I'd sooner have someone who knows the mules handling them anyway. We'll go together in convoy so you don't attract no trouble. But on the way out we's stopping at West Willows so's I can see if Boyd will spare a man to help with the loading. I doubt he'll have a team to spare, what with the plowing, but if he does we can cut our time even more."

Bethel relaxed, her face easing out of the hard lines into which it had been slipping. She had been bristling for an argument, and no doubt a stern lecture on the evils of pride. But like Mary she could not bear to see Meg's bravery hobbled, and Cullen at least was talking sense. With more hands to load on this end, and perhaps even another wagon, the shipping would go more quickly and hopefully less painfully. And if Meg drove along with Cullen, instead of separately as Nate had been doing, then he would be able to protect her if the sheriff decided to make any more trouble.

Cullen got to his feet with a low grunt, shaking his right leg to get the blood moving again. He reached to knead at his shoulder, looking thoughtful as he studied Nate's curved spine. "You let Bethel take care of you, now," he instructed. "I'll come back with the doctor."

Nate glared up at him with his one good eye. "I don' need me no white man doctor," he said. "Bethel done tooked care of me since I's a pickaninny. I reckon she kin handle this here."

Cullen cast a querying eye at Bethel, who nodded. It was at once a reassurance that she was capable, and a pledge that she would get word to him if the doctor was needed after all. Mary saw the trust between them and was grateful for it. Cullen had too much to worry about already without fretting over Nate's nursing. She smiled reassuringly, not so much for her husband as for Meg and the children.

"You'll be in the best of hands with Bethel," she agreed. Then to Meg she said; "Go on. As soon as I hear the wagons come back, I'll step out to let you know what's happening."

Meg nodded her head briefly, dipping a little curtsey and flashing a shy, grateful smile. Then she crossed the room and cupped the back of Lottie's head, bending to kiss her daughter. "Don' you be fearful," she whispered. "Mist' Cullen goin' stay right with me, an' I's goin' be jus' fine."

"But what if you ain'?" Lottie asked, her worries rising to the surface again. "What if you gits separated, or he cain't pertect you? What if they beats you like they beat Nate?"

"That ain't gonna happen," Cullen said, getting to his feet. "I won't let no one lay a finger on your ma, and this time I'm bringing the rifle. It's harder to argue with a man carrying a gun."

Gabe's face brightened considerably at this. "You's goin' git de rifle?" he asked eagerly. "Is you goin' shoot a bear?"

"I will if I see one," Cullen said, ruffling the boy's hair. "But if I don't I hope I ain't goin' have cause to shoot anything at all."

Then he turned and strode off through the dining room door, closing it behind him. Meg gave Lottie one last, quick kiss. "You be a good girl and mind Missus Mary," she said. "An' don' you fret."

Then she too was gone, slipping out the back door and hurrying past the window towards the barn. For a moment the room was still, Nate breathing laboriously and Lottie smoothing her collar and putting on her bravest face. Mary herself was motionless, still trying to make sense of everything that had occurred. Then Bethel clapped her hands and sprung into action.

"Missus Mary, you git that water off the stove 'fore it boils all away, an' mix us up a bowl that's hot as you kin bear to touch. I gots to run to the well fo' a bucket of cold. An' you, chile, git that boy up of that chair an' int' you' lap. You didn' ought to be up an' standin' 'round while you's poorly. As fo' _you_, boy," she said, turning on Nate. "Jus' you buck youself up fo' gittin' out that coat. I ain' such a wonder that I kin see you' hurts through black flannel!"

Hastening to obey Bethel's command, Mary felt her anxieties disappearing under the swift-flowing surface of necessary labors. It was sensation utterly unknown to her privileged upbringing, and it could not have been more welcome.

*_discidium_*

Meg came around the corner of the house just as Cullen was closing the front door, his loaded Sharps crooked over his arm. They said nothing as they walked together, Meg a respectful pace behind. There was very little at all to be said. For his part, Cullen did not intend to impart the sordid details of the incident in town; in any case, Meg did not seem inclined to ask. She had a look of cool resolve in her eyes, and her stride was long and strong. She had drawn upon her inner courage and the dignity that Abel Sutcliffe had been unable to beat out of her. She had been unable to protect herself that day, as she could not have protected Nate. But what she could do was take his place and finish the work they had all started together.

And she could do it, too. There was no great trick to driving a wagon, if you had clear eyes and a little common sense. Meg was a good driver: she did indeed often take the wagon when they were hauling wood, and the creek was more treacherous than the road to Meridian. More importantly, she had a knack for handling ornery animals. Gus and Betsy would obey her, and with much less resentment than Snort afforded Cullen. So would the rail slaves, come to that: as soon as they realized she was taking Nate's place they would do all they could to make the delivery easy for her. They were on good terms with Cullen, and friendly with Nate, and after witnessing their defiance of the sheriff they were likely to be eager to help all they could.

Not that Cullen intended to let Meg go unaccompanied even for a minute. That was a risk that he should never have taken with Nate, and he was not about to make that mistake again. "Here," he said, as they drew near the wagons. He handed Meg a scrap of paper torn from an old rail manifest, the ink on one side faded to a pale brown while on the other it was fresh and black.

Meg took the writ of permission and tucked it carefully into her apron pocket. If the unthinkable happened and they were somehow separated, she would have at least that small protection.

Elijah had made use of his time by dragging some of the tobacco boxes down to the stable door. How he had hoisted them off the stacks with his aging arms Cullen could not guess, but half a dozen were waiting around the tongue of the buggy, ready to be lifted up into the wagons.

"He came to," Cullen said as he squatted to take hold of the first one. Meg slipped past him to the other side and did the same. Elijah, needing no preamble to the answer to the only question on his mind, nodded solemnly. "Don't know if anything's broke: Bethel's tending him. But he's lucid and she says his eye ain't more'n just swole up."

"Praise the Lord fo' his small mercies," said Elijah. "An' he ain' talkin' murder?"

"Not in front of the children, at least," said Cullen dryly. He locked eyes with Meg, and she gave a tiny nod. "One, two, three, _heave_."

They lifted, and Cullen felt the sinews of his right shoulder stretch and strain and protest with bolts of numbing agony. He set his teeth and breathed into the pain. Nate had fainted dead away when he put weight on _his_ shoulder: this discomfort was nothing to that. If he admitted it even to himself, much less the two slaves, Cullen was not man enough to deserve the respect of his people. So he shuffled sideways to the back of the borrowed wagon and hoisted higher in tandem with Meg. But the miserable burning and the feeble, quivering release when the crate was settled left one thing clear in Cullen's mind. They could not shift another ten thousand pounds without help.

When at last the wagons were loaded, thankfully without a coughing fit, Cullen secured the tail boards while Meg climbed onto her seat. Instead of mounting from the left side of his buckboard, Cullen slid between the two laden carts so that he could stand for a moment at Meg's side, looking up at her. She turned to meet his eyes, and the valor in her eyes faltered. Her hand shook upon the rein, and she tightened it into a defiant fist. For all her proud words she was terrified.

"It's goin' be all right," Cullen vowed quietly, offering up one of his most rakish grins. "I'll be right in front the whole time. You just keep as close behind as you safely can, and make sure them mules don't dawdle."

Meg nodded, uncertainly at first but then more steadily. "I can do it, Mist' Cullen," she whispered. "I can."

"I know you can," he said levelly, reaching up to clap her arm with his left hand before using it to lift himself up into the Ainsley wagon. His right shoulder and the neighboring quarter of his back were pulsing with a hard, hot pain after their long exertions, so he tucked his arm in close to his side and picked up the reins one-handed. "_Ho_!" he commanded, and the mules picked up their hooves with twin wearisome snorts. As he started down the lane with Meg guiding her team into step behind him, he began running over what he was going to say to Boyd.


	85. Far Above Rubies

_Note: Chapter title from Proverbs 31:10. (This chapter posted between 407 and 408.)_

**Chapter Eighty-Five: Far Above Rubies**

The afternoon was gray and dreary, the air crisp with the promise of frost. Bethel hitched her shawl higher about her ears and quickened her pace as she mounted the shallow slope to the well. Its location had been chosen by Meg's grandfather, a skilled stonecutter who had built the springhouse, raised the chimneys, and laid the foundation of the Bohannon family home. He had died long before Bethel was brought out to Mississippi, but she remembered the nostalgic grousing of the men who had worked under him to dig a well made necessarily deeper by its elevation. For these men it had been a short-lived burden, but for Bethel it was an enduring convenience that lightened the load of her daily work. With the well above the house, even slightly, she was able to carry her laden buckets downhill instead of toiling upward. It also afforded better drainage, so that even in a heavy rain the water did not pool around the well where the drawers of water were obliged to stand. Bethel was grateful to the man, long dead, who had thought first of the wellbeing of the women who would use his creation.

It was a good well, deep and broad enough that a sliver of sun could sparkle off the surface in the forenoon. It had a shingled roof to shelter it, and a sturdy drawing mechanism. The water itself was clean and sweet, refreshingly cool even in the height of summer. Bethel set her kitchen pail on the smooth and time-bleached stone lip, and took the crank-handle in both hands. It resisted her, creaking. In the flurry of hard labor and broken nights, Mister Cullen had forgotten to grease it. Undaunted, Bethel only reefed harder. The winch skittered over the rough place, and began to turn more easily. The bucket rose, streaming clear water from its rim. Bethel caught it and drew it in, tipping it over her smaller pail in the simple and life-giving ritual she performed a dozen times a day.

When her bucket was full, she took a handful of the water remaining in the other and splashed it on her face. She was burning with hot, damp discomfort that seemed to come in waves off of her shoulders and to pulse through her skin. She had first taken to these spells about the time of Mister William's unexpected death, and through the years they had become less and less frequent. Still, she was not in the least surprised to fall prey to one now. They always seemed to come when she was overtaken with emotion, and although she believed she had kept her composure in front of the others just now, she was in a turmoil of conflicting feelings.

There was pity for poor Nate, who had been so brutally used and no doubt shamed, and worry for him, too. With that came a prayerful thanks that he had suffered no worse. Whatever was wrong with his arm, Bethel thought she could cope with it, but he might easily have had his skull cracked or his backbone snapped instead. Under that gratitude was another, guiltier kind: her secret relief that it had not been Mister Cullen who had come home beaten and bloodied. Bethel was ashamed of her selfishness, but after all Nate was not the one she had tended since birth, comforted in times of unspeakable sorrow and celebrated in times of joy. God might love all His children equally, but a woman tended to love best those nearest to her.

And there was the fear. Bethel had hoped that the strife between her young master and the other white gentlemen had cooled, but this was clearly not the case. Before, the matter had been largely between Mister Cullen and rotten old Sutcliffe, but now it seemed the sheriff was taking his own role in it. Perhaps he resented that Mister Cullen had not voted for him, or perhaps he was merely bitter because the younger man did not fear him. Whatever the reason, it was a serious matter to be on the wrong side of the law, and in Meridian the law was the sheriff.

Bethel was also worried about how Mister Cullen might seek reprisal for this affront. He had not yet made good upon his threat to write to the Mississippi Bar with his grievance, but Bethel suspected that he still intended to. She had found several drafts of a letter on scrap paper, covered in loose scrawling marginalia and vitriolic slashes through whole blocks of text. The words were meaningless to her, but the feeling behind the nonsensical shapes was obvious. Bethel could not imagine anything else that Mister Cullen might write with such wrath: they were certainly not letters to Missus Mary's family, not even to her brother. Jeremiah Tate had sent a bevy of anxious letters that his sister had read hastily last night. They contained an episodic account of little Missy's struggle with the whooping cough, and perpetual inquiries about Mister Gabe. Bethel did not like to think of the girl whom she had frightened so badly, but she was relieved to know that she seemed to be coming through the illness well enough – for Missus Mary's sake as well as out of simple Christian mercy.

The thought of her dear young mistress set Bethel moving again. Missus Mary would be wondering where she had got to, and what she ought to do in her absence. Sweet, sheltered Missus Mary seemed so lost before such a brutal scene as Nate's battered body presented. It was Bethel's duty to go marching back into the kitchen and take charge. She lifted the bucket carefully off of the well-lip and settled it at her side, far enough from her skirts that it would not splash them. Her progress was quicker down the hill, and she stopped at the foot of the stoop to compose herself. She had to be strong, sure and knowing, whatever she found. The family was relying on her.

She opened the door not upon the scene of inaction she had been expecting, but on a tableau of quiet care. Missus Mary had brought one of the chairs from the dining room, and she was sitting beside the récamier so that she faced Nate. She had a bowl of faintly steaming water balanced on her lap, and her left had was cupped around the back of his head while she dabbed gently at his beard with a rag growing rusty with blood. Lottie had settled Mister Gabe in the chair again, and was pulling off Nate's worn-out left boot, bracing him just under the knee so she did not drag on his body as she did so.

Bethel closed the door and slipped off her shawl, looping it over its hook. She fetched another of the smaller tin basins and filled it with cold water, setting the bucket down on the floor by the table. The next task was to remove Nate's coat and shirt – which, to judge from the way he was still cradling his right arm, he was not going to like in the least.

"Toss them boots out back, chile, an' then sit down," Bethel said briskly, dipping a rag to make a compress for Nate's swollen eye. It would ease his discomfort and, more importantly, give him something to fiddle around with while the rest of the examination was carried out. Lottie straightened up, one ratty boot in each hand, and gave her a little expectant look. Bethel managed a faint smile. "That was good thinkin', awright, but you don' got no business wearin' youself out. Go on, now."

Satisfied, Lottie moved to obey. Missus Mary sat back a little as Bethel reached in to hand Nate the cool pad. "Fo' you' eye, boy," she said. "We gots to get that coat off. Is you ready?"

"I's ready," Nate huffed hoarsely. His good eye was fixed dully on his lap, and he did not even blink as Missus Mary's hand moved directly under it. Bethel frowned at this. Perhaps he was addled after all?

"Awright. Missus Mary goin' undo them buttons, an' work them cuffs…"

His head twitched abortively, beginning to pivot towards her before the pain stopped it. His eye slid in towards his nose anyhow. "I'd sooner you do it," he grunted.

Bethel pursed her lips. "Ain' you got no unnerthings on, boy?" she asked. "You oughts to know better, col' day like this."

"I's wearin' my winter unnerwear, Nate," Mister Gabe announced proudly. "It scratchy, but I ain' goin' take no chill. You might ketch you' deff if you don' wear it, dat what Bet'l say."

"Hush," Lottie said lovingly, curling her arm around the little boy's neck as she perched on the armrest above him. "Nate know he oughts to wear it: that why he lookin' guilty as a houn' stoled a chicken."

"Jeb don' steal no chickens," the child told her soberly. "He a good ol' hound. I gived him dat squirrel to et, dough. He sure like dat."

Lottie asked a quiet question, leaning lower, and Mister Gabe answered in a loud but very throaty whisper. With a small nod of approval, Bethel turned back to her patient. "I kin do them buttons, but then Missus Mary gots to handle the collar. I's too old to git you out of them clothes all on my own."

Nate did not look at all comfortable with this, but he was also all too acutely aware that he had caused enough trouble today. He managed a stiff, brief nod that seemed to bring with it a wave of dizziness. "Do it, then," he said.

Missus Mary rose, moving around the head of the récamier without instruction. Bethel pushed the chair aside with one knee, and bent to reach for the buttons on Nate's coat. All but one were loose, and she turned that one with ease before unfastening the ones that ran down his shirt. "You gots to put you' arms back," she said. "I know it goin' hurt, but—"

Nate flung his left arm back almost defiantly, but when he tried to shift his right he hissed in agony and screwed his eye closed, panting shallowly. Patiently Bethel put one hand under the elbow, and guided the wrist with the other. She eased the arm almost straight while Nate set his jaw and sucked in small gasps through his nose, but when she tried to move his upper arm back he cried out again, shrinking from her like a colt with a torn fetlock. Bethel withdrew her hands, and immediately his arm curled back against his side.

Missus Mary had flinched at his exclamation, but now her face was smooth and calm again. "Let me try to slide your left arm out, Nate," she said. "Then we can just slip off the other sleeve."

Nate was too far gone in pain to do more than twitch his lips, but Bethel nodded to convey his consent to the mistress. Reaching gently around, she guided the lapel to his shoulder and tried to slip the garment back. The cloth grew taut and resisted, so her slender fingers crept lower and she tried again. This time, the grain across Nate's shoulder blades grew snug and he moaned as the wool fabric dragged on his right side. Missus Mary's hand opened, withdrawing three startled inches. Then she looked at Bethel.

"It's no use," she said. "It's too tight."

"Ain' surprisin'," said Bethel. "He been wearin' that coat fo' years now, buildin' up strength. 'Spect you cain't git it off without puttin' both arms back; that right?"

Nate nodded tersely. His lips were curled inward now in the unmistakable posture of intractable nausea. Bethel reached around her mistress to pick up the bowl into which Lottie had been spitting during her coughing fits, and she put it in Nate's lap. "You gots to be sick, be sick in that," she said simply.

"What are we to do?" Missus Mary asked softly. Her hands were trembling, and she clasped them resolutely as she fixed steady eyes on Bethel. She was trying her utmost to be brave, but as with Meg's whipping this situation was outside her experience. "We do have to get it off him, I suppose? We couldn't… well… just _leave_ it?"

Bethel shook her head. "I might be able t' see 'bout them ribs by reachin' roun', but I gots to know where he bruised up. An' whatever be wrong with that shoulder, if'n I cain't see I cain't know if it gots cause to sen' fo' the doct'r."

"De doct'r?" Mister Gabe asked. Again Lottie hushed him gently. She was watching the two women with anxiety and interest in equal measure in her eyes.

"I hates to waste good cloth, Missus, but it got be done," Bethel said. She went to the cupboard and took the big shears she used for cutting sacks. Turning back to the man on the muslin-draped couch, she hesitated. Mister Cullen had debts, and they had failed to bring in twenty hogsheads of tobacco. If he did not get a good price, there might be no money to replace a ruined coat. Nate could not go without in the winter, laboring so constantly in the outdoors. He needed his coat.

"It got be done," she repeated, regretful but resolute.

Missus Mary's brows furrowed miserably, her eyes flicking from side to side as she went over the same anxious figuring that Bethel had just done. Then her expression brightened and she almost laughed as she said; "But not with those! Is it lined?"

Not waiting for an answer, she slipped her hand into the back vent of the coat, where the tails were pinned under Nate's bottom. She tugged one loose and flipped it over, revealing the turned hem and the underside of the stout wool cloth. Male slaves' clothes were seldom lined, particularly the outer garments. Women's bodices needed the structure that an inner shell provided, for the sake of decency as well as comfort, but a work-coat certainly did not.

"Lottie, run and fetch my embroidery scissors," Missus Mary instructed. The child hurried off as quickly as she could, slowing a little at the door when she was stopped by a shallow cough. Mister Gabe turned in the big chair to look after her, curious. Missus Mary was teasing the other tail out from under Nate, casting aside propriety. When she had them both free, she took one in each hand just before the place where they were joined to form the base of the center-back seam, and tugged them in opposite directions. She leaned forward, eyes narrowing a little, and nodded. "I can cut the threads, and not the cloth," she said. "Bethel, bring the lamp. I need you to be patient, Nate. With a little luck we'll be able to sew it back together again for you."

Nate grunted softly, but he was still fighting the pain. His head lolled to the side, resting on the cushioned back of the récamier, and his brow was slick with sweat. Bethel went to light the lamp, and Lottie came hurrying back with the mistress's tiny scissors cupped in one hand.

"What you goin' do, Missus?" she asked as she handed them off.

Missus Mary smiled at her. "I'm going to take out the seam," she said. "If I can split it right up to the collar, we should have enough leeway to get Nate's left shoulder free, and then we can slide the right sleeve down without moving his arm. Bring it in closer, Bethel."

Bethel leaned in, lowering the lamp as far as she dared. Even with the glass chimney to guard the flame, she could not help glancing at Missus Mary's beautiful auburn hair and imagining it ablaze. She concentrated upon keeping her hand steady and level, as Missus Mary bent low over the arm of the récamier. She spread the two pieces of cloth with her left hand, and took a tiny snip where they were joined, cutting only the threads stretched between them. The first few stitches gave way, and Missus Mary swung the scissors to the back of her hand, her thumb free but her index finger still through one of the silver loops. She pinched each piece and pulled, and several more stitches slithered free. When they stopped spreading, she took another tiny snip and pulled again. Little by little, the coat split open.

When she came within a finger's-breadth of the collar, Missus Mary stopped. The collar was cut in two pieces, and the neck of the coat was sandwiched between them. Undoing that stitching was much more difficult, and it was this piece especially that Bethel had expected to cut. But the younger woman guided Nate's left elbow back and tried again to slip the armscye over his thickly-muscled shoulder. This time, with the triangular gap drawn almost to its limit, she managed it. The cloth strained, but did not drag upon Nate's wounded arm, and she eased the sleeve down as far as she could. With a low groan of discomfort, Nate pulled his wrist free and reached around to replace the grip upon his opposite hand. He leaned a little further forward, still struggling to retain his composure.

"Missus Mary, you a wonder," Bethel breathed. She straightened and set the lamp on the table, well back from the edge. Then she placed one hand on Nate's breastbone and fixed her gaze on him. "Hol' tight, chile," she instructed. "I's goin' go gently, but it still like to hurt you."

"Do it," Nate gasped, the words grinding out over clenched teeth. Bethel took hold of the collar and peeled it down to the head of his shoulder. She could see no obvious dislocation or deformity: apart from the uncharacteristic hunching the joint looked much as it should have. It took some doing to slide the cloth out from Nate's armpit while his elbow was clamped so close to his side, but she did it. Missus Mary gathered up the excess cloth, holding it near enough to Bethel that it did not pull upon the right sleeve. Bethel slipped her hand between Nate's elbow and his flank, and walked her fingers over the ridge of fabric as she moved the coat still lower. Then the worst was over: pulling the sleeve-head down his forearm and off his hand was easy.

"It won't work for the shirt, I'm afraid," Missus Mary said, fingertips skimming the single piece that formed the back of that garment. "But I can make over one of Cullen's looser work-shirts to replace it, Nate. Nate?"

"He sleepin', Mama," Mister Gabe announced helpfully. He looked at the window, beyond which the gray afternoon spread. "Do Nate take naps? He awful big…"

"Jus' cut it, Missus," Bethel said, offering the large scissors. It was best to be quick, before Nate came out of his swoon. "He gots more'n one shirt. It the coat worth savin'."

With quick, sure snips of the shears, each monstrously long after the tiny clips she had taken before, Missus Mary slit the shirt up the back, offset to the left side to preserve as large a contiguous piece as possible. She cut through the collar, and the right half of the shirt slid down towards Nate's arm, baring his back.

Bethel swallowed painfully, and Missus Mary gasped. Lottie, who had been hovering nearby to watch the process, clapped both hands to her mouth as her eyes grew wide with horror. Hard, dark bruises stood out against Nate's weather-beaten skin. His shoulder-blades, his ribs and his backbone were all marred where the prybar had fallen. As gently as if undressing a sleeping baby, Bethel slipped the shirt off his shoulder and let it puddle at his elbow. Lottie slipped it off of his hand and tossed it onto the table, while Bethel examined her patient. His upper right arm was bruised just below the upper bulge of muscle, and she probed it there. But Nate did not stir even when she moved her thumb to the underside so that she could pinch, feeling for any give or instability in the bone. There was none: the arm was not broken there, either.

Missus Mary was pushing the cloth aside at Nate's left flank, where a massive purple bruise spread from his lowest rib to disappear into the waist of his pants. She pressed her palm to it, and the unconscious man moaned. Worried blue eyes sought Bethel's.

"I think… I think it's right over his kidney," Missus Mary ventured. She nodded at another bruise, higher up on the ribcage near the old whipping-scar. "How can we tell if he's injured a lung?"

"He breathin' good 'nough," Bethel said, trying to sound encouraging even though her gorge was high with hurt and anger. Poor stubborn Nate, sometimes so difficult to manage but always willing to work however he might grouse, did not deserve this. "High up an' quick, but steady."

She was still exploring the shoulder, tucking two fingers into the front underside of the joint. It was when she tried the same at the back that Nate's eye flew open, and he let out a bellow of torment that made Lottie jump backward. Mister Gabe yelped in alarm, but did not speak.

"Don'!" Nate wailed. "Fo' love of God, _don'_!"

Bethel had eased the pressure of her hand immediately, but her fingertips still touched the place that had elicited this shocking response. "Righ' here?" she asked, knowing the answer. Maintaining her landmark, she spread the other hand and lowered it slowly and steadily over his shoulder-blade beyond her fingers. Nate moaned, letting out a long tortuous bleat that made Bethel's innards shrivel. But nothing shifted beneath her hand, and she could feel no grinding of bone upon bone as she pressed.

"I think it cracked," she said, pulling back with equal care. Nate could not hear her, but Missus Mary did. "Righ' near the joint. Ain' broke 'nough to move, but it painin' him."

"What do we do?" the mistress asked breathlessly. One hand was pressed to her waist, and the other clutched the back of the récamier.

"He goin' need a sling," said Bethel. "An' we kin tie his arm to his ches', here." She gestured across her breasts, from bicep to the opposite armpit. "Ain' goin' be able to use it fo' a fortnight."

For a moment Missus Mary seemed petrified with dismay, but then she thrust out her chin and nodded stoutly. A moment later she had turned in the narrow space between couch and table, and was attacking the ruined right half of the shirt with the shears. Bethel turned her attention back to Nate, whose left eye was rolling dangerously far back in his head. "Don' you faint, now, boy," she said sternly. "You jus' keep on with me, an' tell me where it hurt."

Then began the painful process of feeling his ribs, pressing inward first, and then up and then down to feel for the natural give of an undamaged bone, the rigidity of a badly bruised one, or the unexpected collapse of a broken rib. Nate hissed several times, and choked back sharp cries more than once, but never did he scream as he had when Bethel touched his shoulder. Even when she applied pressure to the soft flesh of his left side, where Missus Mary feared his kidney might be, he only groaned even though tears of pain squeezed from the corner of his swollen eye. Lottie watched his face worriedly, her hand resting consolingly on his knee. Bethel tried not to look at his face at all; it was easier that way.

She had just finished when Missus Mary turned from the table, folding a tidily-cut breadth of shirting into an oblong triangle draped over her elbow was a long strip made of two lengths cut from the sleeve and knotted together. Bethel took the sling wordlessly, nodding her thanks, and slipped its broadest point under Nate's arm. She knotted it to the left side of his neck, just at the collarbone. The strip she wrapped firmly around his right arm and under his left, placing the joining knot in front so that it would not put pressure on his shoulder-blade. She tied it off snugly and picked up the damp cloth that had long since fallen from Nate's hand. Gently she sponged the sweat from his eyes and his brow.

"Good boy," she whispered, leaning so close that only he could hear her. "That a good, brave boy. You done good."

Nate let out a hollow puff of air, burrowing his face further into the soft back of the couch.

"All the hurts is in back, 'ceptin' his eye an' that there bruise," Bethel said, pointing to an almost perfectly round contusion almost hidden by the sling. It was under Nate's left front ribs; obviously a boot-mark. She did not offer this opinion to Missus Mary, for it would only horrify her. "He got hisself down quick, an' he stayed down." She turned sharply to Lottie. "You 'member that, girl. Ain' no shame in gittin' down an' stayin' down when you's bein' hit."

Missus Mary's jaw slackened in dismay at this, but Bethel could not repent of that hurt. The child had to understand. It was a hard world for a Negro, and having a good master and a kind mistress was not perfect insurance against harm: these recent months had been proof enough of that. Lottie had to know what to do if she found herself one day in a similar position.

The girl looked at Nate again, lower lip trembling. Then she met Bethel's eyes and nodded somberly. "It wouldn'a happened if he'd been with Mist' Cullen, Bethel, would it?" she asked after a moment, tremulously.

For a moment Bethel wanted to tell her the stark truth: that Mister Cullen was almost as helpless against the sheriff as the rest of them, and that although he might be able to take up against one man – even Brannan – for his people, there was nothing he could do against an angry mob. But this was not the time for that hard truth. The child's mother was on the road into Meridian right now, on the very same wagon Nate had been driving when he head run into trouble. Her only protection from the same fate was the white man leading the way.

"Course not, honey," Bethel said firmly. "It jus' bad luck they wasn' together. Mist' Cullen woulda put that man in his place."

She nodded decisively to hide her own flutter of terror. Or Mister Cullen would have been beaten down right next to him, she thought. Forcing her mind from that image, she laid her palm on the crown of Nate's head. His hair was overgrown and tangled. No one had paused to look to their personal appearance in weeks.

"Just catch that breath, boy," she said. "I's goin' mix you up a li'l porridge so's you don' work that hurt mouth no more'n you got to. When you thinks you's ready, I'll fetch Elijah an' the two of us'll help you home to bed."

She expected Nate to argue, but he only pursed his lips. "I's goin' be awright," he whispered, his voice cracking wearily.

"Hmph." Bethel turned away, glancing briefly at her uncovered loaves of bread, now risen high again and ready for the oven. She went to the washstand to rinse the blood from her fingers, and then moistened a towel to drape over the pans. She took two of them and turned to the stove. "Lottie, chile, open that oven: cain't you see my hands is full?"

Lottie grabbed a corner of her apron to shield her hand against the hot iron handle, and opened the door. Bethel settled the bread-pans in the center where the heat was most even, and shut them in. Then she moved smoothly, turning but scarcely seeming to, towards the pantry. She had been keeping back the last of the hominy for the children, but Nate needed something soft and nourishing.

She was about to step over the threshold when she heard a gurgling noise that piqued the instincts of one accustomed to caring for small children. She looked back, but could not reach Nate before it happened. He choked on the first retching spasm, only just managing to tip his head over the bowl in his lap before he began to vomit. Swiftly Missus Mary bent forward over him, one hand bracing his right arm against his chest while the other supported his head. She gave a little gulp of displeasure and averted her eyes from the bowl as he retched again, but she did not waver. Bethel hurried near, but there was nothing she could do but slip her own arm around the man's back and steady the bowl with her other hand. Lottie remained where she was, close by the stove with her apron balled in one hand. Her lips were pressed tightly together as she gagged deep in her throat and shut her eyes.

Nate took one last deep heave that left him shuddering with pain, and spat a thin stream of bile after the more substantive mess in the bowl. Bethel gave him the rag to wipe his lips, and sighed. "No porridge, then," she said. "Mebbe jus' a taste of water."

Nate tried to nod, but did not quite manage it. Missus Mary eased his head back, and Bethel took the bowl away. She covered it with a rag and stepped out onto the stoop to set it on the bench in the open air. She could see about taking it down to the privy later.

It was only then, coming back into the kitchen from the back door, that she realized someone was missing. She looked from her chair to the bench behind the table, and then to the washstand under which the cat's basket was kept. Stewpot was napping obliviously on his square of old blanketing, but his little master was nowhere to be seen.

"Missus Mary, where Mist' Gabe?" Bethel asked.

The mistress looked at once for the chair, where the boy had been the last time anyone had noticed him. Then she looked into the corner behind the foot of the récamier, where he sometimes liked to burrow.

Lottie's eyes were anxious. "Oh, no," she said. "Oh, he ain't never wandered off 'gain!"

"I'm sure he hasn't," Missus Mary said with remarkable calm. She motioned to the dining room door, which now stood ajar. "I'm sure he only found it all a bit too much, and went to—"

She stopped speaking and smiled tiredly as a familiar _thump-bump_ sounded off from the center of the house. It was followed by several more at precise intervals: the rhythm of a small boy descending the stairs with great care. All three of them – old woman, young mother, and girl – listened to the footsteps as their little man moved up the front hall and through the dining room. Then the door swung slowly inward as Mister Gabe backed into the room, pushing it with his hip. He had to do so, because both hands were clasped around a pot made of amber glass, with a grease-stained label stuck to its side. He navigated the threshold with care and turned, stopping in mild surprise when he found the three of them watching him. Then he held up the pot and grinned proudly.

"Dis fo' Nate," he announced. He strode to the récamier and put the jar of camphor ointment in the man's lap. "Here, Nate. Dis goin' he'p you," he explained. "It my lin'ment. When my ches' hurtin', Mama rub it on. She rub an' rub, an' I feel good. Your ches' hurtin' pretty bad, huh?"

Nate's dull eye brightened a little as he looked at the eager, well-intentioned little face. "It hurts some, Mist' Gabe," he sighed. His left hand reached for the pot and curled over it. "But this here goin' help it plenty."

The little boy grinned.

_*discidium*_

Sitting high upon the wagon box with the reins loose in her hands, Meg tried to tell herself that there was nothing to be afraid of. She had been to town before – it was not as if she was some back-country nigger who belonged to a swamp-farmer and had never had a pair of shoes on her feet. True, she had never _driven_ to town before, but she had been right about the roads being easier to navigate than the slippery creak-bed, and the streets of the town were even more level and well-packed. It was not the sounds of Meridian that troubled her, nor the clamor of sights and smells (not all of them pleasant) that had assailed her as they reached the bottom of the hill. It was the feeling of exposure: the sense that the people all around her were staring. It seemed as if everyone paused to look at the Negress driving the strong mules as they pulled the big, laden wagon. She felt as if every whisper, every laugh, and every idle remark was about her. She wished she had put on her whole dress, instead of the one that Missus Mary had so kindly made over. She wished her bonnet was not so faded from the summer sun. She wished her shoes were not caked with earth from the potato-patch.

She knew this was foolishness and vanity, and that vanity was a sin, but she could not help herself. People were looking: she knew they were looking. She wished she were not quite such a spectacle.

But she could not help any of that. All she could do was sit straight and proud on the seat, and keep her eyes fixed on the wagon before her. That made it easier. Mister Cullen was leaning forward over his lap, one arm resting on his leg, riding with a handsome indolence. The stares and whispers did not seem to trouble him. When a man on the boardwalk shouted, "Hey, Cullen!" and ran out into the street, he only grinned and waved. The tall young man had trotted along beside him for a few paces, asking questions in a low, eager voice, and once jerkin his thumb at Meg. Her innards had shriveled painfully until Mister Cullen had glance back in her direction, nodded, and offered a small smile. Whatever the youth had asked, it had not been hurtful. Then the boy had handed Mister Cullen a leather cigar-case, and jogged back to join his friends.

The town was larger than Meg remembered, and much noisier. There were two locomotives at the platform, one on the east-west track and one on the north-south. Meg momentarily forgot her discomfiture as she stared at the huge machines with their brightly-painted bodies and steaming chimney-stacks. But mules tended to drift in the direction their driver was looking, and she was unable to stare very long.

It was better in the rail-yard, where the fence sheltered her at least a little from the curious eyes in the street. Here the black men crowded around Mister Cullen's wagon, shouting questions about Nate that the master asked as briefly and earnestly as he was able. Then they started unloading the boxes. They tipped their ragged caps to Meg and called her "ma'am", and one of them brought her a dipper of water and two persimmons. She thanked him, and he flushed shyly. It had been a long time since any strange man had flirted with Meg, even so obliquely, and she was flattered. She supposed they just didn't see many women 'round here.

But soon the boxes were loaded into the car, and Mister Cullen led the way into the broad turn that brought them out into the street again. Then Meg had to endure the slow progress back to the edge of town, with the curious looks and the whispers. It was unusual but not unheard-of for a woman slave to drive her master's teams, but by now all of Meridian likely knew about what had happened to Nate, and that was why they were curious. In their place Meg supposed she would be curious, too, but she hoped she would not have been ill-bred enough to stare. She kept her eyes on her master, where they belonged, and she kept the mules quiet and steady.

It was a relief to be away from the town and under the trees again, even when the road grew rougher and the bouncing of the empty wagon hurt Meg's backside. She thought of Nate jouncing along this road, beaten as he was, and she wanted to weep. Why couldn't the Lord keep trouble from their door just a little while? Meg's ma had loved to say that God sent His worst trials to the children He loved most, but if that was true Meg thought she could stand to be a little less beloved.

On the way down to Meridian, Mister Cullen had stopped the convoy at the West Willows drive so that he could run up to the house to speak to Mister Ainsley. Meg had not asked why he did not just drive up to the house, and she had not asked what the other planter had said. Mister Cullen's stormy expression when he had come striding back to the wagons had been answer enough for her. But now as she turned into the drive and the sweet yellow house came into view, Meg saw to her astonishment that there were men in front of the barn with Elijah: three men, all tall and hard with the muscles of skilled field-hands. Mister Ainsley had lent them David, Jim and Levi, the same three he had sent in those awful days after the hailstorm.

There was no third wagon: either West Willows could not spare a mule team from the plowing, or Mister Cullen had not asked. But with the three men the wagons were swiftly loaded, and neither Meg nor Elijah had to lift a single box. Mister Cullen still got down to hoist his share, but even his work was lightened by the extra hands. The wagons were loaded even before Missus Mary came down from the house as she had promised. She was not running, which gave Meg comfort, and she stopped in surprise when she saw the men. Then her pale, tired face broke into a smile as Mister Cullen dusted his hands and trotted over to her.

"Boyd agreed!" she said.

"Didn't think he'd argue," Mister Cullen muttered irately, glancing back over his shoulder. Elijah was fixing the tail pins into place himself, not trusting "abroad niggers" with this important task. He lifted his eyes out of their shamed slump and looked at her. "Nate?" he asked.

"Bethel thinks he's cracked his shoulder-blade," she said. She had Bethel's thick, new shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and she hugged it loosely to her. "That's why he can't move his arm. His ribs are badly bruised, but she doesn't think they're broken. He was… well, _ill_, but he's resting quietly now. There was no blood in the…" She gestured vaguely, and he nodded his understanding. "I've given him a dose of anodyne powder, and it seems to be staying down. I don't know what else to do for him, but… Bethel says he doesn't need the doctor, at least not now. He'll be looking in tomorrow, anyhow, for you and Gabe…"

"That's fine," Mister Cullen said brusquely, as if trying to cut her off before she said more. The three Ainsley men were standing respectfully at a distance, but they were listening. "I trust Bethel's judgement, and Nate'd be just about dead before he'd let a white doctor touch him. I got to get on. I'll likely be out after sunset: the railhead's working until eight, so if I can squeeze in an extra trip I will."

Missus Mary looked like she wanted to argue, but she did not. She veiled her eyes and nodded calmly. "I'm relieved you have help," she whispered.

Mister Cullen shifted uncomfortably, then shrugged. "They can dig potaotes with Elijah in the meantime," he said. "Looks like we can get that crop in today, at least."

Missus Mary smiled, though her eyes were sad. "That's a blessing," she said. Then she seemed to feel Meg's eyes upon her, for she turned to her and took the few steps to the wagon. She looked up with such tenderness that Meg felt her heart grow tight. She did not dare to ask, but the mistress did not need her to. "Lottie is doing bravely," she said. "She was such a help with Nate, and now she's resting with Gabe. She hasn't coughed since you last saw her."

This news was the greatest comfort Meg could have hoped for. Lottie's sickness was wearing on her already, and it had only been a few days since she had taken the turn from a mild case of the sniffles to the terrible cough. Meg seemed to be living from fit to fit already, and she did not know how Missus Mary had managed to stay so calm and brave with Mister Gabe so ill for so long. No wonder she looked so thin and strained these days.

"Thankee, ma'am," Meg said softly. "I's glad she been helpful."

The other woman looked at her for a moment, thoughtfully. Then she took off Bethel's shawl and handed it up to her. "Wrap up warmly, now," she said. "It's a cold day for a long ride." Then she turned to her husband, and touched his arm. Mister Cullen looked down at her, his face hard and to Meg utterly unreadable. "Take a light if you're driving after sunset," Missus Mary said. Then she rose on her toes and kissed the crest of his cheek before walking swiftly and daintily back to the house.

_*discidium*_

Sore and exhausted, Cullen mounted the stairs. The dull throbbing of his shoulder and the ache in his tailbone and spine made the ascent a painful one. The long, terrible day was over at last. They had hauled over eight thousand pounds of tobacco, between Nate's two trips and Meg's two, the pair Cullen had made with her, and the three he had taken on his own. He had not liked the idea of Meg driving in the dark, and so he had excused her from the final run of the evening. Betsy had been lagging, too: it had simply not been wise. He had hoped for ten trips and they had made nine: that was nothing to be ashamed of. The aid of Boyd's men had sped the loading process considerably, and hopefully with their help they would be able to finish the job tomorrow with time to spare.

Cullen reached the top at last, and stopped to lean upon the newel-post, taking shallow breaths so that he would not arouse the cough. Despite his earnest effort to control himself, he had had a fit in front of the Ainsley slaves. How he was going to manage in New Orleans he did not know and had no strength to wonder. The fever seemed to be dulling his wits, or at the very least blunting his spirit. He should have been filled with righteous fury after today's injustice, and blazing with obdurate determination for the morning, but instead he felt nothing but a tired numbness. All he wanted to do was shuffle down to that first door, peel off his clammy work clothes, and climb into the narrow little bed beside his sleeping son.

Slowly and stiffly he straightened his back and made the last leg of his journey. He had looked in at the cabins after settling Snort and Shadow in a stable already tidied for the night. Meg had Lottie tucked up in bed and was washing the simple supper dishes. In Elijah's cabin he had found Nate awkwardly propped up in the old man's bunk, turned in towards the wall so that his injured shoulder was not touching the tick. Elijah himself had been making up a pallet on the floor, and Cullen had helped him to lift the tick down from Nate's bed to bolster it. He had exchanged only a few words with the old man: Nate had been sleeping under the heavy hand of the anodyne. Then in the warm and dimly-lit kitchen he had eaten his supper of venison stew and fresh-baked bread while Bethel had filled him in on Nate's condition and her expectations for his recovery.

The news was not good: he would be laid up for a fortnight or more, which meant the plowing would have to wait until Cullen was home again. He could not delay the tobacco-selling trip, for their very survival relied upon it. It was the wheat crop, with its small infusion of spring cash, that would have to suffer.

Cullen pushed the nursery door open with the heel of his hand, and shuffled into the warmth of the little room. A chill ran up his back, still turned to the cold of the corridor, and he closed the door hastily. It creaked as it swung, and he was shrugging out of his gabardine vest even before the latch caught. The dull orange glow of the little heater stove was strangely comforting, and he looked for the shape of his little boy in the bed. But the quilt was still neatly tucked and the pillow plumped.

"He's here," Mary said quietly, drawing Cullen's eyes to the darker corner where the armchair stood. As he blinked he could see her, deeply shadowed but recognizable, with Gabe curled in her lap. He had a blanket wrapped snugly around him, and he was sleeping with his head on her bosom. "He wanted to wait up for his pappy," Mary explained.

Cullen sighed heavily, sliding his braces down his arms and untucking his sweat-chilled shirt. "I s'pose you've got questions," he muttered. Bethel had already dragged most of the story out of him, in all its sordid absurdity. He rucked up shirt and undershirt together, determined to exert that painful effort only once.

"No," said Mary. "Nate told us as much as he knew, and it seems perfectly plain to me. I'm only thankful that you – oh, Cullen, what have you done?"

Her voice rose up out of its whisper into a horrified exclamation of love and pity. Before he could question her she was struggling to her feet, hoisting her child with her. He opened his mouth to reassure her, but she was already at his side with Gabe balanced on an outthrust hip. She was dressed for bed, with her cherry-colored morning gown over her nightdress, and the bulk of boy and blanket seemed too great for her. With the hand not needed to support the child, she touched his shoulder. Her fingers were smooth and cool, and sent tiny tingling bursts of sensation into his swollen skin. Craning his neck, Cullen saw what had upset her: a large black bruise spreading from the head of the joint well onto his back.

"It's nothing," he demurred, shrugging her off and stepping back so that he could pick up his nightshirt from the top of Gabe's clothespress. "It don't hardly hurt at all."

And it didn't, not compared to Nate's injuries. He had been able to work in spite of it, hoisting the heavy crates and holding the reins and enduring the endless jostling of the cotton wagon. It looked hideous, and he could feel the joint was swollen, but it was not worth worrying over.

"He hit you," Mary said. She was holding Gabe with both hands again, her arms wrapped protectively around him. "That hateful man hit _you_ as well."

"Just the once," said Cullen. "It was the damned cough that done it. I got to coughing and he whacked me one. But then Felicity Ives… she went after him with her parasol, and—"

"With her parasol?" Mary repeated blankly.

"That's what I said. Brannan wasn't watching hisself, and she grabbed her. Thing was she had one of her brothers and a couple of cousins – or maybe it's the other way 'round – in the crowd, and anyway folks don't take kindly to any man laying hands on a lady, particularly not a young 'n pretty one. So Brannan had to back down." Cullen emerged from the neck of the nightshirt with some difficulty, and unbuttoned his pants and drawers before slipping his hands into the sleeves. The dry, soft garment, warmed by the glow of the stove, took some of the rigid misery out of his hide.

"She hit him with her parasol. That witty little dreamer?" Mary said. She giggled, an unexpected sound that made Cullen look up at her in puzzlement. "Felicity Ives."

"Yes, ma'am," Cullen said. He stepped out of his pants and kicked them behind the door, then moved to put his arm around Mary's waist. She leaned in towards him, and he could smell the trace of lilac in her hair. "Ain't you ashamed to be married to a man who lets a sixteen-year-old belle fight his battles?"

"She was right to do it," Mary said. "She spoke up for the truth, didn't she? That's everyone's battle. Why didn't those brothers of hers take up for you, too?"

"They were off behind: come up after it was well underway," said Cullen dismissively. He did not want to talk about this anymore. He wanted to get the sleeping child down onto that bed so that he and his wife could slip up the corridor and scrub away the foul taste of the day. He leaned in to kiss her behind the ear. She swayed towards him and then stopped, pivoting in his arm and planting a hand on his brow.

"You're burning up," she sighed. "You shouldn't have been driving in the night air. Get into bed at once before you take a chill!"

Cullen opened his mouth to suggest, preferably as lasciviously as possible, that she _put _him to bed, but she was already steering him backwards. He turned before he could trip, and pulled back the covers.

"Lie down," she scolded, bending as he did so to settle her curly-headed burden by his side. Gabe stirred as he was lifted away from his mother's warmth, and then immediately curled in towards Cullen's instead. A small hand took hold of the row of buttons at his neck, and Cullen felt his brief blaze of desire slipping away before the advance of a more insidious fire. He shivered convulsively as Mary drew up the bedclothes, and his whole head pulsed with relief when it found the support of the pillow.

"Drink this," Mary said, pouring out a measure of cordial from the bottle by the bed. Cullen forced himself to sit up far enough that he was in no danger of choking, and he swallowed the syrupy concoction. He did not see what Gabe found so appealing about it. But Mary filled the cup again, this time with fresh water, and he drank more eagerly. His raw throat welcomed the cool fluid, and he found his body going limp in the cocoon of blankets. Mary's hand travelled to his brow, loving and welcome but not amorous. He didn't want to make love after all, damn it: he only wanted to sleep.

There was something else he wanted, he thought muzzily. Something that had been on his mind for days.

"Mary?" he murmured.

The bed ropes sagged as she sat down by Gabe's feet, reaching to stroke his whiskers. "Yes, Cullen?" she asked softly.

"If we can get this tobacco moved," he mumbled, feeling half asleep and yet driven to say this. "If it's all in town by sundown tomorrow, will you go out with me on Sunday?"

"Out where?" she asked.

"Riding," he said. "I want to go riding. You and me, Pike and Bonnie, like we used to."

Mary laughed softly, indulgently. "Oh, Cullen, not this week," she said fondly. "You need a day to rest, and I need to hem you a new set of handkerchiefs. A quiet day at home is what's called for. I hadn't even expected to be going to church."

"No, this week," he insisted, pushing himself up a little. Gabe cooed in somnolent protest and nuzzled closer, and Cullen put his hand on the child's head. "This Sunday. Before I go."

Her back was to the stove and he could not see her face, but she could see his and what she saw made her shoulders slump. "You're afraid you'll lose her," she said flatly. "You're afraid that something will go wrong with the selling, and you won't have the money to repay the loan to the bank, and then they'll take Bonnie."

Fatigued and fever-addled, he could only gawk at her. She had read his mind; had seen the terror he had been trying so hard to keep from everyone. He had failed in a hundred ways great and small this year. If he failed at this last, they would all be ruined. "I… I just thought we could go riding," he stammered.

Mary shook her head, and bent low to kiss him. Her lips touched his and tasted them, and he could not help but reciprocate even though his heart felt as heavy as a millstone in his aching whooping-cough-riddled chest. "When you come home," she said. "When you come home we'll go riding, just like we used to. We'll ride every Sunday until transplanting time if you want to. Because you _won't_ lose Bonnie, Cullen. I know you won't."

She knew nothing of the sort. "Stores for the year, that's got to come first," he protested, drawing back from her mouth. "Flour and salt and cornmeal and coffee. Then seed, or we ain't goin' have no crop. Then the tradesmen's bills, 'cause we can't survive without their goodwill. After that's taxes, or the government could take the land. The bank comes last, Mary. It has to. If there ain't enough money… that loan's only got a ninety-day term. They'll take her."

"No, they won't," Mary said firmly. She sat straight again and shifted her hip a little nearer to his. "Close your eyes now, and try to sleep. I intend to sit right here until you do."

He wanted to argue with her, to contradict either this last edict or her earlier assertion, but Cullen found he did not have the strength. Sleep was overtaking him now, his weary body seizing what his troubled mind did not want to yield. His burdens would still be waiting for him in the morning, but with each breath that seemed increasingly unimportant. Swiftly and inexorably, he slid into uneasy dreams.


	86. In the Midst of the Night

_Note: Sometimes__ extrapolating a backstory hinges on semantics. In this case, the crucial difference between "Yankees" and "the Yankees". In other news, I had an exhausting week that left too little time for writing, hence the late update. I hope it is worth the wait. (This chapter posted between 408 and 409.)_

**Chapter Eighty-Six: In the Midst of the Night**

One moment she was dreaming, and the next she was choking. Instinctively, still half-asleep, she tried to muffle the sound against her pillow. She mustn't wake Ma, who had to be up before dawn to go out into the tobacco fields. But the next cough was so terrifyingly strangling that she sat bolt upright on the straw tick, one hand clutching her throat. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't _breathe_! Her eyes stung and her ribs ached and her lungs burned as if her chest had been packed with embers, and still she could not breathe.

The round, familiar shape beside her stirred and sat up with a bewildered query that Lottie did not hear. Then Ma's strong arm was wrapped around her, and her tender, calloused palm smoothing her brow. Lottie managed to draw in a painful little whoop of air before the coughing began again, but although she was still unable to breathe, still suffocating a little more with every spasm, her panic began to abate. Ma was right here with her, holding her close and helping her through. Somehow Lottie always felt that nothing truly awful could happen to her as long as her ma was with her.

When at last the fit trickled off into the occasional small, bubbling cough, Lottie curled her feet up under her and laid her head on Ma's steady shoulder. "I's sorry," she gasped thinly, her throat raw and stinging from the exertions. "I didn' mean to wake you. I knows you gots to be up fo' work."

But not in the tobacco field, she remembered. Picking was over, and Ma was helping Mister Cullen to haul the crop to the depot. That made her even more ashamed of her terror. Ma was so brave, going off to town in spite of what had happened to Nate. Lottie was young, but not so young that she did not understand how important Ma's assumption of that duty was to all of them. By doing it, she was saying that the family was still self-sufficient. They might borrow brute force from Mister Ainsley, but they were standing on their own nonetheless.

"Hush that mouth, chile," Ma scolded lovingly. "Don' you never be sorry to wake me. Gittin' up with you of a night used to be my mos' happies' thing, an' you ain' hardly done it in years."

Lottie wanted to laugh at that, but she did not yet have enough breath. It came out as three barking little puffs instead. "That true, or is you foolin'?" she asked.

"Naw, honey, it true," said Ma, snuggling closer. Her lips brushed Lottie's hairline. "I used to git you up, an' we'd sit in that ol' willer rocker by the fire. In the ol' days I'd nuss you, an' when you gots a li'l older we'd jus' set an' sing. Aft' you was asleep 'gain, sometimes I'd stay an' watch you in my arms, an' think 'bout what you was goin' grow up like."

"Wha'd you think I's goin' grow up like?" Lottie asked, genuinely curious.

"Cleverer'n me," said Ma, swaying a little and drawing Lottie with her. "Pretty. Mebbe tall, like you' pa, mebbe small like me. Mos'ly smilin', even when you gits to the trouble years."

"What's the trouble years?" asked Lottie.

Ma chuckled. "Oh, you'll see. When I had mine, I jus' 'bout drived my ma crazy in the head. Bethel give me a smack once, I got so uppity."

"With her wooden spoon?" Lottie prompted, and then immediately wished she hadn't. She did not want Ma to know that Bethel had ever had reason to ply that particular utensil on _her_ rump.

"Not that time," Ma said. "She slapped me clear 'cross the cheek, an' I surely did earn it."

"Wha'd you do?" Lottie pressed. She was wide awake now, and the misery of the coughing jag was almost forgotten. It was fascinating enough to think of her mother as a young girl, but to imagine that she – who was always so respectful and well-mannered – might have earned Bethel's wrath was positively astounding.

"Well…" Ma's voice trailed off reluctantly and she squirmed a little, as if she were a child again and under Bethel's stern eye right that minute. By the faint glow of the stove grate Lottie saw Ma's teeth flash in a sheepish smile as she turned away.

"Aw, you gots to tell me!" she begged. "Ma! Wha'd Bethel slap you for? I won' tell nobody."

"That ain' the trouble," Ma said, her tone only half teasing. "Fac' of it is, it ain' the sort of thing a young girl gots any business hearing."

"You was a young girl when you done it," Lottie protested.

Ma's fingertip found the tip of her nose in the gloom and pressed it playfully. "Not so young as you," she said. "An' I don' want to be puttin' ideas int' your head 'fore Nature do. You be a good chile, an' don' cross Bethel, an' you gots no cause to go fearin' fo' her hand."

"You mean you ain' goin' tell me?" Lottie asked, realizing for the first time that her mother was not merely being coy.

"Not yet," Ma said firmly. She hugged her closer. "I kin tell you some other story if'n you like. Mebbe sumthin' 'bout you?"

"Aw, go on, then," Lottie sighed, mollified but still a little disappointed. She liked stories about herself, but the prospect of learning of something naughty that Ma had done had been more delicious by far. "So long as it ain' one I's heared b'fore."

"One you ain' heared b'fore," Ma mused. "Well now, that a tricky thing to ask. Might be I gots a story or two I ain' told you. You 'member the one 'bout when you decided you didn' need to be wearin' no clothes?"

"I never!" Lottie protested, twisting to look at her mother and catching an orange glint off her eyes. Less certainly, she asked; "I did?"

"Mm-hmm." Ma was smiling. "You was jus' a few weeks younger'n Mist' Gabe is now, an' it was August. It was a _hot_ one, mighty near as hot as that week we had this summer: you know, when Mist' Cullen took sick. Well, it was hot awright, an' one Sunday I tooked you over the fence to see your Pa."

A faint wistful note took her words, but Lottie did not mind it. Sometimes she missed her Pa, now that she no longer went to Hartwood and he could so rarely come here, but it wasn't so bad. There were enough things to fill her days, and she certainly wasn't lonely. It was different for Ma, who still wished they could all live together. Lottie couldn't even really imagine what that might be like. Where would Pa sleep? Out with Nate and Elijah? Or would he have his own cabin?

"What then?" she pressed, her mind turning back to the story. It sounded like it might be an embarrassing one, like the one about the day she tried to taste a horseradish thinking it was a parsnip, but Lottie didn't mind – not really. Everybody did silly things when they were small. She knew that _she_ would have one or two embarrassing stories to tell about Mister Gabe when he got bigger.

"Well, now, all them Hartwood childern was runnin' 'round bare-bottomed on 'ccount their mas a-washin' their clothes," Ma went on. "Didn' many of 'em have more'n one li'l dress, an' they was playin' nekkid in the sun. You was hot an' you was fussin', a-beggin' to go bare like they was. So I tooked off your frock an' let you go. You was happy as a li'l pup in the dust, rollin' 'round an' runnin' an' laughin' with them other li'l-uns, an' when it come time to go home I couldn' hardly make you git back into your dress. It was your pa talked you int' it in the end, sayin' how the skeeters was goin' bite your li'l behind if'n you didn' cover it up. It was gittin' on to sunset, you see. So I tooked you home an' I give you a bath an' put you to bed. An' that night it was rainy, an' the nex' day wet 'n cool."

She stopped, but Lottie knew there must be more to the story. She waited while Ma shifted in the bed, punching the pillow down into the small of her back, and she enjoyed the quiet closeness between them. Her throat was tickling and she swallowed firmly, determined not to interrupt the story with another coughing fit.

Finally Ma spoke again. "It wasn' 'til that Thursday that we had us another scorcher. I was out in the tobacco, an' you was meant to be playin' in the yard where Bethel could keep a look out fo' you. I don' know what it was she were doin' in the big house—"

"Churnin'," Lottie said. "Thursday be churnin' day."

"Then she mus' have been churnin'," allowed Ma. "Bethel don' break no routine. Anyhow you got it int' your li'l head that it was too hot fo' clothes, an' I don' know how you done it 'cause you ain' never did it b'fore, but you got out of your dress. You tooked off your drawers, too, an' went 'bout your business. Middle of the aft'noon, Bethel comed out ont' the stoop with a cup of buttermilk. She tol' me she heared the hens cluckin' all the while, an' knew you was playin' with them on 'ccount of it your favorite thing to do. So she called out 'Lottie, chile, you come here an' git youself a drink 'fore you drops from the heat!'."

Lottie giggled as her mother raised her voice in an admirable impression of the head woman. Ma chuckled softly and kissed her brow.

"An' later on Bethel tol' me that you come marchin' 'round the corner of the house, proud as can be, with your li'l belly poked out an' your bonnet on your head, an' not a stitch of clothin' nowheres else. She give you the buttermilk straight off anyways, fo' the day so hot an' you been playin' in the sun. An' she asked you, 'Chile, what you done with them clothes?', an' you looked at her over the rim of that tin cup, an' you say, 'Aw, Bethel, I don' need me no clothes. It ain't col' out!'."

Lottie laughed aloud, trying to imagine herself as a tiny little pickaninny without any clothes on. "Bethel musta fetched my dress right quick, huh?"

"Lor' knows she tried!" Ma said. She marched your right out to the henhouse, an' she tol' you to show her where you'd put 'em. An' you looked up innocent as anythin', an' tol' her you didn' know. Then you started right back in a-talkin' to them chickens. Bethel, she tried a-reasonin' with you, but if you's learned anything from tendin' aft' Mist' Gabe, it got to be that when a chile that age makes up his min', ain' nobody reasonin' with him. Or her."

"'Ceptin' Mist' Cullen," Lottie qualified. "Mist' Gabe allus do seem to listen to his pappy, don' matter how bullheaded he feelin'."

"Mebbe so," said Ma; "but you didn' listen to _nobody _when you made up your min' to be contrary, an' you was in your contrariest mood that day. When Bethel couldn' talk it out of you, she had to go lookin'. She searched 'round in the henhouse, an' behin' the toolshed an' in the long grass growin' by the yard fence. Finally she foun' your dress an' your drawers. They was crumpled in a ball in the laundry pot, like you'd done decided they needed washin'. She came marchin' back to make you git decent again, but she was too late."

"She was?" gasped Lottie. "What happened?"

"The massa comed home," Ma said gravely. "They was huntin' over at Harmony Plantation that day – Mist' Washburn used to have him a nice fox-chase 'fore the lumbago tooked him bad – an' so the massa come ridin' in from the north field. He was pretty drunk, like gent'men gits when they's huntin' fo' pleasure instead of meat, an' jus' as Bethel comed up he jumped the yard fence. She cried out an' come runnin', 'fraid that big hunter was goin' run you down where you was standin', a-watchin' them riders, but the horse allus did have more sense'n his rider an' he comed up short."

Lottie was dismayed. "But Mist' Cullen, he wouldn' do that," she protested. "Not even did he been drinkin'."

Ma laughed softly and stroked her hair. "Not Mist' Cullen, Mist' William," she said. "You's right 'bout that: Mist' Cullen wouldn' never jump a fence with a chile on the other side, not white nor black. But his pa wasn' such a sens'ble creature, an' when he got to drinkin' he could git right stupid. Mean, too, sometimes, but not that day. I guess he'd had hisself a good hunt, 'cause he didn' shout nor swear, Bethel said. But he got down off that big horse an' he picked you up unner your bare li'l arms, with Bethel hurryin' up an' Mist' Cullen on his own horse on the other side of the fence, watchin'. An' Mist' William, he hoist you on over his head an' turned to Mist' Cullen an' said; 'Well, boy, looks like we got ourselves a li'l nekkid lady! But she didn' fergit to wear her bonnet!' an' he laughed so hard Bethel was scared he might drop you!"

"What happened then?" Lottie asked. Part of her was mortified to know that Mister Cullen had seen her in such a state of undress, but she also knew from the way he played so sweetly with his own little boy that he was sympathetic to the silliness of children. The old master she scarcely remembered, except as a stern-faced man who used to glare out the parlor windows on rainy afternoons with eyes that made her want to shrink into a shell like a turtle. She did not even recall much of his death and the furor that had surrounded it.

"Bethel comed marchin' up an' tooked you right out of his hands an' onto her hip, wrappin' her apron 'round your waist an' ploppin' that dress int' your lap. You was so startled you didn' make a peep, but Bethel wasn' in no mood to be quiet. "Now Mist' Bohannon," she said, an' if I know Bethel she said it stern; "you gots no business pickin' up that chile. Go git that horse out the sun now, 'fore he start frothin'!'. An' Mist' William went, a-staggerin' an' a-laughin' all the way. Then Bethel got you dressed again, an' she gived you a scoldin' that mus' have took, 'cause you ain' never gone runnin' in your bare skin since."

"What about Mist' Cullen?" asked Lottie. "Wha'd he say?"

"Not a thing, from what Bethel tol' me. He never did say much when his pa was 'round him, not even when he a young fool of ten or twelve. I 'member Bethel tellin' my ma how he a diff'rent chile in the house than when he out playin' with Nate." Ma hummed thoughtfully and shimmied down in the bed, lying down a little. "Times was diff'rent then. Mist' Gabe, he blessed."

Lottie settled down into the cosiness of the bed, resting her cheek against her pillow. She was beginning to feel sleep coming after her again, and she did not think that she was going to cough. "Ma?" she said after a minute's silence. "Ain't we all blessed? Livin' here, I mean, with Mist' Cullen an' Missus Mary to look aft' us. Mist' Cullen watched out fo' you in town today, an' Missus, she was so gentle when she tendin' Nate."

"Yes, chile," Ma sighed softly, stroking Lottie's cheek with one fingertip. "Like I done said all your life, we's as blessed as black folk got any hope to be."

Comforted by this thought, Lottie fell silent. She hovered for a little while just on the bank of the slow, drowsy river in her mind, safe beside Ma in the warm darkness of the cabin. She had not heard or understood the quiet regret in her mother's voice.

_*discidium*_

When Cullen awoke abruptly, his first thought was that he had stopped breathing altogether. Then he tried to inhale, and felt a bubbling resistance in his throat where the phlegm was caught in an oily plug. He let out a cautious, rattling cough that shook it loose and filled his mouth with the salty slickness. Groping in the gloom, he found one of the cloths on the table by the bed and spat into it with grim disdain. Beside him Gabe lay prone, tucked as close as possible to his father. It had been weeks since the little boy had been able to sleep in this favored position, and that he could now do so was a weight off of Cullen's overburdened mind. He might be leaving Mary to manage a plantation in disorder, with fields unplowed, a crippled farmhand, and a housegirl growing sicker by the day, but at least he was not leaving her with a desperately ill son.

Relieved of the burden in his throat, Cullen sank back into the pillow. His neck was stiff, and his bruised shoulder throbbed dully. The mass of bedclothes on his legs was hot and oppressive. He shifted as much as he dared, loath to disturb his boy, and managed to get one bare foot out into the open air. The relief was minimal. His body was struggling to burn off the infection in the only way it could, and it did not seem to be succeeding. Undoubtedly he would have felt better for the few days' rest Doc Whitehead had ordered, but even before today's calamity that had not been feasible. Now it was completely out of the question.

He felt uncomfortable enough borrowing Boyd's field hands, without using their presence as an excuse to lie idle. As he had expected, his friend had been immediately willing to lend the labor. He had dismissed Cullen's caveats about the demands of the sowing season without a thought. He likely would have inconvenienced himself to lend a team and a second wagon, too, if Cullen had asked. But coming down the road towards the drive, Cullen had caught sight of the plows churning up the fallow fields: half a dozen of them with husky men at their handles and the sowers in their wake. So far as Cullen knew, Boyd had only the six grown teams, and he was obviously using them. And though a third cart would have saved more time, his chief concern had been to spare their bodies – his own as well as Meg' and Elijah's – from the strain of the loading.

A shiver ran up Cullen's spine, and he retracted his foot into the warmth he had scorned only moments before. He did not know if the wheat could wait a fortnight. A few days would have made little difference, but he had been counting on Nate returning to the plowing on Monday. Now that was impossible, and neither Meg nor Elijah had the strength to keep the heavy moldboard in the wet, resistant earth. The urge to creep downstairs at once, that he might consult the almanac's table of planting times, seized Cullen. At least then he might be able to quantify the damage, and to make an estimate of the loss he could expect from the delay. He would have done it, too, abruptly chilled though he was, but for the fact that he would surely wake Gabe.

It was contrary to his nature to lie still and wonder, and he passed the next few minutes in irate agitation. Only when the first violent tremor took him did his impatience waver. In another moment he was shaking so fiercely that the bedstead clattered against the wall. He crossed his arms, trying to stay away from the sleeping child, and set his teeth to ride out the fit.

The feeling of pernicious, bone-deep cold was horrible, and made still more uncanny but its incongruity. He knew the room was warm: just minutes ago he had been almost insufferably hot. The bedclothes were heavy, the small body next to him a cuddling furnace, and his own skin was sweltering with fever. And yet he shook like a man caught out in a New York blizzard, his sweat-dampened nightclothes clinging to back and arms. He screwed his eyes closed and tried to overcome the quaking with sheer strength of will; yet somehow he could not.

There was a ripple of motion beside him, and then a querying little coo. The feather tick bounced as Gabe sat up, and he groped at once for his father. The nimble little fingers found his eyelids first, and felt down his nose to skim his upper lip before moving to pat his bewhiskered jaw.

"Pappy?" Gabe said in a loud but earnestly-meant stage whisper. "Is you awake?"

"Yeah," Cullen sighed, trying to keep his teeth from clacking.

"It nighttime," Gabe observed. Suspiciously he added; "You ain't coughin'."

"No," said Cullen. "Everything's fine. Now try and get some sleep."

"An' _I_ ain't coughin'," Gabe reflected. His hand shifted on Cullen's cheek as he tucked his legs up under his bottom. Cullen could hear the disapproving frown in the child's voice when he spoke again. "You's shakin'. You's col'."

"Just a bit," Culllen said, his grip on his own chest tightening. "I'll be fine in a minute or two."

There was a draft of warm air that felt frigid against his front as Gabe flung back the covers. He bounced on his knees to the edge of the bed.

"Hey, you get back here!" Cullen hissed. He did not have the energy to go chasing a child in the dark.

"I's comin' right back," Gabe promised gravely, sliding off the bed. His bare feet shushed against the braided rug, and he turned around to drag the bedclothes back up under his father's chin. "Jus' you lie down an' don' fuss," he scolded, Bethel in miniature.

Cullen followed his vague shadow and the sound of his feet to the corner by the washstand, and let himself relax a little. Gabe was going for the chamber pot. Without active resistance from his muscles, the shivering redoubled. Through the rattle of his jaw Cullen heard the scrape of the ceramic lid and the tinkle of Gabe's water in the pot. He covered it with care, as he had been taught.

"Good boy," Cullen mumbled, still wretchedly cold and unable to quite let go of the deep protests his mind made against the unnatural sensation. "Now c'mon back to bed."

"Pretty soon," said Gabe. There was a noise as he bumped into the side of the washstand. He giggled softly, and his feet shuffled with care. "I ain't quite ready."

"What're you doing?" Cullen groused, half to himself. His temples were pulsating with exhaustion, and despite the persistent quaking he found himself longing to slip back to sleep. He could not even attempt to do so until Gabe was safely back in bed.

There were two metallic clicks that made Cullen's brow furrow in puzzlement, and then a loud_ thump_ as the lid of the chest struck the wall. "Gabe, leave that be and come to bed," he commanded, his voice coming hoarse as he raised it near ordinary speaking volume. He coughed shallowly. "C'mon, son."

"I's comin'," Gabe said. "I's comin' in a minute."

"No, right now," Cullen ordered. "Whatever you're after, it can wait 'til morning." Another chill took him and he grunted softly, trying to burrow lower in bed and wishing bitterly that he could shake this damned disease. He had neither the time nor the patience to be ill, especially not at present.

"I's comin'," Gabe repeated. "Don' you fret, Pappy. I's – _oop!_" He grunted with effort, and then his feet came padding back towards the bed. There was another little groan of exertion, and something heavy landed across Cullen's chest and arm. Then Gabe started to tug at the item, trying to stretch it out, and Cullen realized what he was doing. He had fetched one of the spare blankets, and was now attempting to spread it over his father.

"Here, lemme help," Cullen huffed, freeing his arms from the bedding and riding out the resulting wave of shivering. He found the edge that Gabe was holding, and drew it up, then dug for the other and flung it down. It reached only as far as his hip, but that was enough. He slid his limbs back under and spread one hand to prop up the corner for Gabe. "C'mon now, lie down."

"Yassir," Gabe said stoutly, bracing both hands on the tick while one leg hooked around the edge of the frame. He rocked forward, and Cullen reached to boost him. Then he crawled on his knees into the crook of his father's arm and flopped down, settling his head against Cullen's breastbone. The tent of blankets lowered over them, settling against their contours with a consoling warmth that eased the worst of Cullen's tremors. "You's goin' git warm now, I t'ink," Gabe mumbled. "Mos' likely."

"I think you're right," Cullen told him. Another spasm ran through him, but it was not quite so deep this time. "Mama said you helped take care of Nate today."

"I done my best," the little boy said gravely. "He hurt pretty bad. Bet'l say he goin' be wearin' dat t'ing for a long time, an' he ain't goin' be able to work so much. His chest hurtin', an' Mama say dat tomorrow de doct'r goin' have to take a look."

Cullen curled his arm around Gabe's hip, and reached across with the other to pat his back. "I don't want you to worry about Nate," he said. "He might be hurt, but he's goin' get better. Ain't Bethel said so?"

Gabe's cheek rubbed against the front of his nightshirt as he nodded. "She say he just gots to rest, an' wear dat t'ing."

"What thing?" asked Cullen.

"De t'ing. De sing-ling-t'ing. He wear it on his arm."

"The _sling_," Cullen translated.

Gabe nodded again, more vigorously this time. "De _sling_," he repeated. "I knowed it sumt'in' like dat."

"Nate's going to be fine," Cullen reiterated, now tracing a gentle circle on the child's back. Gabe nuzzled nearer and nudged his chin down one more time. "You got nothing to worry about."

For a long minute there was silence, and Cullen began to think that Gabe was falling asleep. He was just starting to do so himself when his son spoke again. This time his voice was very low, and it quavered a little.

"Pappy?" he said unsteadily, and his plump hand closed on a fistful of Cullen's sleeve.

"Yeah, son?" Cullen breathed.

"Why you gots to go 'way? I don' want you goin'."

"I got to sell the tobacco," Cullen explained patiently. He had thought this had been made perfectly clear to the child, but apparently it had not. "Now the crop's in and cured, I have to sell it so that I can raise the money to buy the things we need for the winter. Don't you want to have Bethel's cornmeal muffins again?"

"Sure," said Gabe. "But why you gots to go 'way to sell de tobacco? Why can't you jus' sell it in de town? De town ain't so far 'way: you drived dere today wid dem derned mules."

"I did; I drove there and back five times today," said Cullen. "But if I sell it in town, the man I sell it to has to ship it hisself. That costs him time and money, and he takes that out of my end. He don't just take the cost of shipping, neither. He'll offer less'n half what I could get in New Orleans, and I won't be able to talk him above two-thirds no matter how I try. A man who sells his crop to a broker can't get a fair price: they prey on folks who can't get their own crops to market."

Gabe listened sombrely, but even as Cullen spoke the words he knew the child could not possibly understand them. He sighed. "If I sell my crop in town, Gabe, I'll be ruined. Do you know what _ruined_ means?"

"Yes," said Gabe quietly. "It what happen to de biscuits when I gits to coughin' an' Mama can't take 'em out the stove in time. De's _ruined_, an' she gots to cut off de burned-up bottoms."

"That's right," said Cullen. "And if a man gets ruined, the bank and the government cut the bottom out from under him, too. That means we could lose the land, or the stock, or even the slaves. Might be that there wouldn't be enough food to feed you and Mama and Bethel through the winter."

"You don' gots to worry 'bout _dat_," Gabe scoffed. "De cellar, it all full up!"

There was no point in explaining to the child that they could not survive the year on yams and preserves. A little boy deserved at least the illusion of security. "That's so, son. The cellar's all full up." Cullen's hand moved up to cup the back of the small curly head. "But I got to go to New Orleans to get the money for everything else."

"Everyt'ing else," echoed Gabe. "Muffins an' biscuits an' molasses an' t'ings."

"Yes, and boots for Nate and Elijah, and shoes for Bethel, and cloth for Mama to sew into new shirts and underwear," Cullen recited. "It takes a lot of money to provide for a plantation. And there's the taxes."

"De sinners an' de tax-collectors," Gabe agreed sleepily. "Jesus love dem, Bet'l say. An' Jesus love us."

This seemed as happy a thought as any on which to let him fall asleep, and so Cullen said nothing. His hand moved up and down, rubbing between the delicate little shoulder-blades, and he tried to swallow the cold terror that his own words had raised. The notion of being unable to provide for his child was unbearable, and he had neither the opportunity nor the ingenuity to do it any better way. He hated the tobacco, and the ceaseless demands of the farm, but both were necessary for survival.

Against his ribs, the quiet voice vibrated again. "Pappy?"

"What is it, Gabe?" he sighed wearily. He had never before tired of answering his son's questions, but these ones were proving bitterly hard to face.

"Why can't you send somebody else to N'Orlins to sell dat tobacco?" He raised his head and twisted to look up towards Cullen's face. It was impossible to say whether he could see anything of it. "You sended Nate to town for de doct'r. Mama done it too, dat day de bad men taked you 'way."

"Nate ain't well," said Cullen, offering the simplest explanation he could think of.

Gabe sighed. "Dat so. What 'bout 'Lijah?" he asked hopefully. "I bet he a good man to send."

So much for simple answers. "Son, a black man can't sell tobacco," Cullen said. "It's white man's business. I need to be there to bargain with the buyers and be sure they don't cheat us. I got to be the one to go."

There was a disappointed silence, during which Gabe seemed to slump down against him. Then he perked up again. "I kin come!" he said. "I kin come an' he'p you! I's a good he'per, an' den you 'n me kin go togedder. I's big 'nough for a train ride: Missy done it, an' she jus' a silly girl!"

Cullen almost chuckled at this idea. "You might be big enough to ride the train, but you're too young to sell tobacco and there'll be no one to tend you while I do it. I'll take you with me one day, all right, but not this year."

"Den _when_?" asked Gabe. "I's gittin' tall. I kin reach de sorghum all by myself - don' tell Bet'l."

"When you're nine," Cullen said decisively. "When you're nine, you can come to New Orleans with me, and I'll teach you how to sell tobacco. You can see the market and the warehouses, and we'll go out on the levees together."

"An' de ships?" Gabe pressed eagerly. "De big, tall sailin' ships."

"And the ships. And the cotton barges and the rich men's carriages and anything else you want to see," Cullen promised in a fit of reckless romanticism. Somehow spinning this yarn for his boy helped to ease his own anxieties about the journey ahead of him. "I'll even take you to the French opera, and you can see what it's like to be bored to tears."

"Hoppera," Gabe said, trying the strange word. "What a hoppera, Pappy?"

"It's like a play, but the actors sing at each other," Cullen said. "Remember the play at Eastertime?"

Gabe nodded excitedly. "De lady climbeded de tree!" he exclaimed. "She just 'bout falled down! An' dat boy gots a _shiny_ sword, an' de bad man wid de cape!"

Cullen snorted in soft amusement. The children of several of the planter households, at that awkward age just before they were old enough to start courting, had organized a small theatrical production that Cassius Fielder (who at thirteen fancied himself a scholar) had written just for the occasion. The men had found it hilariously funny, and the women heartrendingly adorable, but for the smaller children of the county it had been the magical high-point of the spring. Gabe had chattered about it ceaselessly for days, until Bethel had finally declared that he would take in another playacting spectacle at his peril and Cullen's.

"Well, the opera's like that, except it don't last only fifteen minutes and you've got no idea what the people are saying. I never much held with it myself, but it's one of them things that's got to be seen to be believed," he said. "We can sit in a box and drop cowpeas on the people down front. Just you dream about that, now, and get back to sleep."

Gabe nuzzled against him, and was silent for the span of an entire breath – just long enough, so it seemed, for his eagerness to fade back into worry. It was almost as if he were feeding off of Cullen's own secret anxieties. "But Pappy, you can't go 'lone," he protested. "Who goin' make your supper? Where you goin' sleep? What goin' happen when de cough come an' git you?"

"I'll sleep at a hotel," said Cullen. "It's like a big house where people can rent a bedroom to stay in for a few nights. It's got a great big staircase like the one at Charlie's place, and a ballroom where there's dancing at night. It's got a dining room, too, and the folks there will make my supper."

This seemed to comfort Gabe a little, but he repeated; "An' what 'bout when de bad ol' cough come?"

"Then I'll cough all I have to, and chase it away again," said Cullen. "You don't got to worry."

"But I _is_ worried," said Gabe. "Bet'l don' like you goin', neider. She say so."

"Bethel said that to you?" Cullen asked, irritation rising. He just about tolerated the old woman's fussing, for he knew it was a demonstration of her love and devotion, but he did not like it when she made his child anxious about his wellbeing.

"Nope. To Mama," said Gabe. "But I was in de kitchen, too, playin' wid Stewpot. Sometimes Bet'l, she forget I's dere."

That was true enough, and almost roused Cullen's amusement again. Bethel had always had the weakness of letting herself forget, usually in a heated moment, that a quiet child was in the room. As a boy he had often used it to his advantage, learning more about the goings-on of the household that way than he could by any other means. "Son, you know how Bethel is," he said. "She worries about us whenever we're out of her sight for a minute. That don't mean nothing bad will happen."

"But I don' want you to go," Gabe protested one last time. "You's goin' be gone, an' dere ain't goin' be nobody for me to sleep on. An' de train go _so_ far 'way, an' de cough goin' git you."

He shivered and cuddled closer to Cullen, whose own shaking had ceased in favor of a leaden enervation in arms and legs. And suddenly he understood the latent fear beneath Gabe's protests: the anxiety to which he could not give voice, if he even recognized it at all. Hugging him firmly but gently, Cullen tucked his own head closer to Gabe's.

"Hey," he huffed softly. "_Hey._ You know I's coming back to you, don't you, son? I'll only be gone for a few days, and then I'll come back. There ain't nothing goin' keep me away from you a minute longer than I have to be. You understand that, don't you?"

"You's comin' back." The words were neither wholly question nor statement. Gabe's hand flexed, first loosening and then gathering the handful of nightshirt again. "You's goin' go 'way, an' den come back."

"That's right," whispered Cullen, the whiskers on his chin brushing against Gabe's hair. "I'll come back."

"An' you's goin' bring all de nice t'ings," Gabe said. "We's goin' have biscuits, an' I's goin' count dem. A _dozen_ biscuits. Dat twelve."

"Yeah." A tiny smile tugged at Cullen's mouth. "You can eat the whole dozen if you want to."

"You's goin' sell de tobacco," Gabe murmured hypnotically; "an' den you's comin' back."

With that pronouncement he promptly fell asleep, with the swift surety that only small children can exert. For his part, Cullen lay wakeful, staring up at the dark void of the ceiling for a long time, until his diaphragm tightened and his throat closed and he began to cough again.


	87. Final Arrangements

_Note: My writing may suffer for my stress, but it always does seem to ease it. I hope the chapter is up to par nonetheless! (This chapter posted between 408 and 409.)_

**Chapter Eighty-Seven: Final Arrangements**

Cullen watched with bleary eyes as a pair of densely-muscled slaves set the last crate on the stack occupying a front corner of a half-filled boxcar. Down at the other end were gunny sacks filled with some sort of root vegetable, boxes bearing a blacksmith's mark, and a set of heavy dining chairs.

"They's goin' ride safes' up front," said Saul knowingly. "If'n the engineer make a quick stop, they ain' goin' fall over."

Cullen nodded. He had made the same observation himself, and suspected that he owed this small but important consideration to the goodwill he had taken the time to build with the railroad men. There were dozens of ways that slaves could make a man's life easier or more difficult, and it paid to put oneself in their favor. With the overflow from Henrietta as secure as he could hope from general freight, he had at least a chance of resting easily tonight and tomorrow.

"When you gits to Jackson, ask for Lame Josiah an' his crew," Saul suggested as the white man stepped down out of the car. The jolt of hitting the ground shot up his spine and made his head throb, and black smears obscured the foreman's face. "Tell 'em I tol' you to, an' they'll treat you right. Wouldn' hurt none to give 'em a taste of that leaf, neither."

"I don't expect it would," muttered Cullen, trying to fight off the wave of dizziness now rocking him.

"You got a car waitin' on the other end with Great Northern?" asked Saul.

"So they tell me," Cullen said. The manifests, work-orders and tickets were on the wagon seat, pinned under his hat. In yesterday's chaos he had forgotten to collect them, but Henry Jacobs had left everything in good order with the other clerk. Cullen had turned over the bulk of his banknotes in exchange. The costs of the round trip were now covered, unless he needed to return with more than five thousand pounds of cargo. If he did, he would hopefully be able to make up the difference out of the tobacco money.

"That awright, then," said Saul. "Ain' a easy thing to find free space this time of year, what with all the trains headin' north with them imported goods."

"Huh." Cullen's vision was clearing now, but he could feel his diaphragm growing tight. If he had to suffer through another strangling coughing fit, he preferred to be well out of town when it started. He strode away from the car, which had been shunted into the same sideline as the one that held the bulk of his crop, and found his way back to the wagon. The men who had been moving his boxes hovered in the middle distance – obviously near at hand, but not impertinently close. Saul, unabashed, followed him right to the wheel.

"You done right by me," Cullen said, taking a laden tobacco-pouch out of his pocket and offering it to the foreman. "I'll be coming back through with my sundries on the fifth."

"Yassir, Mist' Bohannon." Saul grinned broadly. "Pleasure doin' business with you, sir."

"And with you," said Cullen. From his inner pocket he took out his cigar case, and plucked out a pair to hold out to the man. "Keep an eye on that man who ain't shipped his cotton, would you? I don't think he's likely to send it through, but if he does you let me know. I don't need no names; just the fact that it's shipped. You can get word to me through Doc Whitehead's Ellie."

Saul's eyes narrowed shrewdly, locked with Cullen's in a gaze that would have been considered inappropriately impertinent by most planters. He was taking the measure of him, weighing this unorthodox request against what he knew of Cullen's actions and character. For a moment he hesitated, fingertips hovering, and then he took the cigars and nodded curtly. "No names," he agreed. "But if it go through the railhead on either line, I'll sen' word." He tucked the cigars inside of his shirt and tilted his head far to the left. "What it mean to you if'n this man ship his cotton?"

"Not a thing," said Cullen. "I'm more interested in why he ain't done it, with the price as respectable as it's been this year. It don't add up, and I'm curious."

"Curious," Saul echoed. He shook his head ruefully. "Mist' Bohannon, I's curious 'bout 'gators, but I don' go pokin' at 'em."

"Ain't you the wise one?" Cullen snorted, hoisting himself up onto the seat. The mules shifted as he took the lines, reluctant to be dragged away from the comfort of the depot's shade and the full water-trough. Shadow hawed softly, shaking the traces. "I hope I didn't keep you men too late?"

Saul grinned. "Overseer ain't rung the bell yet: we's workin' 'til he do. I'll see to it we's ready when you come back through." He stepped back from the wagon, considered, and then moved near again just before Cullen tightened the reins to turn the team. "Mist' Bohannon?" he said, his voice suddenly low. "You' man Nate. He…"

"Broke shoulder, from the look of it," said Cullen. "My head woman's taking care of him, and we've got the doctor coming out today. Ain't as bad as it might have been."

Saul inclined his head, but said nothing more. He watched with impassive dark eyes as the mules turned the heavy wagon and hauled it on towards the gate. Cullen put one foot up on the buckboard, and rested his elbow on the raised leg. Pausing before rolling into the street, he put his hat on his head and folded the railroad papers into his pocket next to the cigar-case. They stood out stiffly against his chest, but they would be secure enough there.

He drew a curious eye or two as the empty wagon rattled back through Meridian. News of yesterday's altercation had obviously spread, and Cullen was compelled to wonder just how far today's stories deviated from the truth. It was a matter of academic curiosity, rather than any real practicality, but he could not help suspecting that Sheriff Brannan's image was suffering. No one would fault him for taking a few licks at an ornery nigger, or indeed at an impoverished and belligerent planter, but laying hands on Miss Felicity Ives was another matter entirely.

Cullen tried to put all such thoughts from his mind as he came to the end of the main street. There was no use in brooding. He was in no position to do anything about it, and would have been a fool even to try. There would be no justice in the matter: no retribution for Nate's suffering and shame, no recompense for his lost labor. If Cullen even tried, he would only further imperil his family and his people. But God, how he wanted to!

He coughed as the wagon jounced over a rut where the houses of the poor met the shanties of the penniless, and managed against all probability to draw a clear breath afterwards. The second cough struck just before he reached the open road, and he was a good hundred yards clear of the edge of town when the fit began in earnest.

The mules halted, disconcerted by the quaking of the reins under his unsteady hands, and the unearthly noises that rattled from his chest and caught so harshly in his throat. Half-blind and giddy for want of air, Cullen clung with one hand to the limp lines and braced himself on the hard seat with the other. How, he wondered in a frantic moment when it seemed he would faint dead away for want of air, had Gabe borne this torment so bravely? Then he whooped, his whole body bucking with the effort, and caught just enough air to keep himself conscious.

When it was over he huddled there, panting and quaking, for an indeterminate span of time. He leaned forward over the edge of the box to spit out the froth of phlegm, and stared into the dirt between the mules' rumps until the insensible blur resolved itself into the cracks and contours of the road. He did not dare to move, to sit back or to try to raise his head, until the awful sense of dizziness abated. Even then he could not sit straight. His ribs ached so ferociously from the cruel exertions of the cough, and the only way to ease them was to lean against the bracing wall of his forearm, curled across his front.

Still short of breath and perspiring heavily, he clicked his tongue to start the mules on their way again. They plodded on with steady resignation, unable to understand that this was the last journey of the day and that they would be allowed to rest as soon as they reached the barn. There had been only a single load's worth left after Cullen and Meg had made their second trip in tandem, and so Gus and Betsy had already had better than an hour and a half to rest. By the time their master reached home, they would be recovered enough to strap to the plow. Getting down into the mud was the last thing that Cullen wanted to do, but with Nate unable to work there was now quite literally _no one_ else to do it.

The drive home was slow and uncomfortable. Cullen alternated between intolerable warmth and almost excruciating cold as the fever burned on, and his tailbone was bruised and tender after three days on the wagon-seat. His right shoulder had stiffened overnight, and it was now brewing an ache that stretched down his arm and up into his neck. And his hands kept losing their grip: his right upon the reins, and his left upon the underarm seam of his coat.

It was with numb exhaustion that he beheld the little plantation house as the wagon emerged from the trees. In his present state of mind and body, the ordinarily tidy yellow building looked dreary and neglected. The tarpaper patch in the guest bedroom window, where he had poached a pane to replace the shattered one in the room he shared with Mary, yawned like the gap left by a rotten tooth when the barber yanked it. The two other cracked squares of glass broke the reflection of the gray sky, heightening the look of decrepitude. The whitewash on the fences and the porch-rails was dull and fading, hail-pocked and badly in need of a fresh coat. The lawn was overgrown and browning, the flowerbeds were choked with drooping plants that should have been dug up long ago, and the drive was badly in need of a good raking. And for the first time Cullen noticed a bald patch on the veranda's shallow roof, where two or three shingles had blown loose. In truth, the whole roof needed replacing before it gave out entirely.

The sight sickened him. For weeks – no, months – he had led the ceaseless struggle to bring in the all-important tobacco crop as well as the food harvests, desperate to do what must be done to ensure that he could keep the house and the land for another year. In doing so, he had neglected the hundred small chores required to maintain that house and that land. It was true that a neatly whitewashed fence did not put food on the table or boots on a man's feet, and so the inattention to such a detail was understandable and even justified. But a chipped and discolored fence was only the beginning: an invitation to rot and decay that would consume the whole property if left unchecked. Constant care and labor was needed to maintain the plantation: just to maintain it, without any tangible gains or improvements to the family's situation. It was ceaseless, exhausting, and so utterly futile, and it made Cullen feel less than a man to know that his whole life was fettered to this struggle to cling to what little he had, without purpose or meaning or even chance for advancement. He was trapped, and his family was trapped with him, and he was so very, very tired.

The mules, oblivious to his dark musings, saw only the barn and the chance of some feed. They quickened their heavy step and the cotton-wagon rolled on past the front of the house. Meg was coming around the corner, an effortful smile on her soft, earnest face.

"Through at las', Mist' Cullen," she said as he climbed down and started unbuckling the straps that affixed Shadow to the wagon. The mule, who had been expecting to stand where he was while another load was transferred behind him, brayed eagerly and pawed at the ground. "We's got the potatoes in, too, ev'y las' one, an' Elijah an' me done moved two bushels of yams down cellar. Ain't more'n another three-four up in the haylof'."

Cullen blinked at her, his mind dragging sluggishly over her words. Finally he offered a brief nod. "That's fine," he huffed.

"I checked in on Mercy jus' now, an' she feedin' nicely," Meg added. "Seem to me she goin' make up fo' bein' borned so li'l in no time."

He frowned uncomprehendingly. "Mercy?" he parroted.

Meg's color deepened and she looked suddenly abashed. "The calf, Massa," she mumbled. "Beggin' you' pardon; I didn' ask if the name was awright, or if'n you'd sooner call her sumthin' else."

"Call her whatever you like," said Cullen, trying not to sound hurtfully indifferent. "You're the one's got to look after her. Can you get these two rubbed down and watered? I got to get the other pair out to the cornfield. Might be able to plow an acre or two before sundown."

"Yassir," said Meg; "but nawsir. I means, I kin do that, surely. Elijah goin' be back jus' as soon as he done gittin' Nate fit to be seen, an' he'll he'p, too. But you cain't go plowin' right now. Doct' Whitehead in the house, an' he waitin' fo' you. Missus Mary say tell you to git on in there the minute you's back. She look like she mean it, too, Massa."

Meg's eyes were wide and grave as she said this, and the resemblance to her daughter was unmistakable. Cullen groaned softly and rubbed at his dusty beard with one calloused palm. The broken blisters had all scabbed over, and some were almost healed. He would have been positively prostrate with relief at the chance to delay just a little longer the misery of driving the plow, had he not been so certain of the disapproval awaiting him indoors. Doc had almost certainly told Mary of his orders, and almost certainly within Bethel's earshot, too. Both of them would be exasperated with his flagrant disobedience, and each would show it in her own uncomfortable way.

"Awright, then," he sighed. "Can't keep the doctor waiting." Then a thought occurred to him: a way to distract everyone from his misdeed, and a kindness he could extend to his faithful servant. "Why don't you come along, and hear what he's got to say 'bout Lottie?"

Meg dipped a curtsy. "Thankee, Mist' Cullen, but Missus Mary, she awready done had me in," she said. "Lottie, she doin' bravely; that what the doct'r say. Her ches' got some crackles, but not so bad, an' her fever be mode… mud… maud…"

"Moderate," said Cullen, nodding.

"Jus' so. Mod'rate," said Meg. "He say we gots to keep a lookout fo' the crisis, but she strong an' she ain' got it so bad as Mist' Gabe done." She offered a small, tremulous smile. "Mist' Cullen, he say if she don' take no unexpected turn, she goin' come through."

"That's good news, Meg," he said earnestly, forgetting his own discomfiture in genuine thankfulness for Lottie's prognosis. He had always been fond of her, even when she was a toddling baby clinging to the women's skirts, and he did not want her to suffer. Things had gone badly for Charity Ainsley, and she was only a couple of years younger than Lottie. The damned whooping cough was dangerous.

"You go on inside now, Mist' Cullen," Meg said quietly, taking the strap from his hand and unfastening it herself. Snort brayed his approval, tossing his head superciliously at his master. Cullen took a half-step back, glowering at the beast. "Bethel ain' goin' be pleased if'n she think you's dawdlin'."

At any other time, Cullen would have chuckled at this. Now he was simply too numb with exhaustion and the unremitting fever to respond at all. He inclined his head wordlessly to Meg and started back towards the house on heavy feet. He briefly considered going straight around to the kitchen door, but thought better of it. Coming in through the front, he had a minute in the hallway to compose himself while he wiped his feet and raked his hair back from his face. He paused again in the deserted dining room, to rinse his hands in the washbasin and to glance at himself in the small looking-glass over the sideboard. His eyes were darkly shadowed, and his cheekbones stood out more starkly than usual, but that could not be helped. He moistened his cracked lips with the tip of his tongue, and rubbed each cheek vigorously with the heel of his hand in an attempt to disperse the bright fever-blossoms that showed so livid against his gray-hued pallor. The results were mediocre, but apparent enough that he applied the same treatment to his forehead. Then, knowing that Bethel's sharp ears at least would by now be aware of his proximity, he squared his tired shoulders and opened the door to the kitchen.

The first thing he saw was Gabe's eager grin, turned towards the door the moment it began to swing. The little boy was sitting on the edge of the table with his feet in their heavy copper-toed boots swinging. He had one end of the doctor's stethoscope in his ear, and was holding the other to his front somewhere in the vicinity of his navel. The black bag sat near his hip, one side opened to show the leather loops that held the physician's various tools. Gabe kept hold of the earpiece as he waved his small hand vigorously. The silk-covered spring bobbed and slithered.

"Pappy! You's home from de town!" he announced delightedly. He turned to Doctor Whitehead, who was standing nearby and had obviously been deep in conversation with Mary. "You see? I tol' you he comin' back."

"So you did," Doc said gravely, nodding for the child. "I see you were right."

Lottie was sitting at the foot of the récamier, hands folded stiffly in her lap. She was obviously uncomfortable in the presence of the stranger, despite the gentle consideration Cullen trusted Doc had shown her. It was only natural: like Gabe, Lottie had little contact with people beyond their household, and the few she did ordinarily meet were black. Cullen mustered the ghostly memory of good humor from under the heaps of fever and weariness and worry, and winked at her. At once her studiously dignified expression broke into a grin, and some of the rigidity went out of her thin body.

"Pappy, you bringed de tobacco to de train?" Gabe asked. "You's goin' take it to N'Orlins, an' you's goin' come home."

"Yup," Cullen said, moving further into the room so that he could ruffle his child's curls. Gabe squirmed happily under the contact, and then looked at the tool in his hands. He studied it thoughtfully for a moment, and then thrust out his arms before him.

"You take it, Doct'r," he decreed. "I's all finished."

"All right," Doctor Whitehead chuckled, taking the stethoscope and coiling it loosely around the back of one hand.

Freed of the piece of delicate equipment that he had obviously been admonished to handle with care, Gabe was able to reach up and grab hold of Cullen's wrist. He clamped his father's palm against the back of his head with the other hand and closed his eyes blissfully. "I's glad you come home," he said.

"Sure son, sure," Cullen mumbled. There was no use in regretting the necessity that would take him away from his child at a time when Gabe was so obviously still anxious in the wake of his illness, but neither could he harden his heart against the boy's endearing need for comfort. He slipped his hand out of Gabe's grasp and tucked it around his waist instead, standing with his hip to the table in a half-embrace. "What'd Doc say about your chest?"

"It still crackin'," Gabe said; "but not so bad. De listenin' snake tell him I's on de mend. Ain' dat so, Doc? I's on de mend."

"indeed you are, my boy," Doc Whitehead said, grinning for the child. "There's hardly a degree of fever left, Cullen, though that may vary with the time of day. What we must focus on now is building up his strength again. Bethel tells me he has not quite recovered his appetite."

From where she stood by the pantry door, Bethel nodded. Her eyes were fixed on Cullen with a grim steadiness that made him uneasy, even though in posture and expression she was the picture of a docile house-servant. Doc had told her, all right. Silently Cullen cursed. He was in for a tongue-lashing the moment the physician left, and he quite likely deserved it. But he had also been absolutely right that there was no option but for him to work on and haul the tobacco, and that meant that he would argue with Bethel. And arguing with Bethel… it never ended well.

"That's her department, all right," Cullen said, trying to sound cheerful. "She'll have him eating like a hungry bear in no time."

"I a bear?" Gabe asked interestedly. "A _hungry_ bear. 'Ottie?" He twisted to look at his playmate. "When de doct'r go 'way, we's goin' play bears!"

"That a fine idea!" Lottie said in her usual enthusiastic way. The words obviously came out more loudly than she had meant them to, for her eyes widened and her mouth pursed, and she went on in a careful whisper. "Mebbe Bethel kin let us have some of them dried blackberries an' walnuts to eat: bears surely do love berries!"

"Mm-hmm!" Gabe agreed eagerly. He shimmied his hips so that he was balanced on the very lip of the table, and then held his arms up. "Pappy, boost me down?" he asked. "I's goin' sit wid 'Ottie."

Cullen boosted accordingly, and Gabe scurried around him to climb up onto the récamier. At once Lottie put her arm around him and they leaned their heads together, whispering excitedly.

"I s'pose you want to have a listen with that thing," said Cullen resignedly, nodding at the stethoscope.

"We can step into the other room if you'd prefer," Doc offered.

Cullen was already unbuttoning his vest and pulling out his shirttails. "Naw, might as well get it over with," he said. If he did not undergo the examination in Bethel's presence, he would have to relive it over and over again until he supplied her desired level of detail.

Mary came up to him just as he started to shrug out of his coat. Wordlessly she eased it back off of his arms so that he did not need to strain his sore shoulder. When he glanced at her, she offered him a small, serene smile that was more of a comfort than he would have thought to expect. Bethel might be inwardly seething at the knowledge of his recklessness, but Mary understood.

"It ain't been so bad," Cullen hedged as Doc Whitehead slipped the cup of the device under his shirt and found the appropriate place on his ribs. "With the weather so mild, I didn't see any reason not to get on with my business."

"The weather ain't been mild, Cullen. It's frozen every night this week," Doc observed casually. "Deep breath in. And hold it. Slowly out."

As Cullen obeyed, he could not help but cough thrice in tight succession, rapidly deflating his lungs as if they had been repeatedly squeezed by a huge fist. The doctor cast him a sidelong glance and felt for the landmark on the other side. "And again," he said levelly. "Deep breath. Hold. And out…"

The same thing happened again, with four hacks instead of three. Cullen cleared his throat irritably, and fixed his eyes on Bethel. "What about a cup of water?" he asked. "That damned road's gone dusty. We need a good rain."

"Thank God we've been spared it," Doc said, and the note of disapproval in his voice was now unmistakable. "Taking a cold soaking when you're this far gone with whooping cough would be as sure a path to double pneumonia as any I can think of." He seized hold of Cullen's arm and spun him bodily around, firm but not roughly. His hand and the stethoscope cup traveled up the spine. "Again."

"If you could take a look at his shoulder, too, Doctor," Mary said softly. "I think it's been paining him."

Cullen would have shot her a quelling look, but it was too late. He heard Bethel's huff of disapproval at this fresh deception, and he could feel his ears burning already. This time he managed to exhale almost smoothly, with only one brief hitch of breath towards the end. A fourth time the doctor listened, then shook his head as he rolled up the stethoscope.

"Which shoulder?" he asked, looking Cullen's torso over appraisingly.

"The right," sighed Cullen, defeated. There was no point in prevaricating: Mary had seen the bruising, and in another moment everyone else would, too.

To his surprised, Doc did not suggest that he remove his shirt. He merely placed one palm firmly on the side of Cullen's upper arm, pressing it to his ribs, and cupped the other around the joint. His thoughtful, appraising frown deepened as his fingers felt the hard ridge of the bruise, following it onto Cullen's back and then returning to probe into the armpit. This brought a dull, nauseating ache that drove him to close his eyes, determined not to betray his pain to the onlookers.

"Put out your arm and rotate it," Doc instructed mildly. "Like the blade of a windmill."

Cullen obeyed. The motion was unpleasant and the joint resistant, but with self-control and a slow breath he managed to execute it almost smoothly.

"Are you able to bear any weight with the arm?" Doc Whitehead asked.

Cullen snorted wryly. "Hundred and ten pound tobacco boxes," he said. "It's just a bruise."

"But a deep one," said Doc. "It's inflamed right into the joint, and it's limiting your range of motion. All the same, it ain't serious. Apply a cold compress for the ache, and try to spare yourself any undue exertion."

Cullen caught his eyes at this, and saw the unspoken admonition within them. His lips tightened in chagrin, and he raised his eyebrows in the question that had no answer: _what else could I have done, Doc?_ And the older man's gaze softened until it was almost sorrowful. _I don't know, son_, that look said.

"That's all I have to say," he pronounced resignedly, lowering his hands from Cullen's shoulder. "I do wish you would delay your journey by a week or two."

"Can't do it," Cullen said. "Tobacco's loaded, boxcar's paid for. I'm leaving on Monday at two."

"He goin' come back, Doct'r," Gabe said reassuringly. "He goin' bring all de nice t'ings, an' new shoes for 'Ottie, too. Her old ones is pinchin'."

"It's good she'll be getting new ones, then," said Doc with a kindly smile at the girl. She returned it shyly, and hugged Gabe closer. Turning his attention back to Cullen, the physician asked; "What are you doing for lodgings?"

"The St. Charles Hotel, same as always," Cullen said smoothly. "They know to expect me this time of year."

"Dere dancin' in de hole-tell," said Gabe. "An' a dinin' room jus' like we got. De ladies dere goin' cook Pappy's supper."

"I think it's likely to be men cooking at a hotel," said Doc absentmindedly. His eyes were flitting pensively over some other thought. "They have a reputation for cleanliness and a healthful atmosphere at the St. Charles, at least. If you do decide to make alternative arrangements, please do make suitable inquiries first."

"I don't foresee a need for that," Cullen said as he tucked in his shirt and straightened his supsenders. "They've always been accommodating."

Doc nodded, but did not look quite convinced. Nevertheless he set about packing away his instruments. "I had better go and have a look at your man," he said. "The whole town's talking."

"I'll just bet they are," Cullen muttered sourly. He flicked the lapels of his waistcoat in a gesture of dismissive finality. "I'll come with you. I want to know just what I've got on my hands."

"Thank you, Doctor," Mary said sweetly, smiling her beautiful smile.

"I'll stop in again on Tuesday, Miss Mary," Doc said. He sounded almost bashful. Then he looked towards the children and wagged his finger comically. "Now, you be sure and eat what Bethel gives you, young man. You don't want to wind up skinny as a walkingstick bug!"

Gabe giggled and nodded vigorously. "Bet'l goin' make de biscuits!" he declared.

"Let's get on," Cullen said swiftly, before the child could volunteer the fact that they had been without that particular foodstuff for weeks. "Bethel, you got anything to send down to the quarters?"

Bethel went to the dish dresser and took out the bottle of anodyne powder. She gave it to Doctor Whitehead. "I don' trust them boys to go tryin' to dose him, but I reckon you kin do it," she said. "Take that there apple butter, Mist' Cullen. Nate gots a fon'ness fo' it, an' it don' take much chewin'."

Cullen picked up the small jar she had indicated, and opened the back door for the doctor. Once out in the cold, damp air, a spastic shiver took his spine. He tensed against it and took off towards the cabins.

"Slow down there, son. You can't outrun your troubles," Doc said, catching up as Cullen forced himself to moderate his pace. The older man looked him over and added quietly. "I didn't tell them, you know. 'Bout you disobeying my instructions."

Cullen shot him a sharp scowl. "Then how come Bethel was shooting me the evil eye in there?"

"I expect it's because you look like a ghost that's been working the Devil's treadmill," Doc Whitehead remarked, mildly enough but not without a hint of chastisement. "It don't take a medical degree to see you've been pushing yourself too hard. I wish you would listen to _someone_, Cullen. We've all got your best interests at heart."

"This ain't just a matter of my best interests," said Cullen. "I don't got the luxury of putting myself first."

"No father does," Doc agreed gently. "But just remember that boy needs his pappy alive and well, not six feet under in a pine box."

Cullen let out a weary huff of air. They were nowhere near that, however dreadful he felt, and he could not pause to dwell on improbabilities. He only wished Doc would stop fussing: it made him uneasy.

They were into the willows now, where the ground was still gummy from the melting of the morning's frost. Here, the branches hung low and near enough that they were compelled to go in single file with Cullen leading the way.

"Listen," he said as they emerged from the shade and were able to walk abreast again. "I want you to take careful note of Nate's injuries. If Bethel's right and he can't work, I'm going after Brannan for compensation, and I'll need you to bear testament."

Doc stopped dead in his tracks, forcing the younger man to look back. The graying eyebrows were arced up towards the center, and his mouth was turned down in dismay.

"You can't do that, Cullen," he said. "You can't go after the sheriff for beating a slave. You'd never get it in front of a judge, and even if you did Harvey Brannan would just say the Negro had it coming."

"There's witnesses—" Cullen began.

"That don't matter. Son, you ought to know better than that! The law's on the sheriff's side, and popular opinion will be, too. You'd be nothing but a damned fool to pursue this." Doc's eyes were hard now, but not without a certain glow of bitter regret. "If you do, you won't gain a thing: not compensation, not dignity for your man, not even a fair hearing for your grievance. All you'll do is draw a line in the sand that the sheriff's gonna be compelled to cross just to keep face with the public. As it stands now, all anybody's talking about is him laying hands on young Felicity, and he don't come out in the right when they tell it like that, but nobody's going to question him hitting a slave."

"I don't give a damn what people question!" Cullen snapped. "Brannan done wrong by Nate, and he oughta pay!"

"That's true," Doc said tiredly. "But we both know he won't. Don't do it, Cullen. You'll bring nothing but trouble on yourself and the folks you care about. What happens the next time one of your slaves runs across his path? What's to stop him from harassing Miss Mary the minute your train pulls out on Monday? What about when your boy gets big enough to run 'round the county on his own? Do you really want the sheriff gunning for him over some damned foolish feud?"

Cullen's lip curled in loathing. "If Brannan's still sheriff in ten years' time, the county won't be fit to live in."

"Not for you, that's certain. Not unless you let this rest. Let it go, Cullen. You got nothing to prove here, and no good will come of fighting." His voice was firm, almost commanding, but in it there was also a desperate plea. "You know I'm right, son. If your father had known how to let a slight pass—"

"This ain't a slight," Cullen snarled. "It ain't a difference in personal philosophy. My man could have been killed by that lunatic, just because a couple of kids were tearing around town for a laugh."

"I know," Doc said, reaching to cup his hand on Cullen's left shoulder. He levelled his green eyes at the wild gray ones, and gave a terse nod of the head. "I know."

Cullen tore his gaze away and cast it onto his dilapidated work-boots. "It's too much, Doc. I can't let it go. No man could."

"You got to," Whitehead said softly. "For the sake of your family."

And he was right, of course: that was the worst of it. Cullen could not simply remove Mary and Gabe from Brannan's sphere of influence. If he wanted to protect them from persecution on his behalf, he had to keep his head down and let the matter rest. It galled him, raising the sour taste of humiliation and helplessness upon his tongue, but that was something he would just have to bear. For the sake of his family, and his darkies, he had to back off. He remembered suddenly what Mary had said on the day he had sent her telegram begging Jeremiah Tate for money. _A good man will work himself to the bone to feed his family, but only a great man can swallow his pride for them..._

"Just do what you can for him, then," he muttered, shifting the pot of apple butter from his left hand to his right as he stomped off towards Elijah's door. "Since there ain't a damned thing _I _can do."

_*discidium*_

The valise was neatly packed, evening coat, silk waistcoat and the three best pairs of trousers smooth over a layer of undergarments. The starched shirts, carefully rolled to prevent creasing, formed the sides of a quadrangle in the midst of which nestled a round leather case. It held two stiff linen collars, also starched and pressed, for day wear, as well as one of cream-colored silk that matched Cullen's best evening shirt. Also in this box were his shirt studs and cufflinks, secure in a tiny cloth bag. Another sack, somewhat larger, was slipped down the side of the valise. It held his razor and shaving brush, a small wooden comb, and a one-inch chuck of soap cut sparingly from the store-bought bar. There were stockings as well: three pairs of darned black cotton, one newly knitted, and Cullen's only pair of silk socks. Mary had packed his gloves, although she was not certain he would remember to wear them unless he was invited to an evening engagement at the home of one of his buyers.

Four new handkerchiefs, the hemming of which had occupied Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday, were spread on top of the collar-box. Mary had made them of the last piece of best linen, and they were fresh and pristinely white. The look of a costly handkerchief tucked into a topcoat pocket was a final touch of gentility that did much to mitigate the detrimental effect of an unfashionably-cut coat and a familiar vest. From Frances, Mary had learned of the increased popularity of monogrammed handkerchiefs among the eternally faddish businessmen of New York, but she preferred the clean, classic line of the unadorned cloth. Her stitches were tiny and precise, the hems levelled to the precise thread, and the corners perfectly mitred. She could not do much to ensure Cullen's success in the all-important trade negotiations, but at least she could send him out accoutred like a prince.

She passed her palm once more over the tidy layers of clothing, and then spread a small towel over all. She tucked it snuggly at the sides, so that it would prevent dust or soot from creeping in to soil the garments. Then she closed the valise, fastening the brass clasps with firm surety. Everything was ready.

"All packed?"

Mary turned in mild surprise at the voice, to see her husband leaning against the bedroom doorpost. He was attempting his customary posture of indolent ease, but she could see that he had put too much of his weight upon the wall, and the soles of both glossy riding boots were still firmly on the floor as if he could not be sure of his footing. He was wearing his dark striped trousers, a gentlemanly day shirt, and his best wool vest under his good frock coat. His stock was slung around the back of his neck, but hung down untied between his lapels. In his hand, brim across his breast, was his good beaver-felt slouch. It was freshly brushed and adorned with a new hatband – a scrap of navy-blue petersham with a flat loop-bow tacked over the join.

"All packed," she assured him, smiling. She nodded at the hat. "Bethel's been busy."

Cullen looked down at it and grinned, but the smile did not quite reach his glassy eyes. He had slept through most of yesterday, alternately on Gabe's bed and on the récamier in the kitchen. "She surely has," he said. "I'll be quite the dandy, turned out in the collective finery of the household."

"I could send you with my silk shawl," Mary offered playfully. "And I'm sure that Gabe would lend his popgun for the occasion."

"Oh, we've already had words 'bout that, he and I," said Cullen. "He knows it's his responsibility to protect you all while I'm gone. I expect he'll be patrolling the property with that thing the minute Bethel's back is turned."

Mary laughed softly. It was good of him to give their son something to focus on: a sense of adult importance that could distract him from his very natural worries about doing without his pappy. Cullen had an instinct for fatherhood that could not be learned. "Is there anything else you want me to put in?" she asked with a flick of her hand towards the suitcase. "I've included your shaving kit, and the spare collar studs—"

Cullen pushed off of the door and came to her, one hand taking hold of the tall footboard while the other tossed the hat onto their coverlet so that it could slide around her waist. He kissed her quickly, his lips burning against hers, and then pulled back. "I know you've thought of everything," he murmured.

Mary's fingers caught a lock of his hair that was straying towards his brow. She had trimmed it last night while he sat in the bath, and without the shaggy overgrown mane he looked younger. Even the shadows under his eyes had paled a little after the day of rest, though the fever-spots still showed on his cheeks.

"I wish I could come with you," she whispered, her palm spreading over the side of his face. She could feel the heat in pulsing waves: not as dangerously hot as Gabe's skin had been at the height of his crisis, but far too warm for comfort. "What if you take a turn for the worse?"

"I won't," Cullen said. "I've been just the same for days now; I'll be on the mend at any time. Don't you let Doc and Bethel get you worried. They're both just over-cautious."

"I wonder," Mary sighed. She looked down at the neat rows of buttons on his front, turning the matter over in her mind yet again. It was out of the question for her to come, of course. Gabe needed her, and with Lottie ill and Nate injured there was too much for Bethel to cope with as it was. But the thought of Cullen going off, alone, when he was still waking five or six times in the night and smoldering with fever, filled her with indistinct anxieties. She did not like to think of him languishing in some Louisiana hotel, perspiring profusely one minute and shaking violently the next, with no one to comfort him through the coughing fits and no one to see to his needs in the night. Without Bethel's sharp eye on his plate, would he remember to eat properly? And if he _did_ take a turn, could he rely upon the foreign ministrations of some New Orleans doctor of indeterminate skill?

Cullen's hip twisted to brace against the bed, and his finger came up to crook under her chin. Tenderly he tilted her head, raising her eyes to his. "Don't you worry," he said quietly. "I've made this trip fifteen times before, alone more often than not."

"I know," she said, drawing up her courage like a cloak around her. If Cullen was prepared to face the risks in order to carry out this essential duty, the least she could do was stand by him faithfully. It would help him in his own doubts if he knew she was firmly with him. "If you go to the theater or to a dance, I've packed your gloves, and when you're on the train I expect you to wear a muffler. The damp gets into one's chest, you know."

His laugh began effervescently, but caught in his throat and gurgled towards the end. He cleared it with a shallow cough. "Seems to me the damp's already in there," he said wryly. When her brows arced up, he frowned. "Hell. If I can't laugh about it to my wife, then I really am ready for the boneyard."

Somehow Mary managed to smile. "Well, you must keep _more_ damp from coming in, then. Don't you be showing off to those men from the coast. Pride goeth before destruction."

Cullen hummed noncommittally. Then every trace of a smile left his face. "There was something I wanted to ask you," he said. His eyes travelled off of her face and over his shoulder, towards her dressing-table. "I don't know quite how to do it, 'cause I know it's yours now…"

"What is it?" Mary asked, her heart fluttering. The strain that had suddenly drawn upon the corners of his mouth was frightening. "Cullen, what's wrong?"

"My mother's necklace," he said flatly, still looking away. "It's worth three times more at a city jeweler's than it is in Meridian, and I thought if it did come to selling it I'm better off doing it now…"

"Sell your mother's necklace?" Mary echoed. Suddenly her hands and feet felt cold, and her fingers slipped down his beard to cling to his coat instead. Had they really come to such desperate straits, that Cullen might consider hawking his one memento of the mother he scarcely remembered – a treasure Mary had always thought of as belonging to the daughter they had not yet had – just to meet the year's expenses?

"I know I gave it to you," he muttered, and the misery in his voice was obvious. "But it ain't… some of your other pieces are a lot more fashionable, and—"

"Take them all!" she declared, slipping out of his wavering grasp and sailing across the room. She was wearing her narrow hoop and it swung with her momentum, dragging back a little as she seized the jewel-box and turned. She thrust it into his right hand, and seized his left to plant it on the lid. "If we need the money for seed or supplies or debts, you should sell them."

"I can't do that," he breathed. "Your debutant brooch and all the rest, they're your own property. You brung 'em into this marriage. I'll just… just the necklace, if you're willing."

Mary caught his eyes at last, and she held them. "Please take them all," she said, her heart and soul in perfect earnest. "If it helps the family, I'm proud to do it. After all you've done this year to keep us afloat, it's such a little thing."

"A lady ought to have _some_ jewelry," Cullen said helplessly. He glanced down at the box, and his hold upon it tightened as if he were clinging to it while shoulder-deep in snatching ocean waves. "It might not even come to it, if I can manage a half-decent price, but you just never know what the market will take…"

"I don't need jewelry," Mary said firmly. "When I walk into a ballroom I'm the center of female admiration already, with you on my arm. And I don't care for the opinion of any gentleman but one. _You_ don't need diamonds to make you look at me, now do you?"

The fathomless gray orbs swept over her face, and the lines of tension at his lips and brow softened in tenderness. The left corner of his mouth danced upward with the swift, fading beauty of a lightening bug on a summer's night. "You know I don't," he said.

"Then take them," she said, and this time her smile came from her heart. "You may not even need them, just as you said, but if it does come to that we're wisest to wrangle the best price we can. I know you have a talent for _that_."

A tiny, hoarse little laugh carried Cullen to the edge of the bed, where he looked from the jewel-box to the valise and back. "The confidence you and Bethel seem to have in me, it's a wonder I can't move mountains."

"Oh, you could do that, too, if you saw any point to it," Mary assured him. As his hand stretched for the clasp on the suitcase, she waved it away. "Let me do that: you'll only muss up all my careful folding!"

Cullen let the little box be whisked from his hands and straightened a little, drawing back. Then Mary very nearly closed her eyes in a prayer of thankfulness when at last he grinned, broadly and sincerely: his spirits raised at last, if only for a moment. "Yes, ma'am," he said crisply. "Just as you say, ma'am."


	88. Seeing Off the Master

_Note: I'm sorry the update is so tardy. Perhaps it can help take the edge off this mid-season hiatus nonetheless. In other news, this week's episode included a sliver of backstory that is extremely important to "Mudded": the name of Cullen's boy. While I could either just ignore it (doesn't sound like me…) or go back and change the entire story, I have settled on a third option. This possibility was carefully considered when I embarked upon this project, and space was left to incorporate a first name other than the one I chose in January 2014. And thus do I present: Joshua Gabriel Bohannon, age not-quite-four. Nicknames and diminutives were endemic among the planter class, as we see from such famous cases as James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart and George Thomas "Tige" Anderson. Hence young Joshua Gabriel being known as "Gabe" is culturally appropriate. As to why, if this was the case, Cullen used his legal name (Joshua) when speaking to Ruth, I merely present the following question for your consideration. Given that Cullen has been unable to speak his son's name even in the most intimate of moments (such as to Elam in 107: Redemption, and to Doc Whitehead in 201: Viva la Mexico) over the last three years, is it inconceivable that he would find himself unable to use his child's beloved pet name even now? Would not the shelter and distance provided by a seldom-used formal name be a snippet of comfort at such a traumatic moment? _

_See Chapters 3, 26 and 53 for the early integrations of the new name. (This chapter posted between 410 and 411.)_

**Chapter Eighty-Eight: Seeing Off the Master**

Bethel had arranged the others in the front entryway, in a tableau that had been played out time and again through human history: the gathering of the household to bid the master farewell. It was an ancient, almost feudal custom that the aging head woman had observed devoutly for as long as Cullen could remember. In the old days she had gathered the house slaves, the foreman and the groom who had served as a carriage-driver – and of course the young scion of the family. Today the turnout was not so different, though the household was much reduced. Near the foot of the stairs, just in front of the hall table, stood Gabe, trying manfully not to fidget. Lottie was at his right, weary-looking but bright-eyed. Beyond her was Bethel, in her black Sunday best with an immaculately clean apron and headrail. She stood with a quiet dignity that Cullen had always admired, as peculiar as it might seem, for she was proud of her home and of those she had turned out so neatly today.

At Bethel's other hand was Elijah, one foot on either side of the threshold. Though the day was cool, the front door stood open and ready. Elijah had combed out his grizzled beard into a fan of tight waves, and his hair was wetted down. He had his hat in his hand, held respectfully over his breast. He had also changed into his good shirt at some time after putting away Gus and Betsy, whom Cullen had driven over to West Willows first thing after chores to return the cotton wagon. Beyond Elijah was Meg, wearing her bonnet and Bethel's shawl in preparation for the drive into town.

Only Nate was missing, still laid up in bed in a haze of pain and anodyne. Doctor Whitehead's prognosis had been somewhat less encouraging than Bethel's. After a torturous examination that involved firm tapping of the suspect bone, Doc had determined that Nate's scapula was almost certainly cracked. He would have to stay in the sling for at least four weeks, not two, and might not be able to return to his normal labors even then. His other hurts were less serious, though the physician found a contusion on the back of his head that the women had missed. He had also warned about the potential damage to Nate's left kidney, advising him to drink sparingly and to watch for blood in his urine. Privately he had reassured Cullen that the harm would not be permanent, provided that Nate obeyed instructions and did not strain his arm.

Now, coming down the stairs behind his wife with valise and hat in hand, Cullen found the black man's absence oddly unsettling. Although he knew precisely where Nate was, it seemed strange to have him separated from the rest of the household.

When she reached the last step, Mary sailed around the newel-post with tartan skirts swinging. She took up the position to Gabe's left, where the mistress of the house belonged. As she did so, she dipped low to kiss the crown of his head. The little boy beamed up at her. His arms were crossed over his chest, holding a bundle of papers.

"I guess I'm meant to run the gauntlet," Cullen said, trying to hop lightly off of the last step and not quite managing it. He stepped up to Mary, and let her clasp his hand in both of hers. "We ain't saying _our_ goodbye here."

"All the same, we should honor the custom," she said. "For good luck."

Cullen let out a puff of air that was neither quite a scoff nor a chuckle. "I'll take all I can get," he said.

Mary smiled radiantly, and rose up on her toes to peck him on the cheek. Her eyes shifted uneasily as she did so, feeling the fever, but she said nothing of it.

Cullen turned to Gabe, who immediately swayed his back and thrust out his stomach in an attempt to hoist his armload of papers.

"Fo' readin' on de train, Pappy," he announced.

Cullen took the stack and turned it over. There were half a dozen copies of _Harper's Weekly_, brought by the Tates in the Christmas barrel and untouched since. Thumbing swiftly through, Cullen saw that Mary must have vetted them for content: the issues were not consecutive.

"Thank you, sir," he said gravely, making Gabe puff out in importance. "That's a fine idea."

"I was goin' give you my book," Gabe confided, man-to-man; "but Mama say it too heavy."

"I wouldn't want to read _The Dragon's Teeth _without you anyhow," said Cullen in a dry voice that parted Mary's lips in a silent laugh. They both knew that story intimately enough by now that they could almost recite it by rote. "It just wouldn't be the same, would it?"

"Nope," Gabe agreed solemnly. Then his eyebrows lifted hopefully. "We read it togedder? When you come home?"

"You bet," Cullen said. He tucked the periodicals under his arm and crouched before his son. "You be a good li'l man and listen to your mama while I'm away, and I'll be sure and bring you a present."

"An' Bet'l," Gabe declared.

"Sure. A present for Bethel, too," Cullen assented with a sidelong smile at the black woman standing over him. Her lips twitched almost imperceptibly towards a smile, but she maintained her formal decorum.

"No, Pappy, I's goin' _listen_ to Bet'l!" Gabe said in amused exasperation. Then he leaned in and added conspiratorialy; "But I t'ink Bet'l need a present, too. Mebbe a ribbon? De ladies, dey likes de ribbons."

"Is that so? That's what the ladies like?" Cullen said, restraining himself admirably.

Gabe gave a somber nod. "An' biscuits. Mos' ev'ybody likes biscuits."

"I'll make a note of that," said Cullen seriously. He started to stand, and then dropped back into his squat. "What about a hug for your old pappy?" he asked.

Gabe fell against him, squeezing tightly, and Cullen wrapped his free arm around the child's narrow back. He felt thinner, somehow, than Cullen expected: not until just now had he noticed the true toll that the whooping cough and its loss of appetite had been taking on his son. Gabe's nose pressed against his front, and the dark curls tickled his throat, and Cullen was seized with an irrational desire to hold him close and never let go.

"That's my boy," he said softly, a husky note keeping his voice from trembling. Gabe hugged him tighter, and Cullen had to use his hand to draw him gently away. Large, long-lashed gray eyes looked up at him, shiny with a film that wanted to break into tears. Despite the sudden stinging in his own throat, Cullen grinned broadly.

"Remember you's the man of the house while I'm gone," he said. "Keep that popgun handy."

Gabe's lips formed a startled "O". "It in de kitchen! I's forgot!" He turned as if to run for the dining room door, but Mary caught hold of his shoulder.

"It's all right, lovey," she said. "You may go and get it later."

"Awright, den," Gabe sighed, falling back into ranks. Cullen stood up, and the child's eyes followed his face. "Pappy…" he murmured.

"Don't you worry. I'll be back, remember?" Cullen said as cheerfully as he was able. "And then Bethel can make them biscuits of hers."

"Yassir!" Gabe said, focused once more on the gains instead of the fears. "Twelve biscuits. I's goin' count dem all!"

"Best get practicing," suggested Cullen as he took a step down the line and stopped in front of Lottie. She stood up straighter, hands clasped behind her back. "What about you, Miss?" he asked. "You want me to bring you back a ribbon from New Orleans?"

Lottie's color deepened and she twisted one foot self-consciously in Mary's bedshoe. "I don' need no ribbons, Mist' Cullen. But I would like me a biscuit with strawberry jam."

"Ooh! _Ooh_! Gabe exclaimed. "I likes jam! Bet'l. Bet'l! May 'Ottie 'n me have some jam? On a spoon: we don' got no biscuits."

Bethel's eyes softened indulgently as she looked at the child. "Once we's see'd your pappy off, then you kin have a li'l taste of jam," she promised. "Big cup of milk, too. Now stan' up straight like a gent'man."

"We'll see to it you get a biscuit; I promise," Cullen said to Lottie as Gabe amended his posture and tugged on the bottom of his wee waistcoat. "And some new shoes."

"Oh, Mist' Cullen, that'd be mighty fine!" Lottie breathed. She smiled hopefully. "You's goin' git a good price fo' the tobacco, I knows it. It the fines' crop I's ever see'd!"

She had seen few enough crops in her short life, and did not really know a thing about tobacco quality, but Cullen was grateful for her innocent certainty nonetheless. He grinned and held out his hand so that the girl could shake it. "I'll bear that in mind, Lottie: thanks," he said. "Don't you work too hard while I'm gone. Gabe'll run you ragged if you let him."

"I won'." Gabe ruffled indignantly and frowned at his father. "I's takin' good care of 'Ottie while she gots de cough. I ain' runnin' her nowheres."

"Glad to hear it," said Cullen. "Just you keep it up. Take care, Lottie. I expect to find you've taken a turn for the better when I come home."

"Yassir, Massa, I's surely goin' try my best," she pledged proudly, thrusting out her chin. Cullen smiled and offered her a wink as he stepped down to Bethel.

"I's got your med'cine in the basket, 'long with a li'l sumthin' fo' supper," she said without waiting for him to speak first. "You take that soothin' syrup ev'y night, an' the cordial if'n the fever don' break. An' you gots to be sure you's eatin', even if that hotel food ain' what you might expect at home. Be sure an' git some beef in you if they's offerin' it: it goin' put some strength in your blood. An' fo' Heaven's sake, chile, don' you take too much hard likker. You don' need you no mornin'-after sickness on top of that kink cough."

Cullen felt a spark of amusement at this brisk deluge of instructions, but it was also a comforting thing to have Bethel fuss over him: it had been a constant throughout his life, and had the ease of the familiar. "I'll behave myself," he promised. "Some drinking's unavoidable when gentlemen get together."

"I knows that; that why I say _too much_!" Bethel scoffed. She frowned, and only the constraints of the leave-taking custom kept her from wagging her finger in his face. "An' you wrap up warm on that train!" she said. "Them furnaces they gots in the cars don' never heat the whole thing, so you git youself a seat nice 'n close. It good manners to give up a good spot fo' a lady, but jus' you remember you's sick an' gots to take care of youself. Don' you be lettin' chivalry bring you down with pneumonia."

"Yes, ma'am," said Cullen. He had not discussed the details of his travel arrangements with Bethel or Mary, for precisely this reason. He reached between Bethel and Elijah for his overcoat, which hung upon its customary peg. He held it aloft for a moment, pointedly, then pulled it on. "You see? Wrapping up warm."

"Hmph." Bethel turned around and picked up a knitted muffler from the narrow hall table. She lassoed Cullen's neck with it, and then frowned at his unfastened stock. "You's leavin' the house lookin' like a wild thing," she scolded, and she took hold of the strip of silk. With four swift, sure motions she had tied it, and she smoothed the ends down into the front of his vest. She adjusted his watch chain with a flick of one finger, and then nodded approvingly. "That more like it," she said. Then she seized one end of the muffler and wound it swiftly about his throat, three times and far more snugly than he liked.

"Take it easy, there," Cullen chuckled, tugging at the wrap with his forefinger to loosen it. "You want me cozy, not strangled."

"An' I wants you to be sure'n take care," Bethel declared. "You don' never pay no 'ttention to that body of your'n, not when you's got your min' fixin' on sumthin' else. Let them rail slaves do the liftin', too: spare that shoulder."

"I will," he promised. Then, before she could upbraid him any further, he moved down the line to Elijah. The milky dark eyes met his, neither mournful nor anxious nor filled with hope he might not meet. It was a relief to look into them.

"Manage the place as you see fit. I know I can rely on you," said Cullen. "The smokehouse needs a good clearing-out for butchering. If there's time, maybe you could see about putting the lawn to rights. Don't worry about the plowing. I'll see to it when I get back."

"Yassir, Massa," Elijah said levelly. "Don' you, neither."

"Don't I what?" asked Cullen, eyes narrowing in puzzlement.

"Worry 'bout the plowin'. Ain' no sense bellyachin' 'bout what cain't be he'ped." His wizened face was neutral, and his voice gave no sign of bitterness or fear. He was merely imparting the wisdom of his years, straightforward and stalwart as always.

Cullen nodded shortly, appreciative of the old foreman's sense. Elijah had a farmer's temperament, as he himself did not. "And keep Nate from straining himself," he said. "I don't want him doing much of anything about the place. If he's up and grousing in a couple of days, find something to keep him busy and off that arm at the same time."

"Yassir. He kin sort the feed corn," said Elijah. "It jus' 'bout dry enough fo' shuckin'."

"Perfect," Cullen said. "And if anything comes up that you ain't able to cope with on your own—"

Elijah shook his head firmly. "That ain' goin' happen. If'n it did, I'd sen' Meg over yonder to Wes' Willows to consult with young Johnny."

"That's fine," mumbled Cullen. Johnny was Boyd's head foreman, and he was well into his forties, but Elijah persisted in addressing him as he had twenty-five years ago. "I know I'm leaving the place in good hands."

"Thankee, Massa," Elijah said calmly. "Travel careful. You don' never know with trains."

Now Cullen was at the end of the line, but for Meg. He stepped to her, and she reached to take the valise from his left hand. Cullen shook his head. "I've got it," he said. "What about the basket?"

"Awready in the buggy, Mist' Cullen," Meg said. "An' I gots you a two-quart jug of good well water, on 'ccount you say train water don' taste right."

"That's good thinking, Meg: thank you," he said. Then he looked back up into the house and raised his eyebrows at his wife. She smiled at him, and took her wrap from the table behind her. It was a demi-cape of luxuriant burgundy velvet, the collar and edges trimmed with white fox. There were slits for her hands, also rimmed in fur, and it fastened down the front with braid baubles called, inexplicably, "frogs". The garment was a remnant of Mary's Manhattan wardrobe, suited to a balmy New York autumn or a cold November day in Mississippi, and it complimented Mary's complexion perfectly. She swept it around her shoulders and fastened the front deftly, then reached for her silk faille bonnet.

Suddenly Gabe's eyes, drawn to her by the swish of the cloak, grew enormously wide, and his face twisted in horror. "Mama?" he gasped. "You's goin' too? Oh, no, _no!_"

His breath hitched, rising swiftly towards a sob, and he seized her skirt with both hands, flapping it. "You can't go! _Pappy_ goin'! Ev'ybody goin' go an' _leave_ me!"

"Hush, darling, hush," Mary soothed, kneeling swiftly and embracing him with one hand while the other held her bonnet safely off to the side. "I'm not going. I'm just riding into Meridian to see Pappy to the train, so that Meg needn't come back alone. I'm not going all the way to New Orleans."

"I don' wants you goin'!" Gabe argued. Fat tears were running down both cheeks now. "You gots to stay. Please don' leave me, Mama!"

"I'm not. I promise," she said helplessly, whisking away one tear with the back of her finger and then moving to the other. "Don't cry, lovey. Mama isn't going away. I'm only going as far as the train station, I promise. I'll be back in time to help Bethel fix supper."

Gabe was holding onto her cape now, crushing twin fistfuls of the luxuriant fabric. His body shuddered with a noiseless sob, and he shook his head frantically. "No, no, no!" he repeated. "You gots to stay here. You gots to! I's goin' be sad! I's goin' be lonesome! I's goin'… I's goin' _cough_!"

He certainly would cough if he did not stop crying, Cullen thought anxiously. Hastily he handed the suitcase off to Meg after all, only just maintaining the tenuous grip of his third and fourth fingers on the rim of his hat. She took the bundle of _Harper's Weekly _with her other hand, leaving him free to stride swiftly back to his wife's side. Cullen dropped to one knee so that he could cup his hand over Gabe's shoulder.

"Here now, don't you worry," he said. "You think I'd take Mama away and leave you all alone with Bethel?"

As he had hoped, Gabe gave him an aghast look, startled right out of his incipient weeping. "Bet'l, she takes good care of me," he said loyally.

"Sure she do," said Cullen. "But a boy needs his mama, too. She'll stay right here with you, won't you, Mama?"

She turned to him, eyes wide. "I can't," she gasped. "I've promised… and Meg can't be expected to… not alone. Not after everything that's happened."

"Meg can stay, too. I'll walk it," said Cullen. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were nonsense. If he tried to walk the six miles now, he would miss the afternoon train. "I'll ride," he amended; "and hire a boy to walk Pike back."

"Don't be absurd," Mary scolded under her breath. Then she stroked the child's cheek again and smiled at him. "Gabe is going to be brave and patient. He's our little man, and he's going to stay here with Bethel, and have some jam and milk with Lottie, and wait for me to come home. Isn't that right, Gabe?"

He blinked up at her, then looked at Cullen again. The cogwheels of reason were turning swiftly in his head, and his lower lip first quivered, then folded back over his teeth. His upper lip stretched thoughtfully in a way that Cullen recognized from his own habits, and then he closed his mouth and nodded. "You's comin' right back?" he asked, fixing his gaze on Mary. "You's goin' he'p Bet'l fix my supper? Tonight? You _ain't _goin' on dat train."

"That's right," Mary promised. She ran her fingers through his curls and smiled fondly. "I just need to see Pappy safely to the station."

"An' Pappy goin' to N'Orlins," Gabe said, pointing at Cullen. "He goin' sell de tobacco, an' he comin' back 'gain, too. He goin' bring de nice t'ings, dat what Pappy say."

"Yeah," huffed Cullen. It was his turn to reach out to ruffle the child's hair. Gabe's head tilted in against his palm, and a faint smile touched his little mouth. "I'll be back before you know it."

Gabe's eyes narrowed. "I's _goin'_ know it," he warned. Then he said magnanimously; "But you may have Mama to see you to de train. I's goin' stay wid Bet'l."

"That's my brave boy," Cullen said quietly, his chest tight with pride in his son. It was an act of great courage for such a small child, still vulnerable in the wake of an awful illness and already anxious about his father's departure. "I'll be back next week. Mama can help you count the days.

"Awright," Gabe said. He nodded his head again, much more steadily this time, and sidestepped out of Mary's hold. He reached for Cullen's hand, which was still upon his shoulder, and patted it stoutly. "You take care on dat train, Pappy," he instructed. "Don' let de shiverin' bring down wid New Nomia!"

For a moment Cullen had no idea what he was trying to say. Then Mary giggled softly, glancing up at Bethel, and he remembered her dour warning about chivalry and pneumonia. He grinned. "I won't," he pledged. He slipped his hand up the back of Gabe's neck to cup his skull, and pulled him forward so that he could kiss him between the eyes. Gabe's lashes fluttered low for a moment, and then he planted a palm on each side of Cullen's face and gave him a noisy smacking kiss square upon the lower lip.

"Awright, then," said Cullen, getting to his feet at last. "So much for fond farewells. Why don't you and Lottie find that jam?"

"An' my gun," Gabe agreed. He turned and took hold of Lottie's wrist, leaning his whole body into the effort of tugging upon her arm. "C'mon, 'Ottie. It in de kitchen: I knows it!"

Lottie let herself be led off, and Cullen offered his hand to Mary as she rose. Bethel shook her head dourly.

"Ain' no joke, Mist' Cullen," she said. "If'n you comes back to me with a rotted-out chest, you's goin' have plenty to answer for."

"Yes, ma'am," Cullen said. He gave her a little bow and led Mary over the threshold, stopping to settle his hat on his head once he was out of the house. Meg looked at him expectantly, and he motioned that she should go ahead. She hurried down the steps and through the gate to the waiting buggy, trying to juggle her burdens so that she could open its low door.

"Please allow me," Mary said smoothly, springing the latch. Meg shot her a small, thankful smile and hoisted the small case onto the floor. A basket with a napkin tucked over its contents sat on the padded seat, and Meg reached to push it to the other side so that Mary could take its place. Beneath it was the slim leather folio that held the railroad paperwork and the carefully penned lists of necessary items, and Meg picked it up to stack it with the copies of _Harper's Weekly_.

Cullen raised his arm to aid in Mary's ascent, but her hand hardly seemed to float upon it. She swooped up as gaily as if she were going to a ball, instead of making a dull journey down to the railhead. She let her hoop collapse into a modest ellipse as she sat, and smoothed her skirts over it. Then she reached down for the papers. "I can carry those," she said, smiling at Meg. "If you would like, you may ride beside me on the way into town. So long as you don't mind holding the supper-basket."

The basket was too large for one man's supper, even with the medicine-bottles to account for, but Cullen did not say that. Bethel was in the doorway now, watching with a solemnity that bordered on disapproval and was yet colored with something else – wistfulness, he thought. He waggled his fingers at her as he closed the buggy door, careful not to catch Mary's frock in it.

"Oh, I don' know, Missus," Meg demurred uneasily, glancing up towards the house and the aging matriarch standing there. "I's meant to be up on the board; I's on'y a field hand."

"When you's ridin' with a lady, you's a lady's 'ttendant," Bethel said firmly. "If'n Missus Mary want you in the carriage, that where you b'long."

Cullen climbed onto the box as Meg rounded the buggy, and reached down to unlatch it for her. Mary pulled the valise in closer to her ankles to clear room for Meg's feet, and the hoopskirt sprang out to cover it in tartan. As Meg stepped up, Mary lifted the basket, and soon it was settled in the black woman's lap. She shot a nervous little sidelong look at her mistress, and Mary squeezed her hand comfortingly.

"It's cozier riding with two," she said.

Cullen straightened on the driver's seat, putting one foot comfortably up on the bar as he took the reins. Pike and Bonnie raised their heads instantly, eager to ride. With a last wave towards the house, where Bethel and Elijah stood watching, he urged on the horses towards the lane.

_*discidium*_

The train was waiting on the westbound track, its engine sending up a column of curling steam towards an indifferently gray sky. The locomotive was painted a velvety blue, so dark that it was almost black, and studded with starbursts of white and yellow. The paint was still bright, without the dull patina that came with long wear and years of soot and dust wearing away at the shine. Mary, who had grown up in eager anticipation of visits to her father's rail-yards, judged that the engine was not less than five and not more than seven months in service, at least since her last repainting. She was a handsome new-model Baldwin and bore the apt name of _Fire Fly_. She must have been a costly acquisition for the Southern of Mississippi, and she would no doubt provide her passengers with a smooth, swift ride. It cheered Mary's heart to see such a jaunty locomotive mustered to carry her husband on the first leg of his journey. She was not a superstitious woman, but it did seem like a good omen.

The engine let off a fresh head of steam as Cullen drew the horses up near the platform, and though Pike's ears flattened a few degrees both Morgans remained calm. A mule pulling a clumsy two-wheeled trap let out a frightened bellow and balked, forcing the darky driver to rein him in. Cullen murmured soft words of praise that seemed lost in the cacophony of the busy junction but were apparently audible to Bonnie. She tossed her head proudly and nickered.

"Good girl," he sighed, his shoulders slumping momentarily before he straightened his back and put down his foot. He tied off the reins and twisted his hips on the driver's seat to look back at Mary.

"Don't trouble with getting down," he said. "It's another twenty minutes before the train pulls out, but I've got to make sure the stuff in general freight is really aboard. That's Henrietta there." Cullen pointed up the length of the train to an old wooden-roofed boxcar two back from the locomotive. "My little bit of serendipity. We've got a hundred and sixty-eight boxes loaded on her, and all the good stuff."

"She's lovely," Mary said. All day she had been doing her utmost to exude an air of pleasant serenity, smoothing her own worries under a layer of handsome gouache. Cullen had troubles enough to bear without leaving an anxious wife behind. "Will there be enough time to transfer it all in Jackson?"

"I've got the whole night," said Cullen. "And the foreman in the yard gave me the name of the best team boss on the other end. I'll keep a sharp lookout to be sure it all goes smoothly and—" Abruptly he stopped, slapping the left breast pocket where his cigar case resided. "Damnation: I forgot the fresh cigars!"

"Bethel put them in the basket," Mary soothed. Cullen had sat up late on Saturday, rolling four dozen out of the very best tobacco: twenty-four each in air-cured and smoke-cured. He could offer them as favors to gentlemen he met through his business associates, or as samples to buyers. They were an essential prop for the all-important drama to be played out in the lively port city. "She used the good cedar box, and put a whole leaf between the layers, just as you like them."

"How'd she know to do that?" asked Cullen, eyebrows flicking upward in mild surprise.

Mary gave him an indulgent half-smile. "She's watched you prepare every year since – I'm sure I don't know. She knows how everything is done in our house, Cullen. You ought to know that."

"Sure I do," he said. He shook his head almost dazedly and plucked at the snugly-wrapped muffler. "Listen, Mary. While I'm gone, if there's any trouble—"

"There won't be any trouble," she said firmly. "You mustn't think like that."

"All the same, if there is—"

"Then I can trust Doctor Whitehead for guidance, and Boyd for material aid," said Mary. "Mr. Washburn is the one to consult if it's to do with the livestock, and I can speak to Mr. Boam at the post office if it is of a political nature, but never a private one: he is not to be trusted to keep a secret, however well-meaning he is."

Cullen's jaw hung loose for a moment, and then snapped shut again. "Right," he said. "I've told you all this before, haven't I?"

Mary nodded. "Every time you go away, just not ordinarily all at once. Don't worry, Cullen. You do trust me, don't you?"

"Course I do," he mumbled, almost reflexively. Then he reached out for her hand, and she extended it. His palm was very hot, and it should have been slick from holding the reins. Instead it was dry as new leather, the calluses rough against her pampered fingers. As they cut the wind that was curling through the town, Mary found her throat go tight. Cullen sheltered her with his intellect and his ceaseless labors as his hand now sheltered hers. He was going off to do battle in a far-off arena, just to protect and provide for her and for her child, and she could not go with him.

He had always intended to take her one day, for he said a beautiful wife was an asset in the social overtures so essential in the close-knit circles of Southern commerce. But by November of their first year of marriage she had been heavily pregnant and confined by custom and decency to the house, and every year since she had been occupied with raising a small child. Perhaps she might have gone this year, if not for the whooping cough, Nate's injuries and the host of other disasters, great and small, that had tainted the last few months. Cruelly, these same factors meant that Cullen might have benefited most of all from her presence on this journey.

"Please be careful," she whispered, forgetting Meg's presence beside her. She leaned forward, and then rose up a few inches off the seat. She only just remembered to catch hold of the bundle of papers and leather in her lap as she kissed Cullen's cheekbone. "Take care of yourself for me, as I'll not be there to do it."

"I will," he promised. "And you take care… well, of everybody."

"Of course." It was growing difficult to shape words, and Mary was grateful when Cullen looped off the reins and climbed down. He took the periodicals from her, and reached for the basket. Meg passed it to him, and then hurriedly unlatched the buggy door.

"I'd bes' carry this int' the car," she fussed, picking up the valise and water jug from the floor of the buggy and hastening around to Cullen's side. She looked at the platform steps with obvious unease that she tried to hide under a brave little smile. "That what a coachman do, ain' it, Mist' Cullen?"

"Don't know. Never had a coachman," said Cullen. "I won't be boarding straight away: I need a word with the conductor. You go on and take Mrs. Bohannon to the post office. It's just on the other side of the tracks, to your right as you head back the way we came. Take good care of our girl while I'm away: can't have Lottie sick forever."

Meg nodded with shy gratitude, and then looked up at him with worry in her rich dark eyes. "Mist' Cullen, 'bout them horses… I ain' never driven them b'fore. You knows that, don' you?"

"Ain't no different from driving the mules," Cullen said with precisely the right mixture of empathy and off-handedness in his voice. It was an immensely reassuring tone. "Just hold the reins a little snugger, or Bonnie will break into a canter. If she does, just tug her back in a bit like you'd do to stop Gus and Betsy. Pike'll take your part if she don't slow up, and they know all the same commands the mules do."

"Yes, Massa, you done said so," Meg acknowledged. "But them horses, they's awful 'spensive. I 'spects they's worth more'n me!"

"Ain't a horse in the world worth more than you, Meg, whatever an auctioneer might say," Cullen declared breezily. "You can do this. There's nothing to it. Pike and Bonnie are smart. They'll do the driving for you, so long as you don't let them have too much rein. Get on up there, now, and do your best. There's a li'l man back home a-waitin' for his mama."

He bent and took the valise from her hand, then tilted his head pointedly at the driver's seat. With a last unsteady breath of trepidation, Meg handed him the jug and climbed up and took hold of the reins. Under her unfamiliar touch, Bonnie took a fidgeting half-step that made the buggy roll eight inches forward before easing back again.

"Hey, now," Cullen said, taking three strides backward so that he could look the horses in the eyes. "Meg's a bit of a novice, so you go easy on her. No tricks: just home safe."

Pike dipped his head in a gesture that looked uncommonly like a nod, and Bonnie blew a trumpet of air over vibrating lips. Cullen set the valise up on the wooden platform, and reached to scratch her behind the ear. "Good girl," he said again, almost inaudibly. Pike received the same gesture, but no guilty benediction. His future was not tied quite so imminently to the outcome of the New Orleans trip.

Cullen deposited the dinner basket and the pile of papers next to the suitcase, using the former to weigh down the latter, and set the jug beside them. He came back to the side of the buggy nearest Mary. She leaned forward over the side, holding the top of the door like a little girl staring out a stagecoach window as the country flew by. Cullen put his hands on hers and gazed up at her. His eyes were nebulous and cloudy, and yet still unmistakably tender.

"I'll be back on the fifth, angel," he whispered. "You take care of our boy."

"I will," she breathed. "I love you."

He picked up her right hand and, in an uncharacteristically romantic gesture, brushed it to his lips. Her fingers curled around his as if they too were reluctant to see him go. "Don't forget," he said. "When I come back, we's going riding."

"Yes!" Mary said, and a warm smile blossomed freshly upon her face. He was leaving her with this: not just a happy thought to cherish until their reunion, but a glimmer of hope that his spirits were not beaten down nor his mood too black. When he whirled away from her, taking the platform steps two at a time and swooping low to snatch up his baggage again, it almost did not hurt to watch him go. He would return to her, as he always had and always would: cough or no cough, good price or bad.

But the sense of desolation came swiftly back as she watched him stride up the length of the train to where the conductor was overseeing the loading of the luggage car with last-minute trunks and cases. Tears pricked in her eyes, and the exhaustion of the last hard month seemed to loom over her like a monster.

"Missus Mary?" Meg said at last, very softly. She was turned in the seat and looking back, the reins held high and tentatively. "You wants to wait 'til the train go?"

"No, Meg, thank you," Mary said, straightening herself and brushing at her eyelashes with the side of her thumb. She tucked her cold hands back into the warm cocoon of her cloak. "The post office is likely to be quieter now, and the streets as well. Let's turn around."

Meg clicked her tongue and twitched the reins, then said "Giddyap!" for good measure. Pike and Bonnie responded gently, doubtless cognizant both of her inexperience and her uncertainty. The buggy took its turn tightly, far more tightly than Meg's hold on the lines would indicate, and they moved down past the platform and around the back of the train. The last car before the caboose was the elegant first-class passenger car with its heavy damask curtains and richly upholstered furnishings. Meg's eyes travelled to it as they passed it a second time, having bounced neatly over the tracks.

"Is that where Mist' Cullen goin' ride?" she asked, awestruck.

"I believe he's booked a second-class ticket this time, to save on the expense," said Mary. She indicated the next car, already filling with shadowy shapes of people behind the grubby glass. A stovepipe stood up from the roof at the front of the car, and she spared a moment to hope that Cullen would abide by Bethel's instructions and sit as near to it as he was able. "There are wooden seats in that one, and racks for the baggage."

The next two cars were third-class, notoriously overcrowded and furnished only with two long, bare benches running the length of each side. Then came the slave car, just the same as the third-class ones, but reserved for Negroes who were not needed to attend their white owners in the other four cars. This particular carriage seemed relatively empty, and Mary was glad. She did not like the idea of slaves travelling like that, segregated and belittled, perhaps even destined to be sold off in Jackson or New Orleans. She watched Meg's straight, brave back instead and wished desperately that some miracle would attend the tobacco-selling. If Cullen got a favorable price and cleared a hundred and fifty dollars, she was certain she could convince him to begin the arduous legal process of freeing their people. She was so close to talking him around.

They passed the flat cars piled high with timber, and then the boxcars strung right behind the engine. The passenger cars were always last, to decrease the discomfort and mess caused by the soot of the locomotive. The one Cullen had identified as Henrietta stood parallel to the main street of Meridian, and here Meg led the horses into a smooth turn before pulling to a stop beside the first hitching post on the right.

"This the one, Missus?" Meg asked, peering up at the mass of telegraph wires strung from the exchange apparatus on top of the building. From there they swept out to the tall, slender poles that carried the wires north, south, east and west along the rails.

"This is the one; thank you," Mary said. The horses should have been facing the hitching rail instead of standing next to it, but she did not have the heart to tell Meg this. She was already overcoming her fears just to drive them, without being made to feel that she was somehow inadequate. "I'll only be a minute or two. Just hold the lines loosely, and Pike and Bonnie will stay."

"Thankee, Missus Mary," said Meg. "I ain't never driven them b'fore."

Mary climbed down from the buggy, reticule swinging like a pendulum from her wrist. She hurried up onto the boardwalk and into the shade of the post office. There was only one gentleman ahead of her, and he stepped aside with a respectful; "Please, do go ahead, ma'am." Mary thanked him and smiled sweetly, treasuring the little moment of Southern chivalry. It was difficult to imagine a man in a busy Manhattan post office stepping aside for an unattended woman in a simply-cut cotton gown and an old, if costly, mantle. Mr. Boam took the letters – one to poor worried Jeremiah and another to her parents – and promised to send them on the morning train. Then she hurried back out into the street.

She felt suddenly very flustered, and terribly alone. Although she had certainly come to town on her own before, and not only on that awful occasion when Cullen had found himself incarcerated and in need of legal aid, she found she had grown used to her husband's companionship. She wanted him beside her now, and however she might insist to herself that this was ridiculous, she could not help but feel it. She was weary and overwrought, strained by the travails of recent weeks and still short on sleep, and she was afraid for Cullen and worried about the tobacco and at that moment she only wanted to go running back to the platform and beg him, as Gabe had begged her, not to go.

"Sumthin' wrong, Missus Mary?" Meg asked anxiously as the white lady scrambled up into the buggy and shut the door with indecorous force. Mary was groping for her handkerchief in a pocket made less accessible by the folds of her cape. "Is there anythin' I kin do to help? I'd do jus' _anythin'_ in my power, Missus Mary, I surely would."

"How do you bear it?" Mary blurted out, before she could think what she was saying or how trivial her present trial must seem in comparison to those of Meg's marriage. The words came out in a hoarse little yelp, skipping hastily over the wall of waiting tears. "How do you bear to be apart from your husband so much of the time? To never know for certain what he is doing or whether he is well or whether he is sick and suffering and in need of your help?"

Meg stared at her for a long moment, but not with the scorn Mary had feared. Her eyes were gentle and her brows mournful. Her lips trembled for a moment, and she shook her head. "Missus Mary, there ain' no choice but to bear it. Ain' a matter of _how_. It a matter of _gots to_. Mist' Cullen, he strong, an' the cough ain' so bad in growed folks. Ain' goin' be fo' him like it were fo' Mist' Gabe. An' trains, they don' go off'n the rails so much as they used to in the old days."

The thought of a derailment had not even occurred to Mary, and now it seemed absurd that it had not. In her flurry of irrational worries surely that one would have rated at least a mention. As the daughter of a railroad man, she knew the mode of travel was not without its hazards, and she knew how deadly such accidents could be. Yet she had spent so much strength in imagining Cullen choking on his own spittle, or accosted in some back alley by a Creole cutpurse, or tumbling off a slick levee into the sea that she had not even imagined the hazards between Meridian and Jackson. She laughed, the first syllable shrill and strained and the next few wry and rueful.

"Oh, Meg, why do we create such demons for ourselves?" she asked. "Aren't the troubles enough to bear when they come, without building them up ahead of time to worry us? The tobacco is safely on the train, and in a few minutes Cullen will be as well. There's nothing more worth fretting over."

Meg gave her a little, uncertain smile as if not quite sure how to take these words. "Don' reckon there is, Missus," she said. "'Part from how I's goin' git these horses on home. We gots our childern waitin'. Bes' jus' git 'long."

Mary nodded, comforted more than she could have hoped by this simple, pragmantic assent. But Meg's face crumpled in dismay. "I didn' mean… Missus Mary, I weren' tryin' to be too familiar, talkin' 'bout _our_ childern. I on'y meant I's got my Lottie, an' you gots Mist' Gabe, an'…"

"And we're both women who will feel much better for being home again," Mary said firmly. "Drive on, Meg: I believe you're right."

Meg nodded her head, her faded bonnet rocking with the motion. Then with a soft word, less nervous this time, Pike and Bonnie started down the main street towards the edge of town.


	89. Riding the Rails

_Note: "Get on Board", American Traditional. (This chapter was posted between 410 and 411.)_

**Chapter Eighty-Nine: Riding the Rails**

After confirming that his surplus was indeed aboard, and reassuring himself that the buggy carrying his wife was gone, Cullen went up to the top of the platform. The cars that had been loaded to capacity were hitched nearest to the engine, and Henrietta was the second of these. Her rear wheels were at the edge of the platform, and Cullen had to reach in order to lay hands on the padlock and chain securing her door. He used the key and let the chain slither out of its slits, then locked the ends together again. He hauled open the sliding panel, and felt a cool satisfaction as he looked inside.

The tobacco boxes were stacked high, with only enough clearance that the top layer could be easily lifted down. They filled the boxcar almost to capacity, with only the customary space left by the door to allow for straightforward offloading. The patch of bare floor was the width of one tobacco boxes, and only a little more than the length of two: just enough space for a pair of men to maneuver. It was in this nook against the door that Cullen intended to ride.

As he looked thoughtfully into the boxcar, hands absentmindedly coiling up the chain into the pocket of his coat, the conductor came up next to him.

"Everything to your satisfaction, Mr. Bohannon?" he asked good-naturedly. He was a portly man with luxurious muttonchop whiskers and a dark uniform with polished brass buttons.

Cullen glanced at him and took the long, springing sidestep around the corner of the boxcar opening. "Help me lift this one down," he said, reaching up to slap the side of a box of lugs.

The conductor frowned. "Are we off-loading? I can call for a ramp and a pair of darkies."

"Nawsir," said Cullen. "I just want it down on the floor. I'm riding with my freight, and it'll serve me for a bench."

With a nimbleness his girth belied, the conductor hopped the short distance between platform and car, grabbing hold of the doorstop bar as he did so. "This'un here?" he asked.

Cullen nodded. With a concerted effort and some careful shifting, they had the box down in the vacant space, squared against two stacks and just short of the right-hand wall. It left only a small quadrangle of bare floor for his feet, but it would serve.

The conductor dusted his hands on his pants and looked over the cargo with a long roll of the eyes. "A man needs to guard his tobacco now? What's the world coming to?"

For a moment Cullen did not understand, and when he did he had to restrain a grin. Of course that was the natural conclusion when a gentleman elected to ride a boxcar: not that he was too parsimonious to buy a passenger ticket, but that he wanted to personally guarantee the safety of his freight.

"Got no opinion on that," he said, taking lock and chain out of his pocket and stepping up on the corner of the tobacco box to put them on top of the slightly reduced stack. "Don't suppose it's changed any from yesterday."

The conductor took a little hopping launch off the edge of the car, landing squarely back on the platform. He picked up Cullen's valise and tossed it to him, then leaned out over the gap to hand off first the pile of papers and the folder of documents, then the basket, and finally the jug that Meg had so thoughtfully filled. Culllen had not thought of this particular convenience, but he should have. Today's journey would last six hours, and tomorrow's nearer to twelve. He would be glad of water.

"You want me to shut you in?" the conductor asked amiably.

"Does it latch from this side?" Cullen asked, even as he looked. There was a bracket inside the door, and a bar bolted to the wall. "Naw: I got it under control. Wouldn't want to be forgotten in there."

The conductor laughed and touched the brim of his hat. "Right then, Mr. Bohannon. You have a nice trip, now. "I'll come by and check on you when we get to Jackson."

"Much obliged," said Cullen. The man moved off to assist a middle-aged woman who was trying to corral two rambunctious boys and a shy-looking girl towards the first-class carriage. Cullen watched for a moment, and then turned to the task of arranging the stark little booth. He considered the stack of periodicals, and the indifferent gray daylight coming between the wall slats. Then he stowed them up top with the lock. He put the jug in the corner between the box of lugs and the stack beside it. The valise found a home next to that, and he put the basket on the box itself.

By this time the porters were closing the doors to the passenger cars, and the conductor was calling out his final warning to the laggards. Peering around the other side of Henrietta, Cullen could just see the flurry of activity ahead as the fireman fell to stoking the furnace. There was a grinding of gears and the squall of tightly-fitted metal as the brakes were released.

Back on the platform, leave-takers were waving to friends and relations now ensconced behind thick railway glass. Cullen was glad not to have his own anxious entourage twisting handkerchiefs and flapping hats as they watched him depart. It was better this way, for all concerned. He reached around to free the broad sliding door and hauled it closed. He snatched his arm in just before the heavy slab slammed into it, and suddenly he was shrouded in gloom. Even before his eyes had time to adjust, he had found the inner bar and rotated it down into the bracket, securing the door and shutting himself in. At the same moment the locomotive let off a blast of steam and a long, trilling whistle. The junction hardware rattled and creaked, and then the whole boxcar shuddered and jerked forward as the iron wheels began to grind against the track.

Cullen tensed at that first jolt, lean body swaying as his greatcoat swirled about his calves. Then the guarded stiffness left his limbs as the motion leveled off and began to build gradually towards running speed. He could feel the pumping of the pistons and the rattle of the connecting rods, even though there was another boxcar and a wood car between him and the engine. It was the heartbeat of the train: the power of fire and water and air harnessed to move this leviathan of iron. As the thin bands of light flipped and flickered, cut by telegraph poles and the shadows of buildings and then with trees, Cullen turned on steady legs. He moved with the surety of a born sailor putting out from port, and with a faint smile of satisfaction he sat. Now he could feel the rhythm of the train in his hips and spine, too. He stretched his long legs until the soles of his riding boots rested against the opposite pillar of tobacco boxes. He settled on the unyielding, makeshift seat with a soft sigh. After months of pointless, inept and backbreaking toil, it was time at last to do that which he did so well. The journey had begun.

_*discidium*_

At the top of the main street, Meg halted the horses carefully out of deference to a laden timber-wagon. The driver, however, saw the buggy, the pure-bred team, and Mary sitting in the padded seat, and did the same. Hastily he doffed his battered straw hat and offered a half-bow of respect. Mary nodded to him courteously.

"Go on, Meg," she said softly, still trying to fight off the inexplicable feeling of desolation that had seized her in the post office doorway. "The gentleman is letting us pass."

Meg cast a surprised half-glance over her shoulder before urging the horses on again. She was unused to being deferred to, of course, and might have been surprised at Mary's choice of noun as well. The man looked like a poor woodsman, and not like a gentleman at all. But a man's worth was not in his clothing: Mary's own husband had spent most of the year clad in tobacco-stained oilskins and a rough work-shirt. She smiled for the kind man as she passed, and he grinned in gratification.

They were rolling up a residential street now, brightly painted houses and handsome stucco façades muted somewhat by the gloomy day. There was not much traffic at this hour: only the little black buggy heading for the edge of town, and a horse and rider coming in the opposite direction. Mary withdrew her hands, now chilled, into the cover of her cape. She ought to have brought her mittens instead of the thin kid gloves, but she had honestly not expected such a chill in the air. She supposed that she must be growing acclimatized to life in Mississippi, if she was surprised by cold hands at the end of November.

"Missus?" Meg said querulously.

Mary looked up, puzzled, and saw that the rider had stopped, turning his horse broadside to block the road.

"Slow down; don't worry," Mary said, just as Meg's voice cracked in a high anxious utterance of; "Oh, Missus! _Missus_!"

Her hands were shaking so violently that the rings on the bridles jangled, and she did not seem able to draw the reins tight.

"Woah, Pike! Woah, Bonnie!" Mary ordered briskly, calling the horses to a halt a couple of yards short of the motionless rider. Only when the buggy stopped rolling did she have the liberty to look at the man's face. At once she understood Meg's terror, and had to restrain herself from flying to her feet, that she might fling her arms protectively around the other woman. Instead she tilted her chin upward, squared her shoulders regally, and called upon a lifetime of genteel training.

"Sheriff Brannan," she said, coolly and with a calm that astonished her. "Good afternoon."

Rather than remove his hat, as a gentleman ought, Brannan merely gave the brim a cursory tap. "Why, Miz Bohannon!" he said with a predatory grin. "You got to have a word with that husband of yours 'bout teaching your darkies to be better drivers. That's the second time in four days I's seen one of 'em stop short."

"It's the first time I have ever seen a rider deliberately obstruct an entire street, as well," Mary said mildly. "You're fortunate that Meg is such a _fine_ driver, or you might have been the cause of a disagreeable mishap."

The man's eyes narrowed, but he maintained the ugly smile. "I got to question your husband's good sense, ma'am," he said. "I wouldn't let no runaway Negress drive _my_ wife 'round town. If he don't have a man to spare, he could at least do it hisself."

A tremor ran up Meg's back, visible even beneath the heavy wool shawl. Mary leaned a little further forward, as if by doing so she might offer some small comfort. "Those who know my husband at all, Mr. Brannan, would never question his good sense," she said. "And I believe it was determined in court that Meg was _not _a runaway. Now if you would please let us pass, I'm sure we can all be about our business without the need for any unpleasantness."

"Where _is_ your husband anyway, Miz Bohannon?" asked the sheriff slyly. "He ain't gone off and left you all alone, now has he? Not with things being what they are 'round here!"

From his tone it was obvious that he knew where Cullen had gone, and likely how long he would be away. And the implied threat beneath the words was not lost on Mary. There were many ways to make trouble for a lady managing a plantation alone, and with Nate laid up there was not even a strong slave about the place.

Mary smiled as sweetly as she could, slipping forward on the smooth leather padding so that she could put her hand upon the back of the driver's seat. She positioned it with care, so that the side of her smallest finger pressed against Meg's unsteady elbow. The black woman leaned imperceptibly into the reassuring touch.

"Oh, I'm sure I have nothing to fear in my husband's absence, Mr. Brannan," she said in her very best parlor voice. She had been brought up to be charming to the unpleasant, boundlessly patient with the dull, and gracious even to the brutish, and those skills served her well even here, a thousand miles from the Manhattan drawing rooms that had been her training ground. "After all, with gentlemen such as yourself to maintain law and order, and care for the welfare of the citizenry, what could possibly befall the ladies of Lauderdale County?"

Brannan's chin retracted with a guttural snort, and the horse beneath him shifted in response to a sudden tug on the bit. His hand moved reflexively to the badge pinned to the front of his coat, then dropped impotently onto the saddle horn. "Well, now, I do my best, ma'am; I surely do," he fumbled, looking everywhere but at her steady blue eyes. "I hope you know that the… er, the safety of our women and children… it's the most important thing to any Southern man. Bein' from New York I don't s'pose you're used to that sort of dedication, but…"

"But I have lived in Mississippi long enough that I know I can rely upon it here," Mary finished artfully, inclining her head into a trusting little tilt. In the distance she heard the long, mournful sibilance of a steam whistle, and her heart seemed suddenly rent wide. The train was leaving the station. Cullen was gone. Somehow she maintained her charming expression and her gracious tone as she said; "Thank you for stopping me before I could leave town, just to remind me of that. It's such a comfort."

"My… uh… my pleasure, Miz Bohannon," stammered Brannan. There was a dazed look to him now, as if he could not quite understand how he had come to be in this position; abashed by her admiration instead of lording over her fright. Seeing his discomfiture, Meg's own terror was leveling off. She took a steady breath that Mary could feel through the slight contact between them.

"If you will excuse me, Sheriff, I have a young child waiting for me at home," said Mary. "I don't know if you've heard, but our boy has been ill with the whooping cough."

"Oh, yes, terrible sickness," he muttered. "Terrible. Doing the rounds of the county, ain't it? Seems like the doctor's out at all hours."

"Yes, terrible," Mary agreed. She smiled again, placidly and with a hint of regret. "I really must be going now. I hope we may converse again soon."

"Yes, ma'am. It'd be a pleasure, ma'am," Brannan blustered, distractedly gathering up his reins and leading his horse back into a turn that brought him parallel to the buggy. He whisked his hat from his head, sending his grizzled hair standing in every direction. "You take care now, Miz Bohannon. Take care."

"Thank you, Sheriff," said Mary. At last she was able to move her hand up to rest on the unsteady arm before her. "Drive on, Meg," she instructed gently.

For a moment she was afraid Meg would not be able to do it. Her eyes were still fixed warily on the sheriff, and she was still quaking deep in her bones. But either the words or the touch did register in her mind, and she flicked the reins.

"Git 'long now," she ordered hoarsely, and the Morgans obeyed. The buggy rolled on past Sheriff Brannan, still holding his hat deferentially and looking a little dazed. A moment later, the edge of the leather cover hid him from Mary's sight.

They had not gone more than ten feet when Meg slumped in the seat, shaking so violently that the fringe of Bethel's shawl danced. "Oh, Missus!" she gasped, her voice a strangled hiss of terror. "Oh, Missus Mary, I thought…"

"Not now, Meg: not here," Mary whispered urgently. The sheriff was only just behind them, not out of earshot and certainly still able to see the carriage. She got up onto her feet, hoop buckling, and wrapped her left arm around Meg's back to take the reins from her. Her right hand curled around the other woman's, clutching it consolingly. "We have to get out on the open road. Hold fast with me, Meg; be brave. You've been _so_ brave. Giddyap, Bonnie. _Giddyap_."

The mare, who had been waiting for such eager instruction for hours, pranced into a canter that Pike duplicated perfectly. Mary's knees buckled with the sudden acceleration, but she kept her feet and maintained the soothing wall of her body against Meg's spine. The houses began to rush by, and if anyone behind their afternoon-dimmed windows saw the strange spectacle of Mrs. Bohannon driving a loping team while standing in the back seat of the buggy, Mary could not see them. She kept her eyes on the road ahead, thankful that they had decided to bring the horses after all, despite Meg's greater rapport with Gus and Betsy. Pike and Bonnie were clever enough to know that Mary was not an experienced driver, and to understand that they must not break into a gallop or do anything else she could not handle.

Driving with one hand and embracing Meg with the other, Mary wondered how she would ever manage to endure the six increasingly rough miles ahead. But they had just passed the last small clapboard house and come among the tents and shanties when Meg cleared her throat and sat upright, rising out of the curved shelter of Mary's torso and taking hold of the reins.

"I kin drive, Missus," she said quietly, her voice almost inaudible over the rattle of the wheels. She cleared her throat and said more clearly; "I kin drive. Jus' you sit down. Ain' safe to be standin' at this speed."

Mary relinquished her hold on the reins and reached to hold the first steel bent of the buggy-top instead. Her right hand moved from Meg's wrist to her shoulder. "You did right, Meg, standing firm and quiet like that. I know it can't have been easy."

"Wasn' that, Missus," Meg said, and her voice cracked as if snagging over an unutterable sob. "It jus'… if you hadn' come 'long, if'n you'd stayed like Mist' Gabe wanted, an' that man had ketched me out driving 'lone…"

A tremor tore through her whole body, first dragging her low over her knees and then pulling her up straight in spastic defiance. She squared her shoulders with a little jerk and adjusted her hold on the lines. Bonnie and Pike did not even break in their stride as they fairly skipped past the last lonely little tent and out into the pastureland beyond.

"Don't think about it," Mary implored, her own throat suddenly stinging. Her knees now felt weak and she was compelled to sit, hands clutching one another to keep from shaking. If Brannan had found Meg driving alone, as he had done with Nate… "It doesn't do to think about it. Let's just go home."

_*discidium*_

With Mister Gabe balanced on her lap, one arm curled around him to keep him from toppling off to the side, and her other hand moving consolingly between his face and Lottie's, Bethel had little opportunity for thought and no capacity for action whatsoever. Lottie bowed low over the basin in her lap, retching up a gurgling mass of phlegm, and Mister Gabe clutched at Bethel's buttons as the whole of his small body jerked into a whoop. He fell into the next spate of coughs with a vengeance, almost as if he could beat his enemy into the ground by sheer force. It was the first time both children had fallen prey to the cough at the same moment, and it was a cruel little irony that they had only Bethel to help them through it.

Still she did her best, now brushing downy fluff from Lottie's forehead back into her hairline, now stroking Mister Gabe's wan cheek. The words of ineffectual consolation that did nothing more than perhaps keep the children from panicking, were suited to them both, and she did not think they were suffering from her divided attention. She kept a sharp lookout for signs of the fits turning bad: the blue tint about the lips, the particular shrill strain upon the meagre intake of breath, or the distant, glazed look that might take their poor watering eyes at any moment.

It was Lottie, remarkably, who took the first greedy gasp of air that broke the brutal cycle. She spat again, copiously and with almost spiteful vigor, and then sagged against the back of the récamier to pant. Mister Gabe's eyes followed her, wide with strain, as he coughed again and again, and made another tormented _whoop_.

"There, now, honey, that's better," Bethel murmured to Lottie. Then she cupped the little boy's cheek with one work-worn hand. "Jus' you hold on now, my lamb. You's goin' be awright in a minute."

Lottie took in an unsteady breath and forced herself to sit upright despite the obvious effort it cost her. "Here now, Mist' Gabe, ain' you brave?" she praised hoarsely. "Look at 'im, Bethel. Ain' he brave?"

The child made a thick, choking noise and his hand flapped anxiously towards the bowl in his playmate's lap. Understanding, Lottie held it up. Mister Gabe leaned forward, buoyed by Bethel's palm spread over his sore ribs, and vomited up a gout of mucus, water and the pebbled remains of his dinner. He gagged, whooped, and retched again, the spasm in his lungs and the spasm in his stomach warring for predominance. Now he was sobbing too, noiselessly, with great tears rolling down his cheeks. Again he choked up a small spray of foul fluids, and this time it was followed by a real breath, deep and desperate but unhampered by the cough. He croaked thinly and spat.

"'Ucky," he whimpered. He shook his head and held up his hands, palms skyward as he looked at them. He pressed them to his stomach just below Bethel's, and he shuddered. "'Ucky," he repeated with a note of resentment. Then he shivered and leaned in against Bethel's breast, tucking his head into the shelter of her collarbone.

"That my brave boy. All finished," Bethel soothed, stroking his hair. "Lottie, chile, put that on the table an' gimme the cup."

Lottie obeyed, lifting the basin from her lap with care. The tin mug was on the corner of the table, so she did not even need to stand in order to fetch it. She gave it to Bethel, who held it to the boy's trembling lips.

"Have a li'l sip, Mist' Gabe," Bethel coaxed. "Git that sour taste out your mouth."

Gabe obeyed, first sipping warily and then taking a more generous mouthful. "T'ank you, Bet'l," he mumbled reflexively. Then he rubbed his nose against the front of her basque like a puppy rooting for comfort. She hugged him nearer, petting his hair. He sighed ponderously. "I knowed it," he said quietly. "I knowed I's goin' cough when Mama gone 'way."

"Aw, honey," Bethel murmured, rocking him as best she could. "Your mama goin' be home soon; you don' gots to worry."

"Hmm-mm." Mister Gabe nodded faintly, his forefinger wiggling one of her buttons. "An' Pappy gone on de train," he mourned. "Gone 'way to N'Orlins to sell de tobacco."

Bethel did not know quite how to comfort him, for she was in her own way every bit as unsettled by his father's departure. She could only shift him to a somewhat more comfortable position in her lap, and curl her arms tenderly around his small body. Lottie was watching the boy's face with grave intensity, and when he gave another fragile sigh, she reached to touch his chin.

"He goin' have a good trip," she promised. "Goin' on the train an' seein' the big city. It goin' be an adventure for you' Pappy, an' he goin' come back with stories."

"He comin' back wid biscuits, too," said Mister Gabe solemnly. "But I's still missin' him."

"That awright," said Bethel, trying her utmost. The child's distress was almost more painful than any other aspect of the family's grim situation. "It on'y natural to miss sumbody while they's away, jus' like it natural to be happy when they come home 'gain."

"Pappy say he couldn' take me," Mister Gabe ventured. "I say I's big 'nough to ride de train, but Pappy say…" He shook his head, hampered by Bethel's body where it touched the side of his face, and pulled his lower lip in over his teeth before it could tremble. "He comin' home," he pledged. "He comin' home in some-lotsa days."

"On'y a few days," Bethel promised. "On'y jus' a li'l longer than a week. Don' you 'member las' year? Then he gone a whole fortnight, but he still comed back."

"Dere wasn' no cough las' year," said Gabe. "I gots it here, an' he gots it on de train, an' dere ain' nobody goin' wid him." He scrubbed at his eyes with a fist and cuddled nearer to her. "Bet'l, sing to me?" he asked.

"Sure, honey," she said. "Sure, I kin sing. What my chile want hear?"

For a moment there was silence. The hand that now clutched one button as if it were made of precious metal gripped tighter and then relaxed a little. "A song 'bout de train?" Mister Gabe whispered.

Bethel smiled. Songs about trains were plentiful in the great anthology of Negro music, not because of any particular fascination with the contraptions themselves, but because of that other train, the secret train that ran not on wheels and tracks but on bare, blistered feet on quiet country roads. That train was known to every slave, even those who might never have the occasion – or in Bethel's case even the desire – to ride it, and the music reflected that. She sifted through the dozens of melodies stored up in her memory, and she found one fit for the occasion. It swung gently like a lullaby, but had a note of joy to it, too: neither uproarious to bestir the weary child in her arms, nor melancholy to feed his troubled mood. With a faint smile upon her lips, Bethel began to sing:

_I hears that train a-comin',  
>She comin' close at hand.<br>I hear the car wheels rumblin',  
>A-rollin' through the land.<em>

_Git on board, li'l childern,  
>Git on board, li'l childern,<br>Git on board, li'l childern:  
>They's room fo' many-a-more!<em>

Lottie knew the song, too, and she began to hum along almost at once. She joined in on the second line of the chorus, where the words repeated for that very purpose: that others might sing along even when only the leader knew the whole song. Bethel rocked back and forth on the récamier, bearing Mister Gabe with her, and the worried plucking at her dress let up a little.

_The fare, it cheap, an' all kin go.  
>The rich an' poor is there.<br>No secon' class 'pon this train,  
>No diff'rence in the fair.<em>

_Git on board, li'l childern,  
>Git on board, li'l childern,<br>Git on board, li'l childern:  
>They's room fo' many-a-more!<em>

As she sang, Bethel closed her eyes and imagined Mister Cullen sitting in the passenger carriage while the locomotive clattered westward to Jackson. He might have his hat on his head, tipped low to shade his eyes, or in his lap if he chanced to be sitting across from a lady. His hands might be folded in his lap, or occupied with a copy of _Harper's Weekly_ that Missus Mary had so lovingly chosen for him. Long legs in trim tailored trousers, either stretched out before him or tucked politely under his bench, would be set off handsomely by his well-tended riding boots. Her Mister Cullen, who had once been a small boy curled in her lap as she sang, all grown up with a family of his own to provide for. The thought made her both sad and so very proud, and she hugged Mister Gabe still closer.

_Git on board, li'l childern,  
>Git on board, li'l childern…<em>

And he joined in himself, his sweet baby soprano lilting along with her deep contralto and Lottie's gentle tones:

_Git on board, li'l chil'ren:  
>Dey's room fo' many-a-more<em>.

Bethel led the two children through the chorus again, delighted that Mister Gabe was singing along. As she reached the last line her eyes were drawn over her shoulder as the kitchen door swung silently inward. Standing on the threshold with one hand hovering over her heart was Missus Mary, eyes shining. Meg stood a pace behind her, shy and uncertain in the unfamiliar space of the dining room. Bethel smiled at the mistress, who nodded, and kept on to the end of the chorus.

"Don' stop!" Mister Gabe protested as the last note died away. He sat up in her lap, indignant. "We's soundin' pretty nice!"

"I knows it," said Bethel; "but jus' you look an' see who gone an' comed home to you."

He whirled around so swiftly that his momentum would have sent him flying, but for the strong arm curled around his back. Suddenly his arms were free of the shelter of Bethel's, flung out wide. "Mama!" he cried. "You's home! You's goin' he'p fix my supper! We's singin' 'bout de train Pappy ridin'."

"I heard, lovey: you sing so handsomely!" Missus Mary applauded, coming the rest of the way into the room and putting her hands under Mister Gabe's arms so that he could clamber up onto her hip.

He hugged her fiercely about the neck, dragging on the skirts of her bonnet so that it tipped back on her head. The child frowned thoughtfully at this, and then took hold of the wide silk ribbons and yanked them, undoing the bow with swift determination. "You ain' goin' need dis no more," he declared, trying to haul the frothy confection off her head. Missus Mary reached behind to help him, lest in his enthusiasm he should destroy her entire coiffure. "You ain' goin' nowheres no more, ain' dat right?"

"Not until next Wednesday, dearest," Missus Mary promised. "That's when I need to ride back to the station to collect Pappy."

"Nex' Wed'ay?" Mister Gabe echoed. He frowned pensively. Days of the week were a little outside the grasp of one who seldom had cause to think beyond his next bedtime. Sometimes Bethel wished they could all live so innocently. "When dat? Dat soon?"

"Quite soon, yes," said Missus Mary. "Pappy promised I would help you count the days, didn't he?"

Mister Gabe nodded fervently. "He say dat! I 'member it. How we's goin' count dem? You can't see a day, Mama: it ain' like a onion."

"You're right," Missus Mary said, and she laughed.

The sound seemed to dislodge Meg from her uncertain post in the doorway, for she darted into the room, hesitated to glance at her mistress, and then hurried to Lottie's side. The girl looked up at her mother with an unspoken question in her eyes, and Meg bowed to embrace her, holding her fast with one arm and stroking her pigtails almost desperately. Bethel frowned, wondering what the cause of this sudden possessiveness might be, but her attention was swiftly drawn back to the white lady.

"We can't see days, so we must represent them with something," she was saying, jiggling her child as if he did not now weigh six times what he had at birth. Bethel might have admonished her to take care for her own health and strength, but she seemed almost giddy as she spoke to Mister Gabe. "Ordinarily we'd use a calendar, and I think Pappy has one in the almanac, but… Bethel!"

"Yass'm," Bethel said reflexively, feeling a little sheepish that she had been caught staring. She smoothed her apron and had the fleeting thought that she ought to try to change out of her Sunday frock before it came time to cook the evening meal.

"May we have a saucer, please, and a handful of black beans?" asked Missus Mary. She moved around the table, made somewhat ungainly by the lopsided weight of the boy in her arms. His ankle knocked against the side of the bench, and he stood up on it, still holding fast to his mother's neck but taking the burden off her body.

"What de beans for, Mama?" he asked inquisitively. Lottie was equally curious, now peering around the side of Meg's arm.

"You'll see, darling," Missus Mary said, with such determined brightness to her tone that Bethel's stomach lurched as she reached into the dish dresser. Something had happened in town, all right: something that had shaken Meg and left the mistress determined to pretend that nothing was wrong. She did not ask any troublesome questions, but stepped into the pantry and scooped up a handful of dried beans onto the little china plate.

When she turned back into the kitchen, Missus Mary was sitting on the bench with her hoopskirts tucked neatly under the table. Mister Gabe was sitting next to her, one hand drumming impatiently on the tabletop while the other maintained a snug hold on his mama's waist. "Please sit down, Meg," Missus Mary said. "Lottie, dear, how are you feeling?"

"We bo't coughed, Mama," Mister Gabe informed her. "Me an' 'Ottie, at de same time. An' I puked up in de bowl."

Too late Bethel recalled the basin with its noxious contents, still sitting on the edge of the table. She set down the saucer and covered the bowl hastily with a towel, whisking it away towards the door as she admonished mildly; "Gent'mens don' say 'puked', Mist' Gabe. It 'tooked sick'."

He gave her a look of puzzled exasperation. "But Mama _knows_ I's sick: I gots de cough," he said. "I's tryin' to 'splain to her 'bout de pukin'." To his mother he amended; "So I tooked sick, an' it maked me puked up in de bowl."

Bethel cast a helpless look at the mistress, who smiled knowingly and tilted her cheek to brush the crown of Mister Gabe's head. "I'm sorry to hear that, darling," she said. "That cough just doesn't seem to want to let you alone, does it?"

Mister Gabe agreed soberly as Bethel set the bowl out on the stoop for later slopping-out. Old Jeb looked tiredly up at her, huffing boredly as he laid his head back on his paws. He knew of the master's absence just as surely as any of the people in the household, and it seemed to be casting a gloomy pall over him, too. Bethel would have to save the trimmings off the venison as a special treat for him.

As she closed the back door snugly, Missus Mary was pouring the beans into a heap on the table. She gathered them in with the side of her hand. "Now count me out ten of them," she said. "One for every day that Pappy will be gone."

Mister Gabe wore a look of intense concentration as he did this, separating each bean from the pack with one rigid finger as he counted aloud. Bethel took the opportunity to skirt 'round the table and come up beside the couch, standing over Lottie and next to Meg.

"Is you awright?" she asked in a low voice, so as not to disturb Mister Gabe's careful figuring. "Sumthin' done spooked your horse." Then she grimaced knowingly. "It _weren't_ them horses, were it? They's clever, but they's spirited."

Meg shook her head. "Nothing happened, not really," she whispered. She glanced down at her daughter, who was now watching her with wide, wary eyes, and tried to smile. "Why don' you go an' see what Missus Mary doin'?" she asked. "Might be you kin learn sumthin' while she a-teachin' Mist. Gabe."

Lottie went obediently, but with an obvious reluctance that manifested itself in a long look back at her mother. Bethel gave her a sharp little nod and looked pointedly at the beans the boy was counting. "Oh!" he said sharply, as if he had been stung by a mosquito. "Dat one on'y _half_ a bean, Mama. It ain' no good: it broke."

"Actually, it's perfect," Missus Mary said, seizing the opportunity with an ingenuity Bethel would not have exhibited herself. "That bean can be today, because Pappy left after dinner and will only be gone _half_ of the day. So we won't have ten beans, we'll have nine and a _half_: nine and a half days that Pappy is gone."

"Nine an' a half," Mister Gabe echoed, and Lottie's lips moved silently over the same word. She was studying the legumes now with intent interest as her mind groped around and then grasped the concept of a fraction – of a day and of a bean. The little boy did not quite comprehend, but was happy enough to parrot his mother. "One, two, t'ree, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Dat number ten one, it a _half_ bean."

"Eight, nine, and a half," said Missus Mary, pointing to each one in turn. "Now let's put these beans on the saucer. Carefully, now: don't let them roll away."

"Is you goin' tell me, chile, or does I need to git it out the Missus?" Bethel whispered as Gabe began to engage Lottie in happy chatter as he transferred his beans one by one.

Meg looked at her imploringly, but she could see that it was no use. She sighed. "I had me a scare," she murmured. "We was jus' leavin' town, havin' sent Mist' Cullen off, an' there come the sheriff."

"Did he lay a finger on you?" Bethel demanded dourly, her protective instincts rising. "Or Missus Mary? If he so much as speaked ornery to her, I'll—"

Meg shook her head. "He was smilin', that awful smile he gots, but she talked sweet an' she maked him back right on down. Didn' hardly look like he knowed what he was doin', once Missus Mary start smilin' so ladylike. Ain' never see'd nuthin' like that."

"That how a lady do it," Bethel said, suddenly fiercely proud of her kind-hearted Yankee mistress who was now arranging the beans in a circle in the saucer. "She freeze a man with goodness, an' it don' matter how mean-spirited he be: he gots to back down an' do as she say. It works better'n all the blustery words an' shoutin' in the world."

"Jus' so," said Meg, nodding vehemently. "That jus' how it be. Done gived me a turn, though, seein' that man an' knowin' if the missus ha' on'y stayed back here with Mist' Gabe…"

Bethel clutched Meg's firm, muscled elbow and shook her head stoutly. "Don' you think 'bout that," she breathed. "Don' you even think 'bout it. Missus Mary wouldn' never have lef' you to go 'lone, an' you knows it."

Meg hung her head for a moment, and then nodded. "I knows it," she breathed, sounding as if she were still trying to convince herself that her narrow escape had in fact been made successfully. "I knows it."

"There!" Missus Mary said triumphantly. "Now every night before bed, we'll take one bean off the plate. When they're all gone, it means that Pappy is home."

"De li'l broke one firs'," Mister Gabe said, pointing. "Dat one today, 'cause it on'y a half-day!"

"That's right," said his mother, and she hugged him close. "Nine and a half days."

_*discidium*_

By the time the train stopped at Morton Station, the novelty of its rattling speed and efficiency had worn off. Cullen's spine was stiff and his tailbone ached, and he was tired and cross and growing colder by the minute. The sun was low, and a dispirited orange light came through into the boxcar in patches wholly inadequate for reading. In order to even check his watch, he had to tilt it right up to the slit between the wall-boards and squint against the glare on the glass. It was ten after six, and back home Gabe would be sitting down to his supper. Cullen supposed Mary would eat with him, as she didn't have any reason to delay her meal without her husband to share it, and then she and Bethel would put the kitchen to rights for the next day. Meg would serve up something for Lottie and the men, and then see to the milking and her careful inspection of the new calf while Elijah looked after the stock in the barn. Maybe Mary would sit up for an hour or two, knitting socks out of impossibly fine cotton yarn without even seeming to glance at the needles. Hopefully Gabe would let her, or at least consent to go to sleep without his Pappy to lie upon.

Cullen huffed uneasily, shifting the weight of his upper body off of his bruised right shoulder and driving his hands deep into the pockets of his greatcoat. Mary had put his gloves in the valise: she had told him that. But he was not at all sure that rooting around it in the gloom was a good idea. He would only rumple his best clothes and undo the good of her careful packing. True, one of the bellboys at the hotel could give a shirt a quick press if it was needed, but the work would certainly not be the equal of Mary's or Bethel's. Better to warm his hands as best he could without the gloves, at least until he got somewhere with a decent light.

The bang and clatter of doors came up from the passenger cars, and there were Negro voices shouting throaty instructions back and forth. Morton was a little market-town, positively parochial in comparison to Meridian, and the station was not a busy one. There must be a little traffic tonight, though, for the on-loading and off-loading continued for almost fifteen minutes while Cullen grew progressively more impatient. The trouble with the Southern Railway – and indeed, Southern lines in general – was that the trains had to stop at every tiny junction on every single run. In New York State there had been express trains that ran the same lines as the locals but stopped only at the large stations. It saved time for travelers covering long distances between major centers. If Cullen had still possessed any of his grandfather's lost interest in the Mobile and Ohio road, he might have used his influence to try to implement such a system in Mississippi. He could not have been the only man who had embarked at Meridian destined for Jackson, with no interest whatsoever at stopping at Newton, Morton, Pelahatchie, and ten other small stations along the way.

The locomotive let off steam, and somewhere nearby an ox bellowed indignantly. Cullen hope that Meg had managed all right with the horses. He thought that Mary could drive the Morgans in a pinch, but it had never come to that before. He realized now that he should have made a point of making sure his wife could handle the team. He would have to rectify that, he thought. It was a foolish oversight, and although ladies did not commonly drive their own carriages in the South or anywhere else, Mary would not object to the proposal. Nor would the county be particularly scandalized, so long as they restricted the lessons to the matched team and buggy instead of mules and the buckboard. Pleasure driving was a sport, and like any other sport a genteel woman might show a passing interest without harm to her reputation. They were living, after all, in modern times.

Cullen snorted wryly at this, and wriggled again in an ineffectual attempt to find a comfortable place on the tobacco box. He had knocked these crates together for the sole purpose of transporting his crop, and had given no thought to the possibility of having them double as a settee. He had already had to pry a splinter out of the soft flesh behind his left knee, and his whole spine ached from the effort of sitting on the rigid surface. Worse, the boxcar was near enough to the engine that it was constantly bombarded with soot and ash. While only a little of this penetrated the slipstream and filtered into the car, it was enough to agitate his lungs. He had had half a dozen coughing fits of varying intensity since leaving the station at Meridian, and his ribs were now throbbing with the pain of overexerted muscles. Only two thirds into the first and shortest leg of his journey, he was already impatient for its end.

A rap upon the boxcar door startled him, eliciting a breathless oath. "Mr. Bohannon?" a cheerful voice intoned. The conductor.

"Yeah." The word came out even more hoarsely than Cullen had expected, grating over raw vocal chords and passing lips that were dry and cracked despite frequent swallows from Meg's water-jug.

"You in need of anything, sir?" the man asked. Now that he was looking, Cullen could see his portly shadow against the slats. He had his hat tipped back on his head, and he was blotting his brow with a handkerchief. "We'll be setting out in five minute's time, if you want to step down for a mug of coffee or a quick piss."

Cullen would have liked a mug of coffee, for the novelty as well as for the warmth, but train platform beverages were not to be had merely for the asking, and he was damned if he was going to squander a half-dime on something the stationmaster's wife had brewed up in a soup pot. "Thanks. I'm just fine in here," he said.

"Well, I promised I'd keep an eye on you, and not forget we got you shut up," said the conductor. "Seems little Henry down the clerks' office has a fondness for you, and he don't much like the idea of you riding rough."

This made Cullen shake his head. So young Mr. Jacobs had been fussing over him too, in addition to his wife, his son, Bethel, his slaves and Doc Whitehead. Was he really such a hopeless spectacle that he engendered nothing but worry in all who beheld him? Grimly he reflected that he had to shake this damned cough, before it cost him the rest of his reputation.

"I'll be sure and mention your diligence," he said dryly.

"Just a couple more hours!" the conductor said cheerfully. A shrill, piercing shriek clawed at Cullen's eardrum as he blasted upon his pocket whistle. "Five minutes!" he roared as he strode off down the length of the train. "Morton, Jackson, Vicksburg, departing in _five minutes_!"

Grinding his teeth and trying again to find some position that would be bearable for more than five minutes at a stretch, Cullen braced one foot against the stack of boxes before him. A shiver coursed up his backbone, awaking a myriad of sympathetic aches in his sacroiliac, his kidneys, his ribs and his neck. He crossed his arms over his chest in an ineffectual attempt to ward off the tremors. A smoldering fever and a cold November night, in a drafty train car about to be whisking along at fifteen miles an hour; it was no wonder he was cold. He tucked his chin into the muffler that Bethel had wound with such loving determination and tried not to think about it. Only two more hours and he would be in Jackson, where the ticket-house had four walls and glazed windows, and a big iron stove to welcome tired travelers. He could find Lame Josiah and his crew, set them to transferring his tobacco, and then warm up a little. Only two more hours.

The great wheels creaked and the pistons pumped, and slowly Fire Fly began to roll, dragging Henrietta after her. The string of baggage cars, flatbeds and coaches followed behind, racing into the sunset. Cullen's breath caught in his throat and gurgled there, brewing up towards another coughing fit as the air grew thick with the smell of smoke again. The whistle of the wind over the top and sides of the car was deafening. And the shivering only grew deeper.

"Two more hours," he muttered grimly, before surrendering to the cough. Two more hours.


	90. Little Men

_Note: Shout out to one of the fine female authors of the period! Louisa May Alcott's "Little Men" was published in 1871, so it's just a title allusion. (This chapter was posted between 410 and 411.)_

**Chapter 90: Little Men**

Coming out of the anguished fog of another rib-cracking coughing jag, Cullen struggled against a sense of complete disorientation. He felt dizzy even beyond the usual effects of the cruel struggle for breath, and as he huddled low over his lap, arms hugged to his burning chest, he felt as if he were whirling in slow circles: a child's top wobbling gradually into stillness. His mind was muddled with fever and fatigue and want of air, and it took him longer than it should have done to realize that there was a reason for this sensation. The train had stopped. Distracted by the pain and the instinctive panic of the fit, deafened by the clatter of his lungs and the roar of blood in his ears, he had missed it all: the squeal of the brakes, the hiss of locked pistons, and the deep shudder of the cars as they ground to a halt.

Tentatively Cullen raised his head, still panting shallowly. There was a string of spittle caught in his beard, and he wiped it away with the back of one cold hand. Outside he could hear doors flying open, and the gay chatter of passengers disembarking to their welcoming committees. The platform boss bellowed; "Heave to!", and Cullen knew the porters would be swarming to off-load cases from the coaches and the baggage car. Nearer at hand there was a shriek of rusty bearings as a boxcar was opened.

That sound restored some sense of purpose to his sluggish brain, and Cullen set about preparing to disembark. He had swatted his hat from his head in the throes of the cough, when it had seemed to constrict his very skull. Now he groped in the dark for it, finding it at last on the floor in the farthest corner of his tiny berth. He dusted it across his knee before gingerly tossing the hair back from his face so that he could put it on. Mary always took care not to shear him too close, respecting his wishes, and this time had been no exception.

Gathering his personal baggage was straightforward enough, though he did hesitate for a moment before climbing to his feet. He braced himself against the wall as he did so, drawing deep breaths and fighting the nausea that was commanding him to _stay down_. He found the papers where he had stowed them atop the stack of crates, and the padlock and chain perilously near the edge. He was lucky it had not slid a little farther, or it would have fallen down to crack him in the head.

Clearing his throat and steeling his resolve, Cullen unlatched the door and pushed it open. Unlike her neighbor, Henrietta was well-greased and her runners noiseless. The platform lamps were away towards the back of the train where the fare-paying passengers were, and Cullen looked uncertainly at the dark, indistinct ground below him. Not quite certain that he dared to jump it in his present state, he eyed the edge of the car and debated whether he might not be better off lowering himself down to slide off.

The beam of light from a reflectorized railroad lantern arced over Henrietta's broad side and swooped back towards Cullen. He squinted against the bright kerosene flame and was just able to make out the broad shape of the conductor where he stood near the tender supervising the slaves who had opened the first boxcar.

"You want off here?" he asked, puzzled. "I thought we was transferring your freight to Great Northern."

"Ain't this Jackson?" Cullen croaked, hating the sickly rasp in his voice. He looked down towards the station, but turned too far in order to see around the doorway and wobbled, ramming his elbow painfully against the bracket to keep from losing his balance entirely.

"Sure, Jackson City Depot," the conductor said. He was holding the lantern higher aloft, again angled for the benefit of the darkies who were passing off dining chairs one at a time to be loaded onto handcarts. "You want Jackson Junction: next stop. Unless you're going straight up to Mrs. Whittaker's? I can see to giving the orders."

"No, I'll see to it myself," Cullen muttered, looking dazedly about his feet and setting down the valise again. He put the basket on his improvised bench, and stared uncomprehendingly at the folio of paperwork and the stack of periodicals bundled in his other hand. "Who's Mrs. Whittaker?"

"Runs the boarding house just down the street," the other man informed him. "Sets a mighty fine table. I'm bunking there tonight: fifty cents gets you two meals and a bed."

"Huh." Cullen planted his left foot firmly and squatted down onto the edge of the tobacco box, still trying to swallow the urge to be sick. His throat was tight and it kept twitching ominously. Sitting relieved the pressure in his temples somewhat, but his head still felt bloated and hot. He drew up his left knee and braced his elbow on it so that he could spread his chilled palm across his brow. The skin of each surface began to tingle, warring with one another, and he closed his eyes with a low sigh.

He sat there motionless for a vague stretch of time, listening to the bumps and scraping and the low Negro voices, mumbling at one another with dark good humor well-soaked in day's-end weariness. Finally there was the ear-splitting wail of rusted iron again as the car was closed, and the voices moved off under the trundling rattle of handcart wheels. Then Cullen heard a rapping of knuckles on wood, closer at hand, and the dark behind his eyelids turned striated orange.

"You want me to shut you in?" the conductor asked. His voice was quieter now, and less jovial.

Cullen did not want to see how the man was looking at him in the lamplight, so he jerked his head in the affirmative. "Thanks," he breathed.

"Don't you worry, Mr. Bohannon. Almost there," the other man said as he swung Henrietta's hatch closed. There was a scraping noise as he drew the outer latch, leaving Cullen locked in the Spartan darkness redolent with the rich smell of cured tobacco. Distant banging of doors and the routine of calling out the departure hardly penetrated his consciousness, and his whole body tensed when the train began to move and startled him out of the haze at the very verge of sleep.

The first blast of steam gave him sufficient warning to tuck his mouth and nose into the hot folds of the muffler, mitigating somewhat the effect of the soot that blew back as the locomotive gathered speed. By doing this and breathing very sparely until the rush of wind over the boxcar picked up to a strong wail, Cullen managed to keep from hurtling right back into a hell of strangulation. He did cough twice, intractably but shallowly enough that he did not awaken the full mass of his lungs, then buried his face in his hands as he swayed and shuddered with the motion of the train.

The tracks swept in a curve tight enough that he could feel its force drag upon the left side of his body, and then there was a shrill, hollow clacking as the train passed over a short bridge. Cullen wondered how he had missed the crossing of the Pearl River, just before the City Depot, but of course in the grip of the whooping he must have been oblivious. Then almost as soon as it reached full speed, _Fire Fly_ was beginning to decelerate for the next station. This time he heard the cacophony of braking, and cringed as it seemed to dig into his eardrums. His perch on the edge of the tobacco box was tenuous, and he nearly slid right off when the train stopped. He rammed his foot firmly against the stack of boxes in front of him, and heard the groaning of green wood as his cargo shifted almost imperceptibly around him, too heavy to shift very far.

This time he had to wait for the conductor to let him out, but he did not trouble to use the interval to collect his possessions. He had the papers in his lap and everything else within easy reach and he simply did not want to think about moving, much less mustering himself to emerge as a commanding presence to request the rail crew of his choice, give the necessary orders, and oversee the transfer of his cargo to the Great Northern boxcar he prayed would be waiting as promised. There was a slow, deep pulsing in the muscles of his back and chest, as if they were beating out the rhythm of his fever, and his eyes stung behind soot-flaked lashes.

Only when he heard the scratching of the latch did he sling Bethel's basket over his arm, snag the jug with his forefinger, and tuck the periodicals under his elbow so that he could pick up the valise. When the door slid open he was met by the welcome sight of the conductor's boots, level with his own on the broad wooden platform: there would be no jarring jump down onto uncertain terrain, nor any inelegantly cautious slithering.

So Cullen found the wherewithal to get to his feet, almost without swaying, and to step off onto the strangely immobile surface. His first steps were unsteady, listing badly until he adjusted moving on solid ground, but by the time he reached the shelter of the stationhouse awning he was moving as smoothly as his stiff limbs allowed. There were benches against the wall, under the lit windows of the ticket office, and Cullen set down his personal baggage on one of them. He looked around for the platform boss, who was snapping orders at the porters, and shambled over to him, unbuttoning his greatcoat and reaching into his topcoat as he did so.

"Evening to you," he muttered as he came up beside the man. He was raked over appraisingly with eyes that took in the skilled cut of his garments and hovered overlong upon his visible left hand with its scrapes and callouses. Determinedly Cullen pulled his right out of the welcome shelter of the body-warmed wool, dragging his cigar case with him. He flipped it open and pushed one up enticingly. "Cullen Bohannon, from Meridian," he said. "I got a boxcar waiting for my tobacco, and I want Lame Josiah and his boys to shift it."

The platform boss took hold of the cigar and looked up at Cullen's face – no doubt soot-streaked and haggard after the hard ride. He grinned, and his narrow nose twitched. "Lame Josiah; sure," he said. "Happy to oblige you." He squinted at the ledger he had slung over one arm. "Bo…"

"Bohannon," Cullen repeated, more slowly.

"Oh, here we go," the man said. "Yeah, we got a car on the sideline already, waiting." He looked up to where the fireman and brakeman were clambering around the join between the tender and the first boxcar, pulling the coupling pin and laughing at some ribald remark. "We'll get this one shunted off to the same rails, and have you taken care of in no time. Zeke! Get your men out to Dolly, and—"

"Josiah," corrected Cullen, flatly. "I asked for Lame Josiah."

"Right, right. You, boy!" He turned and snapped his fingers at a rangy black youth of about fifteen who was holding the door of the ticket office for a pair of middle-aged men. "Where's Josiah and his crew at?"

"Off-loadin' the lumber from the six o'clock, las' time I see'd 'em, Boss-man," the boy said. "Then they's 'pposed to be greasin' them axles on the flatbeds. Mist' Hawkins, he say—"

"Don't matter what Mist' Hawkins say!" the platform boss said briskly. "This fine gentleman wants 'em shifting his tobacco. Run find that lazy nigger, and tell him if he ain't got his black bucks waiting by Dolly by the time the other car's shunted, he'll be sleeping on his front 'til Christmas!"

Cullen frowned at these unnecessary threats, and at the haste with which the boy bolted for the edge of the platform. He sprung down into the gloom beside the stationhouse, only to reappear as a sprinting silhouette against the carshed lamps.

The white man grinned toothily at Cullen. "I 'spect you want to oversee 'em yourself? The sort of a man who guards his cargo personally ain't the sort to let a bunch of unsupervised Negroes crawl all over it."

Cullen might have taken scathing exception to such disdain for one's workers, but he was too weary to start a quarrel with an idiot. "I'll oversee 'em," he muttered.

"Just stay out of the way while the cars is moving. Don't want no accidents in the dark!" The man clapped Cullen on the shoulder and then strode away, chortling to himself and tucking the slender cigar behind his ear.

Cullen's attention drifted back towards Henrietta, and the car beside her that held his overflow. _Fire Fly_ was trundling up the track, unencumbered by the rest of the train, and a smaller and far dingier locomotive was already backing onto the main line from a shunting spur. It would take at least twenty minutes to uncouple the cars and shift them to where they needed to be, and he would gain nothing from standing here and shivering.

Clumsily, hands stiff and unresponsive from the cold, he put away his cigar case and gathered his belongings. There was now no one tending the door, of course, and Cullen had to shift his various burdens awkwardly to free up a thumb. But then he was over the threshold and into the inviting glow of the ticket office.

There were two rows of low-backed benches running the breadth of the room, and a scattering of wooden chairs around the perimeter. The best of these were occupied by the men who had just come in, and by a somewhat younger gentleman who had obviously been waiting for them. They were gathered in a half-circle near the cast-iron heating stove in the left front corner. Cullen hastily doffed his hat and unburdened himself on the end of the bench nearest the stove. Then he shuffled near to it, unable to restrain the urge to stretch his numb palms to the heat.

The sensation of warmth was a welcome one, and his eyelids fluttered low in abject relief. He could feel the first tingling return of blood to his fingers, and the glow seemed to seep through his topcoat and vest and the front of his trouser legs, warming his chest and stomach and thighs as well.

The other men took little notice of him: just a tired traveler on a cold night. They were sharing around a pouch of tobacco, stuffing their pipes as they talked. Cullen had no interest in their conversation, and would have been hard-pressed to concentrate anyhow. His hands were afire with prickling, as if a hundred glowing-hot pins were piercing them all at once. He flexed his fingers, and the discomfort flared in intensity before abating a little. His toes, long gone cold in his slender riding boots, were undergoing a similar, if milder, transformation. A trickle of perspiration rolled down his temple to tickle in his whiskers, and he knew that his breathing was more laboured than the simple exertion of standing upright could justify.

The aches and stiffness of the long ride were impossible to ignore. The joints of his legs felt bloated and oddly jammed, like hinges wedged open by slivers of wood. His back, too long curled unnaturally to compensate for the unyielding seat, was urging him to stretch it in contortions Cullen did not trust his unsteady feet and pounding head to accommodate. Something gurgled deep in his chest, and he inhaled slowly through his nostrils in the thin hope of staving off his next fit for a while.

As he stood there, bearing up as best he could under the ponderous pulsating malaise that clung to him like tar, his vacantly staring eyes moved of their own accord from the stove lids to the window. Behind the glare of the hanging lamps, their shades like palmetto-frond hats cast in tin, he could see the more dispersed lights on the platform, illuminating the rails. The boxcars were gone, and a fresh string was being pushed into place by a shunting locomotive. Very few trains traveled by night, but the line between Jackson and Vicksburg was a busy stretch of rail. The last train from each city left at half past eight, reaching its destination around midnight.

A muffled giggle broke Cullen's bleary stupor and drew his eyes to the reflection of the room behind him. A small girl was stepping out from behind the screen that hid from view a nook containing a washstand and other essential conveniences. She was followed almost at once by an only slightly larger boy, and then by a girl of about Lottie's age, dressed in a trim wool traveling ensemble. She caught hold of the littler girl's sleeve and reined her in as she looked about to skip off towards the men.

"Stay close and mind me," she said primly. Her voice had an out-of-state edge to it that Cullen thought might belong in Missouri. "David, don't fidget."

"She's pokin' fun at me," the boy said sulkily, but he clasped his hands obediently. "Just 'cause I don't got no skirts."

The small girl giggled again, this time not even trying to hide it. She pointed at her brother's belly. "It's wriggly!" she laughed.

"_Hush!_" the big girl said, flushing in mortification and glancing at the men. The others were absorbed in their conversation, and Cullen's back was to her. She bent and wagged a scolding finger in her sister's face. "How'd you like it if you didn't have no skirts to hide the pot?" she asked.

"You wasn't s'posed to be lookin'!" David added. "Mama said. Why couldn't we go to the necessary house?"

"Not in the dark," his sister said firmly. "Mama said. You don't never know what kind of hooligans run 'round a railway station in the dark."

The unmistakable squawk of a baby presaged the emergence of their mother, a thin and harried-looking woman whose skittish eyes made her look very young indeed. She was weighted down by the child on her hip, an infant of about fourteen months wrapped in several layers of gowns and coat and blankets, and by a bulging carpetbag that no doubt held the travel supplies for her brood. Clinging to her skirts was a child still smaller than the girl, not yet old enough to be breeched and dressed in a wool gown and frilled bonnet that gave no indication of gender. The mother's hand kept twitching towards this tiny traveler as though she longed to put it upon the well-covered head, but of course if she tried the carpetbag would slide down to smack the child.

"David, hold Molly's hand," the woman ordered breathlessly. "Here, Loretta, take the baby…"

"But Mama, my arms is tired!" the bigger girl protested wearily. Molly tried to pull away from her, and Loretta shepherded her in with a sweep of her elbow. "Ain't it bedtime yet?"

"Not yet, dear," the woman sighed, looking suddenly very gaunt and weary. "When we get to Vicksburg your father will be waiting at the hotel, and then—"

"Papa! Papa!" Molly sang, swinging around her sister in an improvised little dance. Suddenly she stopped, eyes going very wide. "Do _he_ got a wriggly thing in his pants?" she breathed, clearly appalled.

"A wriggly…" The woman's puzzlement morphed to horror. "Molly! _Shame_ on you! A lady doesn't speak about such things… and I _told _you not to look while your brother... and..."

From outside on the platform came the shrill call of a whistle, followed by the conductor's stentorian cry of; "Departing in _five_ minutes. Jackson, Edwards, Vicksburg. Departing in _five minutes_!"

The lesson in propriety dissolved into a flutter of anxiety. "Oh, dear, we're going to miss the train!" the woman cried. She hefted the baby higher on her hip, and in doing so inadvertently yanked her hoop out of the grip of the toddler. The child overbalanced and sat down hard on his or her rump, momentary astonishment giving way to an indignant wail. David clapped his hands over his ears, screwing his face into an expression of overtired disgust, and Loretta's shoulders slumped resignedly. She looked like she wanted to burst into tears herself, and in her mother's arms the infant let out a loud babbling string of nonsense, offering commentary on the chaos.

The men in the chairs looked up, puffing thoughtfully on their pipes as they became aware of the family for the first time. Molly, taking advantage of her older sister's distraction, broke free at once and took off at a run for the door. "Miss the train! Miss the train!" she sang out as she skidded around the edge of a bench. "We going to miss the train!"

Instinct more lucid than thought, Cullen found himself taking a long sideways step and swooping down to block her escape with his arm. Molly flung into it, full across the chest like a yearling colt flinging against a rail instead of jumping it. Her hands flew up to clutch his forearm reflexively, and she looked up at him with enormous eyes.

"Easy there, li'l lady," he said, straightening up again and offering her his hand. "You don't want to go running away from your mother." The girl was about Gabe's age, and she strode alongside him as he led her back to the others. He handed her off to her sister. "Hold on tight, now," he said. Then he extended his hand for the carpetbag. "May I, ma'am?" he asked with his most gentlemanly bow and a small, almost bashful smile that he hoped might coax her to trust him – whatever her opinions on hooligans at railway stations.

It worked. The woman fixed upon his eyes, and her brows lifted plaintively. "Oh, _would_ you? I'd be ever so grateful!" she breathed.

"Glad to do it," Cullen said. He took the case and slung its twin leather handles over his shoulder. The bulk of the bag smacked squarely on the place Brannan's prybar had struck him and he flinched involuntarily, but he was already bending to pick up the fallen child under the arms. He swung the small body expertly up off the floor and onto his left side. One plump hand curled around his upper arm, and the other took hold of the demi-cape of his greatcoat. The weeping began to peter off almost at once.

"Here, now, Mister, you take my hand," Cullen said to David, who obeyed at once. "I'm sure your sisters won't mind leading the way?"

Loretta looked at him suspiciously, but nodded and started for the door. At close range Cullen could see that the children's faces were all freshly scrubbed, though the soot of a long day's travel was apparent on their throats and ears. Relieved of her luggage, the woman was able to support the baby with both arms, and the squirming abated considerably.

The fleeting thought that perhaps a man in his physical state ought not to be holding quite so fast to a small child tugged at Cullen as he stepped aside for the woman and then followed her with David in tow. The little one in his other arm had quieted completely now, and his or her heavy head rested on his collarbone. Well, he told himself, it could not be helped. It wasn't as if he were offering these young ones a swig from his water-jug or intending to hold them through the night. He wasn't going to cough on them if he could help it, either.

At the door he sidestepped, releasing David briefly to turn the handle and hold it ajar for first the girls, and then their mother with the infant. He wondered what a woman was doing, traveling alone with five small children. Their clothes were neither the height of fashion nor particularly opulent in materials, but they were sturdy and with the exception of Molly's coat not obviously handed-down. They had the look of the prosperous middle-class, but then why did they not have at the least one slave to accompany them? Missouri was not an abolitionist state, and a pair of capable dark hands would have made all the difference to this poor, beleaguered mother. He supposed they might be abolitionist themselves, but added to this inconvenient late-night journey the absence of an attendant seemed more likely indicative of recently reduced circumstances.

The air was very still on the platform, and very cold: setting in for a hard frost and perhaps even rain. The baby whimpered and burrowed closer into the rabbit fur collar of the woman's coat, and Molly shivered and said; "Brrr!"

"Hurry now, darlings," the lady fussed, trying to pick up her pace with small, booted feet. "Do please hurry. We mustn't miss the train."

Loretta trudged obediently towards the second-class carriage, leading her sister, and Cullen let himself fall back a couple of paces. When the woman was a couple of yards ahead he licked his cracked lips and whistled sharply. The conductor, who had been conversing with a similarily-uniformed man near the first-class carriage - no doubt his replacement for the last leg of the journey - came trotting. He reached the steps just ahead of the girls, and unlatched the door with a flourish.

"Come aboard, come aboard!" he said merrily, offering his hand to Loretta and then bending to boost Molly over the narrow gap between carriage and platform. The girls disappeared briefly into the gloom before stepping into the light cast by one of the lamps. They hurried down near the heater as their mother took the conductor's hand and stepped up.

"I'll be right back to fetch Bertie," she promised, twisting awkwardly against the wrought-iron balustrade to look at Cullen. "I've just got to… the baby, you see…"

"Yes, ma'am; don't fret," Cullen said levelly. He stepped up to the edge of the platform and turned perpendicular to David, still holding his hand. "Can you give it a good hop?" he asked.

David grinned up at him and nodded, and instead of stepping one-footed he clicked his heels together and jumped. He cleared the span with no difficulty whatsoever, and gave Cullen a triumphant nod and a look that said he was affronted by the simplicity of the challenge. He was wearing dark copper-toed boots that made Cullen's arms ache for the weight of a not-quite-four-year-old instead of the much younger child he was holding.

"Go sit with your sisters, now," he said as David mounted the steps. "And don't take Molly's teasing too much to heart."

"I won't," David said solemnly. "I'm the man of the family, you know, while Papa's gone. We's gonna see him tonight, though! At the hotel."

"Give him my compliments," Cullen said, handing the carpetbag up to the conductor. He took it and tipped his hat before guiding the boy down the aisle of the car. Through the window Cullen could see him stowing the baggage and setting Molly on the seat beside her sister, who was letting her mother arrange the baby in her lap. There seemed to be some sort of a debate about where David was to sit, and then the woman came hurrying back up the car.

"I can't thank you enough, sir," she said breathlessly, coming down to the lowest step as Cullen carefully lifted the limp, petticoated form off of his shoulder. "They're such well-behaved children ordinarily, but the excitement of the journey and the late hour…" She flapped her hands helplessly and reached to adjust her listing bonnet.

"They seem perfectly well-behaved to me," said Cullen. "Don't you worry too much about that."

"And Molly and her tongue… how mortifying!" the woman sighed. Then, realizing she had just alluded to an indelicate incident, she gasped. "Oh, I don't know what's come over me…"

Cullen chuckled softly, the sound catching dryly in his throat. "My boy's just the same age," he said. "They say whatever pops into their heads. Your husband's meeting you in Vicksburg?"

"Yes, yes he is. It will be such a relief… all these weeks… and the children…" The woman fluttered for a moment, and then reached for the child. "And Bertie only just… oh! He's fallen asleep! Why, how did you do that? He's not slept a wink all day."

"I'm a very dull person," Cullen said earnestly, passing off the child and watching with some satisfaction as Bertie nuzzled against his mother and did not awake. "You take care. I'll ask the conductor to come for you straight away when you get into the station, to help you wrangle this brood."

"Thank you. Oh, thank you," the woman sighed. She dipped low for a moment as if her knees were too tired to carry her any further, and then she smiled fondly at him. "You're our guardian angel tonight."

"I ain't no angel," Cullen demurred, taking another small bow. "Wishing you a safe journey, ma'am. What's left of it."

She thanked him again, but her thoughts and her eyes were already returning to the rest of her clutch, and she ducked swiftly back into the car. Cullen watched until she reached the far end and settled on the hard wooden seat beside David. Out of nowhere someone had produced a brown woolen blanket, which she proceeded to tuck around her middle children, now facing each other across the gap between benches. He wondered what was waiting for the woman in Vicksburg, besides her husband at some no doubt inexpensive hotel. Shaking his head, he turned wearily away.

He had said hid piece to the relief conductor and taken two heavy steps back towards the shelter of the ticket office before he saw the darky youth who had been sent to fetch the requested crew, standing by the corner of the building and pointing to him. A rangy black man in coarse work clothes and heavy boots nodded at the boy, and strode smoothly up to Cullen.

"You the gent'man with the tobacco?" he asked.

"That's me," said Cullen, trying to tear his thoughts away from the temptation of a few more minutes in the glow of stove. "The cars where they oughta be?"

"Yassir, we's jus' 'bout to start loadin', if'n you approve," the man said.

"Good," said Cullen. He looked at the boy. "Can you fetch my things from the bench in there, please? I don't like to leave 'em unattended."

With hurried assurances, the young man jogged into the building, and Cullen turned back to the man. "I requested a specific crew," he said. "Saul, the foreman at the yard in Meridian, made particular mention."

"Did he, now?" said the Negro. He looked Cullen over appraisingly. "Mus' be more to you than meet the eye, then, if Saul sendin' you my way."

"You're Josiah?" Cullen asked, somewhat surprised.

"Yassir," the man said.

A faint frown creased his brow into ripples of cold and valleys of heat. "You ain't lame," Cullen observed, glancing down at the pair of straight, sturdy legs before him.

"Nawsir. They calls me that anyways," said Josiah simply.

Cullen blinked laboriously at him, but there did not seem to be very much he could say to such a pronouncement. "Well, you're the man I want, then," he said finally. "I got eighteen and a half hogsheads' worth of tobacco that needs moving as quick and as careful as you can manage, and if you and your men do right by me I got samples to share around, too."

Josiah's eyes glinted. "Samples, huh?" he asked.

From his coat pocket Cullen produced a snugly-packed bag and held it aloft in his outturned palm, thumb holding it in place. "Samples."

The other man grinned. "That's mighty considerate of you, Mist'…"

"Cullen Bohannon," he said, and hurriedly stowed away the little sack so that he could shake hands. The young errand-boy came out of the ticket office, juggling Cullen's belongings. Cullen relieved him first of the bundle of papers, which was beginning to be come far more of a nuisance than either Gabe or Mary had ever intended, and then of his hat. He started striding down the platform in the direction from which the two darkies had come, tossing his hair back and planting his hat on his head as he went. Lame Josiah walked swiftly alongside, not a flaw in his step. "Lead the way," said Cullen briskly, flinging aside exhaustion and sickness as best he could and focusing his energies on the task at hand. "Let's get this over and done."

_*discidium*_

"I et my bowl!" Gabe said happily as he hopped down off of the kitchen bench with his hand in Mary's. On his plate, amid the various residual quantities of okra, corn, mild tomato pickle and a scrap of gristle from the fried venison, was the last shred of a potato skin. As a special treat, Bethel had fixed them what she called "potato bowls", first baking the tubers and then scooping out their starchy hearts. She whipped them with cream, butter, and chives before stuffing the carefully saved half-skins and browning them in the oven. The result was a handsome creation that would not have been out of place on the finest table in New York, and the novelty of being able to eat the crisp, savoury skin when he had finished the mashed mixture within never ceased to fill Gabe with wonder and delight.

"Yes, you did!" Mary praised. It had been a tremendous relief to see Gabe dining with such gusto tonight, for his lack of appetite since falling ill never ceased to worry her. She had feared that his father's absence might make matters worse, but it seemed that Bethel's creativity was equal even to that challenge. "Now, when he has something especially nice for supper, a gentleman always makes a point of complimenting the person who made it for him."

Gabe frowned up at her. "I's goin' do _what_ to Bet'l?" he asked worriedly, as if he might not prove equal to the task or perhaps to its consequences.

"Tell her how you liked your potato, and thank her for fixing it," Mary translated. "To _compliment_ someone means to say something nice about them or what they have made."

"Ah." Gabe nodded wisely and marched up to Bethel, who was gathering the dishes. He clasped his hands behind his back. "Bet'l, dat potato was real good eatin'," he said with solemn dignity. "I surely likes potato bowls, an' I et mine all up! T'ank you fo' fixin' it fo' me. An' Mama maked de okra," he added, just so Mary should not feel left out.

Bethel wiped her hands on her apron and crouched down before the child. "You's mos' welcome, Mist' Gabe," she said. She used her thumb to brush away a glisten of grease from the corner of his mouth, and then stroked his cheek with her fingertips. "It a joy to see my li'l lamb relishin' his supper."

"I did," Gabe assured her. He brought his hands around to the front and took hold of hers, patting the back of it. "It mighty nice."

Mary smiled down at her dear little boy, not missing the mist that shone in Bethel's eyes. It was not really due to the thanks, which of course had been prompted and was only good manners, but to see him eat was of course a boon to Bethel as well, and his adorably manly dignity as he thanked her raised in both women the bittersweet knowledge that he was growing up.

"Give Bethel her goodnight kiss," reminded Mary softly. Gabe glanced back at the sound of her voice and then nodded.

"G'night, Bet'l. Mama goin' sleep in my bed tonight," he said. "You don' gots to fret 'bout dat."

Then he stretched to twine his arms around her neck, and as she hugged him in return he gave her a fond, smacking kiss just next to her left earlobe. As he withdrew, she brushed her lips tenderly across his brow, then straightened his collar when they came out of the embrace. "You have youself some sweet dreams now, honey," Bethel instructed. "You's surely earned 'em today, brave like you been."

This piece of praise made Gabe perk up. "Bet'l. Bet'l!" he said. "Bet'l, may I have my gun back now? I's de man of de house while Pappy 'way, an' I needs it."

Gabe had carried the popgun all afternoon with an almost fanatical dedication, hardly setting it down for a moment. Bethel had finally confiscated it at suppertime, declaring that there were to be no guns at _her_ table, and Gabe had been on the very cusp of throwing an indignant tantrum when the potatoes had come out of the oven and offered the perfect distraction. Now the old woman rose up out of her crouch and went to the dish dresser, reaching over the decorative scrollwork to retrieve the toy from its top. She passed it to him, holding the barrel so that he could grab the butt. Gabe seized it, ran his left hand along its length, and slung it over his shoulder just as Cullen was wont to do with his hunting rifle.

"Dat good," he said stoutly. He sauntered over to Mary and took hold of her hand again. "C'mon, Mama. It bedtime pretty soon, I t'ink."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Mary asked, playfully singsong.

Gabe's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "I et my supper, an' I kiss't Bet'l. I gots my popgun back now, an' I gived Stewpot his milk. Nope," he decided firmly. "Nope, I didn' forget nut'ing, Mama."

"What about our beans?" she said.

At once his face lit up with remembrance. "I's forgot de beans!" he exclaimed. He abandoned his hold on her and scrambled back onto the bench, kneeling up with his elbows on the tabletop. He smacked his popgun down in front of him, muzzle angled away in a combat-ready position, and he leaned over the saucer on which the nine and a half beans sat. He studied them academically for a moment, and then planted his finger on the broken one, corralling it away from the others and up onto the rim of the dish. He plucked it carefully between finger and thumb, and held it up to the lamplight.

"What we goin' do wid it, Mama?" he asked. "It goin' crunch in my teef if I try'n eat it."

Mary paused. She had not thought this through. She supposed they could just toss the beans in the slop pail, but that seemed needlessly wasteful. She glanced at Bethel, who smiled.

"Give 'em to me, Mist' Gabe," she said. "I'll save 'em up, an' when you' pappy come home I'll bake us up a fine mess of beans 'n molasses with 'em."

Ten beans – nine and a half – would of course not make much of a dish, but Gabe did not see the incongruity. He grinned and held out his hand to Bethel, who leaned forward and offered an upturned palm to catch the bean. She went ceremoniously to the dish dresser, and put it into one of the china teacups. Then Gabe bowed over the saucer again, and counted the remaining beans aloud.

"… eight, nine!" he finished triumphantly. "Dat _nine_ more days 'til Pappy come home."

Before he could ponder this any further, Mary clapped her fingers against her palm in the signal for him to take her hand. Obediently he slid off the bench, dragging his popgun with him, and fell into ranks beside her. "Goodnight, Bethel," Mary said softly, smiling back over her shoulder at the older woman.

"G'night, Missus," said Bethel with a tender little smile. "You have some good dreams youself, now. I's goin' be right here if'n you needs me."

"Thank you," Mary murmured, and she led her little man to the door. She stopped to light the lamp that was waiting in place of her usual candle: they had burned the last of those.

By the rosy kerosene glow she and Gabe passed through the dining room, but in the entryway he stopped thoughtfully, looking at the sloped door that hid the crawlspace beneath the stairs.

"Mama," he said pensively, rolling his lip over his teeth. "If I's de man of de house while Pappy gone 'way, mebbe I should have de _real_ rifle instead of dis-here popgun. It on'y shoot pretend bears, you know."

"I think pretend bears are all we're likely to see," said Mary; "and even they are much too shy to come around very often. Didn't Pappy say you should carry your popgun?"

"Yes," said Gabe, nodding vigorously but still watching the low door. "But I didn' ask him 'bout de rifle."

"Pappy would have remembered to say something if he thought it suitable," Mary reasoned. She did not want to tear him down with the firm pronouncement that he was far too young even to touch, much less carry, a real firearm. That was unfair on a day when they had all been asking him to behave in such a grown-up way, and he had been doing his utmost to be brave and selfless. "Don't you think that's so."

"Dat so," Gabe said. "Pappy, he t'ink 'bout ev'yt'ing. He mighty clever."

"Yes, he is," agreed Mary. "Someday he will teach you how to use the rifle, but in the meantime I feel quite safe having your popgun to protect me."

"I's goin' pertect you," Gabe said happily, brandishing his popgun with pride. "C'mon up de stairs, Mama. If dere a bear up dere – I mean a pretend bear – I's goin' shoot it for you."

"Then I can make you a pretend coat out of its fur," Mary offered as they started upward.

Gabe still placed both feet on each step when he climbed, so the journey was a slow one. At last they stood at the nursery door, and Mary slipped her hand out of the little boy's grasp to open it. Bethel had already laid the fire and the room was warm and welcoming in the glow of her lamp, but Gabe stopped dead on the threshold and shuddered visibly.

"What is it, dearest?" Mary asked gently. "What's wrong?"

Gabe looked up at her, eyes enormous and far too bright. "Pappy," he said piteously. "He ain't goin' sleep in here tonight."

"No," Mary murmured, blinking rapidly and swallowing hard against the lump that rose in her own throat. She did not want to think of how she missed Cullen, or how worried she was for him. Reassuringly she said; "He's going to sleep at the rail hotel in Jackson, so that he can get onto the train to New Orleans first thing in the morning."

"Firs' t'ing in de mornin'," Gabe parroted, but he did not seem to take any comfort from the words. He reached behind himself to grab a handful of her skirt, drawing it close so that the fold was stretched along his cheek. "But you goin' sleep wid me, all de night t'rough."

"That's right, darling," said Mary. "We'll be all right without Pappy, just for a few nights."

"_Nine_ nights," Gabe reminded her gravely. He gave a heavy, world-weary sigh. "I guess we's goin' manage somehow." He studied the skirt in his hand and then turned to look Mary over. "Is you goin' sleep in dat dress?" he asked. "De hoop be too bouncy fo' my li'l bed."

"No; I'll just go and undress," said Mary, coming further into the room so that she could set the lamp on the table by the bed. She took a taper from the cup on the mantle, and lit the nursery lamp. "Will you be all right by yourself while I do, or should I call Bethel to sit with you?"

For a moment Gabe looked almost terrified, but then his eyes slid towards the wall that divided his room from hers. He gripped his popgun with both hands and furrowed his face into a fierce frown. "I's goin' be awright," he decided. "I's a big, growed boy, an' dis my own nus'ry. I kin wait fo' you."

At this pronouncement Mary found she simply had to bend down and kiss the crown of his head. "My brave boy," she whispered. Then she smiled reassuringly. "I'll only be a few minutes."

"Yass'm," said Gabe. He looked around the room, marched to the armchair, and wriggled his bottom up into it. Sitting with feet dangling and his popgun in his lap, he looked like the pretender to a far-too-large throne. "I's goin' be waitin'."

Mary picked up the lamp again and slipped from the room. Just down the hall she stood in the cold cavern of the master bedroom. She put the lamp on her dressing table, where the mirror could enhance its glow, and she began to unbutton her basque. She removed her dress and hung her hoopskirt in the closet, then spent five minutes methodically loosening the laces of her corset so that the busk sprung with ease. Then she was able to unbutton her shoes and slither out of her petticoats. Shivering in chemise and pantalets, she did not wait to undo her hair before she put on her long flannelette nightgown. It was a cold night, positively frigid by Mississippi standards, and the chill of undressing was not even dispersed by the exertion of removing her hairpins and shaking out her auburn curtain of hair.

As she was picking up her brush, she heard a muted little whimper from down the hall, and the sound of Gabe sitting down firmly on the floor, but then there was only silence. Relieved, she resumed her toilette, relishing the rejuvenating feel of the bristles against her scalp and the satisfying crackle of her tresses as she drew the brush down towards their end. Guiltily she reflected what a relief it was to have a few quiet moments to herself, in which she could simply be weary and vulnerable and even just a little self-indulgent. It was hard to keep on being brave and sedately strong, for Cullen and for the children and today even for Meg. Mary had had a bad fright herself when Sheriff Brannan had stopped them, and she felt Cullen's absence keenly, and every time Gabe remarked upon his longing for his pappy her heart was torn, and just at this moment she was free to feel all of that without the burden of being the valiant, unshakable mistress of the house.

When she had tied off the end of her braid she snuffed the lamp, and walked barefoot in the darkness back to the nursery with the ruffle of her nightgown swirling about her ankles. As she opened the door, she was met by a peculiar spectacle. Gabe was indeed sitting on the floor, squarely in the middle of the room. He had his right foot tucked up under his bottom and the other leg curled loosely, as if he had tried but not quite succeeded in crossing his legs. It was a perfectly ordinary posture for a young child to affect, but the normalcy ended there.

It took Mary a moment of astonished gawking before she could even make sense of what he had been attempting to do, much less what had actually happened. But once she made that connection, the sequence of events was obvious. Gabe had decided, with a three-year-old's bold determination for independence, to undress himself for bed. His little topcoat and his vest were in a heap on the seat of the old armchair, and the next natural step had been to remove his shirt. Rather than open it straight down the front, he had unfastened only the top four buttons as Bethel was wont to do when removing the garment for Doctor Whitehead's examinations, and he had tried to pull the shirt right over his head. Now the small, gaping collar was sitting in its entirety on his left collarbone, bunched up between the two suspender straps – both of which were now on the same shoulder. His left arm was still in its sleeve, cuff unfastened, but he had managed to get his right arm out of both shirt and undershirt. It was resting across his thigh, fingers dangling to brush the rag rug beneath him, and his shirttail was tickling the inner bend of his elbow. His head was stuck in the right armscye.

The cloth of the sleeve was stretched almost perfectly smooth to accommodate the girth of his skull, stretched across his nose and forming a little divot where it was draw taut over parted lips. His eye sockets were slightly shadowed areas of marginally slacker cloth, and above the bulge that was his right ear the remainder of the sleeve was flopping limply like the ear of a spaniel. Because his right suspender was stretched so far onto the wrong side of his body, the right side of his trousers was riding up almost to the bottom of his ribcage. The entire spectacle was, in fact, remarkably amusing, and Mary had to restrain herself from giggling at her little boy's predicament.

He had heard her approach, even entombed as he was, and he sighed. "Mama? Dat you?" he asked, his voice muffled by the cloth. "I's stuck."

"Oh, lovey!" Mary breathed, pressing her fingertips to her lips and swallowing even her small smile. She knelt down beside him and began to unbutton the slender leather straps affixed to his waistband. "You're meant to take off your braces _before_ your shirt."

There was a beat of silence.

"I's jus' 'memberin' dat," Gabe said grimly.


	91. Crying for Liberty

_Note: Check Wikipedia for the portrait of Alexander McNutt, try to imagine twelve-year-old Bohannon in that getup, and just have a moment's sympathy for Bethel, who had to get him into it. Also, the resolution mentioned in this chapter was passed under a slightly different title on November 30, 1860 – just four days after Cullen's brief visit to Jackson. (This chapter was posted between 410 and 411.)_

**Chapter Ninety-One: Crying for Liberty**

Once more in the shelter of the ticket office, Cullen lowered himself onto the bench with a sigh, and took Bethel's basket into his lap. He was not especially hungry, but there was a tremor in his hands and a globe of nausea high in his chest that told him he had to eat something. The transferring of the tobacco from Henrietta to the boxcar belonging to the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad had gone smoothly, and had taken the crew of slaves only a little more than forty minutes to execute. Now Cullen had a second key in his pocket, and the comfort of knowing that everything was ready for tomorrow's dawn departure.

He lifted one corner of the napkin tucked over the basket's contents, and a faint smile tugged at his tired lips. Bethel had been generous indeed with her provisions. There was half a loaf of her light, fragrant bread, several good cuts of venison slow-roasted and wrapped in a square of butcher's paper, and four hard-boiled eggs. She had sliced a baked yam into thin coins, and then pan-fried them to crispness. There were two apples, their skins polished lovingly to a ruby sheen, a cold baked potato, and helpings of walnuts and dried blackberries. A small twist of paper held salt for the eggs and potato – they were out of pepper. Two little crocks with waxed linen covers were tucked in next to the two medicine bottles; these contained butter and peach preserves. The little cedar humidor was underneath another napkin, neatly separated from the food, and in the gap between its hinged back and the curve of the basket stood Cullen's small steel flask. He did not need to pick it up to know that it contained a half-pint of the whiskey that Leonidas Tate had sent him for Christmas.

Cullen surveyed this small feast with bemused fondness. Trust Bethel to be sure he did not go hungry. He broke off a hunk of bread and nibbled it, feeling his stomach awaken and roil eagerly in response. His first attempt at swallowing was painful, for his throat was raw and very dry. The last mouthful of water in Meg's jug eased that discomfort a little, and he tore off a strip of meat with his teeth. He had started to peel one of the eggs, flicking the shells into the spittoon in the corner, when the door from the platform opened and Josiah looked in.

He did so cautiously, with a wary glance towards the ticket window behind which the agent was napping in his chair, plainly taking advantage of the quiet of the late shift. Then Josiah looked back to Cullen and cleared his throat delicately. He was holding the half-pound of tobacco that he had been instructed to share around with the others in gratitude for their swift and obedient aid.

"What is it?" Cullen asked, wondering dimly if there was something wrong with the boxcar, or if they had inadvertently overloaded it in the interest of sparing him an overcharge for the general freight.

"Mist' Bohannon…" Josiah shuffled awkwardly, and Cullen wondered once again why he was called lame. "This here tobacco… it ain't no lugs."

It took Cullen's foggy mind a moment to make sense of the statement. Of course the tobacco wasn't lugs: he had filled the bag with the trimmings from his batch of sample cigars. But then he understood, and he snorted softly. "No, it ain't. That's best fire-cured Mississippi tobacco, there, and you be sure and give it the appreciation it deserves. You won't get that in the Carolinas."

Josiah looked down in surprise, as if seeing the little sack in an entirely new light. A moment ago it had been something remote and desirable: a luxury far beyond his reach. Now he had been given leave to partake, and he did not quite believe it. "Then me 'n the boys, we kin…"

"I told you. I's thankful," Cullen said huskily. He jerked his chin towards the door. "Go on, now. Enjoy it. And when I come on back through here, I'll look forward to your help shifting my stores back into that car."

"Yassir, thankee sir," Josiah mumbled, and he might have gone further with it except that the ticket teller stirred and snorted. The Negro shrank down as if he might disappear from sight. Evidently the yard crews were not allowed near the place where passengers waited. "I gots to go," he whispered. "Thankee, an' t'others is thankful, too."

Cullen nodded as the man made a hasty retreat, and turned back to his supper. He found, however, that he had little appetite left. He forced down the egg and ate a few of the crisp slices of sweet potato, then sopped a corner of the bread in the peach preserves and chewed it ponderously, but that was all he felt able to keep down. The knots of strained muscle in his back and ribs were tightening again, rebelling against the hard surface on which he was sitting. He had to get up and stretch, to walk off some of the discomfort before tomorrow's much longer journey. He smoothed the cloth over the basket's contents, and looked out the window.

Beyond the platform's lights were the dimmer glows of windows in the city, stretching away towards the lamplit blocks around the State House. Jackson was a handsome little metropolis, lacking the glamor of larger centers but with its own firm Southern dignity. It would be pleasant to wander up one of its quiet streets, while its citizens slept or savored the last hours of their day.

Mind made up, Cullen got stiffly to his feet. He considered his small cluster of possessions for a moment, before setting the basket and the jug on the bench. He left the copies of _Harper's Weekly_ with them, but opened the valise so that he could slip the leather folio containing his manifests and shopping lists inside. Ordinarily he might have considered leaving the case behind, for it was unlikely to be disturbed, much less taken. But on this journey he had brought Mary's jewel-box, and if misfortune were to find him it would be at precisely such a time. The solid Scotch practicality he had inherited from his grandfather told him it was best not to take the chance. So with the valise in one hand and his hat in the other, he slipped back out into the cold.

Pearl Street ran along the south side of the rail-yard, and it was for that thoroughfare that Cullen headed. The road was firmly packed and recently raked, and for its first two hundred yards it was lined with warehouses and gin-yards. The high brown bales of cotton, wrapped in burlap tarps awaiting sail or processing, loomed like giant bricks in the moonlight. Here and there the glow of a charcoal brazier or fire-pit testified to the presence of a watchman: either a Negro with a cudgel or a Cracker with a gun. The cotton-market at Jackson was one of the largest and most profitable in Mississippi, and its popularity relied in large part on its reputation for security.

The gins themselves were silent, waiting for dawn when the constant mechanical clacking would fill the air with the din of prosperity. There was no innovation of Man so highly valued in the South as the cotton gin. It had turned a laborious cottage crop into a vast international industry, a mighty river of wealth that flowed out from the farms and plantations and warehouses and then sucked back a high tide of wealth and prosperity. Cullen's own family had been built on cotton, and might still have been flourishing with the rest of the state if not for his father's pursuit of the inexplicable dream of growing tobacco. Now that he did not thrive with the ethereal white boles, Cullen had a peculiar impartial view of the hallowed Colossus. Just as his own small plantation could not survive on tobacco alone, lest a poor crop leave them not only destitute but actually starving, it seemed that an entire land could not be built solely on cotton. If that river of affluence ever ran dry – or were dammed – the economy would collapse.

By the look of things, however, the stream was running higher than ever. The warehouses were burgeoning, the buildings were well-kept and newly painted, and the first houses that appeared as the gin district gave way to the rest of the town were handsome, with the modest prosperity of a comfortable middle class. These were the homes of the warehouse overseers and the engineers responsible for tending the machines that separated the prized fibers from the tiny black seeds. Further along the houses grew more opulent, built in the Grecian Revival style or in the white stucco so popular in Meridian. Here dwelt the professionals and the important civil servants. Many of the State representatives and senators from other counties kept houses along the the ostentatiously named Congress and President Streets. Many of these showed light in the windows; upstairs where women might be carrying out their evening toilettes or trying to settle a fretful child, and downstairs in parlors and dining rooms. Now and then a fragment of conversation came to Cullen upon the cold air, not likely coming from an open window on such a night but from the rear and side yards where slaves would stop to socialize with their neighbors in this last, quiet hour of the day.

The business sector with its shops and law offices began a couple of blocks north of where Cullen was walking, but on the corner of Pearl and President he came upon an establishment discreetly named _Foster's Eating House and Refreshments_. Its lower windows were brilliantly lit behind slatted blinds, and there were lamps hung from the ceiling of the encircling veranda. Apart from the fact that it was getting to be quite late for an eating house to be overrun with customers, there were half a dozen young men lounging on chairs and benches on the porch. One of them was even perched on the rail, languid left arm thrust around one of the pillars to catch himself if he chanced to tip. And from the look of the bottle in his hand, tippling was virtually inevitable.

It was this one who first spotted Cullen, and he raised his vessel in salute. "Evenin' there, mister!" he called. "New in town? Care to join us?"

Several of the others voiced their approval of this notion, one going so far as to drum his heel upon the floor. This particular watering hole did not look like one with a reputation for rowdiness, and was likely a haunt for the civil servants of the State House. It would have been a good place to go for political gossip, if Cullen had had the energy to seek it. Even in his state of disaffected exhaustion he was drawn to the pool of warm light and the cheerful voices. He crossed the street in a loose diagonal, approaching the veranda steps and putting one foot on the second one up.

"What're you boys doing, drinking on a Monday night?" he asked, the words coming out hoarsely but good-naturedly. Blinking to clear the fever-fog from his eyes, he saw that none of them were wearing evening clothes. They had on their day suits, collars unbuttoned and stocks loosened as if they had just come from their day's work.

The man on the bannister handed down his bottle, while one of the others snatched up a small glass from a pedestal table. Cullen leaned forward to accept the cup, and held it for the other man to fill. The sharp, oaky fragrance of bourbon stung his nostrils and he knocked back the dose of spirits without a pause, baring his teeth with a low hiss as it smoldered its way down.

"Thank you," he said, his throat somewhat loosened by the liquor.

"Jackson hospitality!" chortled a rangy redhead with one foot on the nearest windowsill and two chair legs in the air. He nodded at the valise. "New in town?" he repeated.

"Just passing through," said Cullen. "Got tired of waiting for morning and figured I'd see what there was to see." Now, with the good Kentucky whiskey dispelling some of the muzziness, he noticed that all of the young men had ink-stained fingers, and four were wearing paper cuffs. "You all work up at the State House?" he asked.

A laugh ran through the ring, and two of the youths clinked glasses. "Sure we do," said the one nearest the door. "Why else would we be drinking on a Monday?"

"Drinking on a Monday," another chuckled, rather more inebriated than his friend.

"Have to be handy when the pages come looking," said the one on the rail. "As soon as they're done arguing, they're gonna want us to take dictation."

"And poor old Hank ain't gonna be much use," said the redhead, jerking his thumb at the especially drunk one.

"The pages are arguing?" Cullen muttered nonsensically. Perhaps the bourbon had not had much of a clarifying effect upon his feverish mind after all.

"The _senators_!" the one on the rail crowed, flinging his bottle up into the air as if this pronouncement was worthy of a toast. He overbalanced, and had to thrust out his foot to keep from falling backward. "They been at it hammer-and-tongs since one o'clock, and it don't look like they'll be winding down any time soon."

This was interesting. Cullen was not intimately familiar with the inner workings of the State Senate, but he was fairly certain that it would take a mighty inflammatory issue to keep the senators locked in debate for eight hours straight. And the only inflammatory issue he could think of was the recent grossly biased election of a Republican and staunchly abolitionist President.

"They're talking secession," he mumbled, not really asking.

"Secession!" cried one of the young men, thrusting his glass high. He squinted up at it, frowned at the thin slick of brownish-gold that coated its bottom, and then thrust it towards the man by the door. "Fill 'er up, Jack."

Jack obliged, and did the same for two more outstretched hands before shaking his head at Hank. "No more for you," he said. "Old Man Chalmers will wear you out with a ruler if you can't hold a pen. Don't you know he used to be a schoolmaster?"

The others hurriedly filled their little cups, all but the perching one who seemed to have been drinking straight from the bottle all this time. He held out his vessel towards Cullen. "'Nother dram?" he asked.

"Best not," said Cullen, remembering Bethel's stern warning.

"Aw, c'mon!" the youth coaxed. "You got to toast to a free Mississippi!"

"Free Mississippi!" cried one.

"Independence!" sang another.

"Security in property!"

"Just representation!"

"Damn the Yankee bastards!"

All of them drank: even Hank tipped his glass to his lips and thrust out his tongue to catch the last drops of liquor. Then a fresh roar of laughter went up, echoed by one from inside the saloon. The combined cacophony was too much for Cullen's aching head, and he hunched his shoulders instinctively. This sent a quick, bright arc of anguish up his neck, and he clenched his teeth, pulling away from the stoop and taking long, swift strides back down to the boardwalk. Someone called out to him in protest, and he tipped his hat without breaking his gait. He had no interest in joining their revels, and something far more intriguing was drawing him on now, on up Pearl Street towards the State House.

_*discidium*_

The anguish in his shoulder had dimmed to a grinding fire that blazed with the slightest movement, and the aches in the rest of his body were almost imperceptible so long as he kept still, but Nate was wide awake and miserable. He had been deep in a dull, dreamless slumber when Elijah had come in, and now he could not seem to find his way back. The old man was asleep on his pallet on the floor, for he had surrendered his bunk for Nate and could no longer hoist himself into the upper one. He had brought Nate's supper with him: hominy porridge rich with cream made specially by Bethel, with apple butter and soft mashed yams. Nate was thankful for the consideration, for his jaw was still bruised and chewing was painful, but the invalid food sat like a millstone in his stomach and the sweetness of the meal had left him bitterly thirsty. The roof of his mouth felt gritty and raw, and there was a sour taste in his throat. But the pail within reach was now near enough to empty that the dipper could not scrape up even an ounce and he lacked the will to rise and fetch the other.

He should have thought to ask Elijah to bring the full bucket closer, but he had been too much occupied with the exertions of eating one-handed. After one uncomfortably claustrophobic night turned in towards the wall, he had moved the pillow down to the foot of the bed so that he could lie with his head by the door and his face turned outward. It was colder, lying with his feet to the fire, but much preferable nonetheless. He was roasting in the heat of his own wrath anyhow.

For the first couple of days he had been unable to do anything but subsist in a haze, lost between the pain and the anodyne powder and reliant upon Elijah's aid even to sit up far enough to take the occasional sip of water. Now, on what he was fairly certain was Monday night, he had regained some measure of command over his body. He had even spent an hour or two in the chair instead of the straw tick, and he had managed his own visits to the chamber pot to pass sparing quantities of bloody piss while his left flank ached. In the morning he would have to enlist Elijah's help for the trip to the privy at the end of the row of empty cabins, but that was certainly preferable to the alternative. Perhaps in another couple of days the pain in his shoulder blade would subside enough to allow him to resume some of his duties, even if plowing was out of the question.

The worst of it, worse than the pain and the dependency, was that while he was unable to do anything else all he seemed capable of was brooding on his situation. It did no good, he told himself, to stew in grim resentment and bitter hate. It would not wipe the sneering smile off that white man's face, or change the fact that once again it had been Mister Cullen's slave who had paid the price for his disaffection from the county's powerful men. It would not heal the cracked bone that he begrudged almost as much for breaking as he did the sheriff who had broken it. Most galling of all, there was no outlet for his loathing and frustration: not even the dubious catharsis of hard work.

Nate closed his eyes, trying to weigh his thirst against the pain that moving would bring. He had finally found a comfortable position again after his ungainly supping, and he was reluctant to relinquish it. He swallowed thickly, and the tickle in his throat brought up a shallow cough that was just enough to rattle his shoulder against its cracked socket. For a vast, blinding span of time he could only lie there with his left hand clenched into a fist and his right a claw of impotent tension, perspiration running into tightly screwed eyes as he fought for control over the body that had betrayed him.

When he sank back down into exhausted subsistence, he became gradually aware of a sound that had invaded the familiar nightly noises. It was a rattling, almost clicking rhythm that increased in tempo until it broke in a high cry of straining air, like a whistle just on the edge of human hearing. As that shrill tone sank back into the clacking, Nate's mind made sense of the noise. In the next cabin, Lottie was coughing.

He listened, breathless in sympathy, as the fit rode itself out. He could hear Meg's low, gentle murmuring, though he could not make out any of the words, and he heard Lottie's strangled attempts to squeak out a word or two. When at last he heard her gasp, force out one last hard series of coughs, and fall into harsh panting, he closed his eyes and sighed. Poor child: what had she ever done to deserve such suffering?

But of course if life had taught Nate anything at all, it was that folks generally didn't deserve the suffering they got – or didn't get. It was Brannan and his ilk who _deserved_ to wake in the middle of the night fighting for air, and not a sweet young girl who had never had a thought more malicious than a certain amount of glee for the master's comically inept struggles with a plow. But the wicked white wasp with his soft palms and heavy hands lay peaceful in his feather bed, and Lottie was suffering. Again Nate felt the rage rising, and his eyes shot open in a hard, hateful glare that seemed to cut through the darkness.

To his astonishment, another pair of eyes met his, glinting faintly in the glow of the embers. Elijah was awake, propped up on one elbow and watching him.

"She breathin' again," he said quietly, and his voice seemed to quiver in the gloom. "She comed through it this time, praise the Lord."

Nate exhaled through his nostrils, feeling the bladder of anger deflate a little as his thoughts were drawn back to Lottie. "She a strong, well-fed girl," he said. "She goin' come through it ev'y time."

"Mebbe," muttered Elijah. "Don' make it no easier to listen to."

Now the tremor in his voice was obvious. He sounded as if he had aged ten years in the brief time he had been asleep. Nate's eyes narrowed. "What eatin' at you?" he asked. "Lottie gots a good soun' roof over her head, an' Bethel lookin' aft' her. She even gots that white doctor watchin', fo' all the good he kin do. She goin' be awright."

"She gots it better'n most," Elijah conceded. "An' the missus been good 'bout keepin' her out the work, from what I kin tell. I still don' like it. You think a child goin' shake a cough, an' then things, they takes a turn somehow an' 'fore you know it, you's standin' over a li'l shroud."

Nate frowned. Elijah's words frustrated him, not least because they were frightening. The thought of losing Lottie was too terrible to consider, much less speak of as an actual possibility. "You been sayin' things like that fo' days now," he groused. "Either you gots to 'splain youself, or jus' hush that mouth. She ain't goin' die, an' if you gots cause to think diff'rent, come out an' say it!"

"I don'," Elijah said, rolling onto his back with a grunt. He tucked one lean, muscular arm up under his head and blinked at the bare ceiling. "Not really. It' jus…"

He had done it again: trailed off as if he knew something Nate did not, but somehow ought to. The younger man gritted his teeth over the urge to speak harshly. "Go on an' say it," he muttered. "You been tryin' to fo' ages, an' if'n you don' come out with it, I's goin' lose my patience."

"There was a girl," Elijah said. The words hung in the air for a moment, gravid and ominous. Elijah never spoke much about his past, and certainly not of the time before Master William had bought him up for his tobacco expertise and brought him out to Mississippi. "Round 'bout Lottie's age, mebbe a li'l olderer. Had her a crop of pigtails jus' like our Lottie, too, an' as cheerful a disposition as any chile you'se ever see'd."

Nate wanted to press him to get on with the story, to get it over with as swiftly and painlessly as possible, but he did not. He understood, with a clarity he did not usually possess, that this was not a question of his own discomfort, but of Elijah's. Whatever he was about to reveal was a torment to him, a secret misery that he had carried silently for decades until Lottie's ceaseless coughing had wrenched it to the forefront again. He needed, Nate thought, to say this all in his own way, and in his own good time.

Finally Elijah spoke again. "One day she started coughin'. Wasn't hardly nuthin' at first: her ma thought it jus' a col', an' didn' even trouble the head woman 'bout it, not fo' months an' months. Then the cough start gittin' worse, 'til she'd go on like Lottie do, coughin' fo' minutes at a time an' hardly catchin' a breath between. _That_ when her ma tooked her up to the house, an' tol' 'em mebbe that chile didn' oughta be workin'."

"Bet they jus' loved that idea," Nate growled.

"Didn' they jus'," said Elijah. There was a hard, bitter cast to the words that seemed strange upon his tongue. Elijah was always the patient one, quietly accepting of life's injustices because there was no help for them. Nate, who had often scorned the old man for accepting what he himself could not, had never stopped to think that perhaps this was because Elijah had known greater injustices: great enough that by comparison the small indignities of life on the Bohannon plantation were not even worth the effort of disdaining.

"They sent her right back, awright," Elijah went on, heavily. "Back int' the fields, coughin' like she be. An' when she started coughin' blood, her ma tried again to git the overseer to let her res' up."

"He didn', did he?" Nate asked. His chest felt tight, for he knew how the story would progress from here and he dreaded it. He felt like a small boy again, listening to the grown folks whisper around the fire. Under cover of darkness after a long day's labor they would pass on such stories: tales of hardship and suffering on other plantations. Sometimes the news would travel hundreds of miles, stored up and remembered in the collective archives of the nation within a nation to be contemplated and kept. Sometimes it came from a neighbor's land, and then when the tale was told there would be the call to action. Quietly, secretly, the slaves did what they could to help each other. If a woman lost a baby to malnutrition, gifts of food would be passed hand to hand from the nearby plantations so that her other children need not suffer the same fate. If a man was hobbled after an escape attempt, or wounded in a logging accident, or unjustly beaten by a cruel overseer, small quantities of medicine might be purloined by a dozen cooks, mammies and housemaids to be gathered together to make up a few doses. If a cabin burned, slaves from all around the county would gather on their day of rest, to break the Sabbath and build another. As best they could, black folks looked after each other – and when they could do nothing more, they heard and shared the collective pain of their own people.

"Nawsir, he didn'," said Elijah, recalling Nate to the present and to this particular tale of woe. He was braced against it, but he dreaded it all the same. "Treated her jus' the same as the healthy pickaninnies, he did. When she lagged, he beat her fo' laziness, an' when she falled he maked her git up 'gain. 'Til there come a day when she couldn' quit coughin' no matter how he hit her, an' when she falled down that time, she didn' git up no more. Foreman carried her back to the quarters, an' she lay in a fever fo' a few days, an' then she jus' up an' died. Lottie's age, mebbe a li'l olderer."

Nate let out a breath he did not know he was holding. "Sin an' a shame," he said. "That man, he burnin' in hell."

"Yassir, he doin' that," muttered Elijah. "That chile's father sent him there hisself. Hung fo' it, course. Murder, they called it. Wasn' it murder what that man done to his girl?"

His voice broke and he sucked in a wavering breath that was far too much like a sob. Nate wanted to climb out of the bunk to comfort him – not to embrace him, for that was beyond the bounds of the manly friendship between them, but at least to let Elijah lean against him and know he was not alone.

"It murder," he hissed instead. "But it ain't, what he done to that overseer. God ain' goin' punish a man fo' pertectin' other childern from that sort of monster."

For a long time there was silence in their little room. Beyond the far wall, Meg was singing in a low and melodious voice, soothing her own child back to sleep. In the morning Lottie would go up to the house for a hearty breakfast, and spend the day resting on Missus Mary's fine couch in the kitchen, perhaps bestirring herself to shell a few peas or play with the master's son. And in that moment, Nate understood Meg's fierce loyalty towards Mister Cullen.

Elijah turned onto his side again, rolling in towards the gap between his pallet and the bunk. "I don' want that girl to die," he whispered. "Our Lottie. She gots to git better again. She gots to."

"She will," Nate said firmly. "If nuthin' else, Bethel goin' scare ol' Mist' Death away."

A half-hearted chuckle came from the old man's direction. "That so: she would," he said. "With her own two hands if need be. Bethel, she a treasure."

They lapsed again into quiet. A hush had fallen on the other cabin as well, and Nate could imagine Meg and Lottie lying curled together in the big bunk, Meg's strong slender arm safeguarding her child even in sleep. He swallowed painfully, suddenly filled with a bitter loneliness.

"Elijah?" he rasped, needing to reach out to the other man even more than he needed relief from his body's discomforts. "I hates to ask, but could you… the other pail of water… I done drunk what I's got here."

Elijah grunted softly as he sat up, flinging aside his bedclothes. "Sure, sure," he said, climbing to his feet. He padded to the table and picked up the bucket. "Shoulda lef' it by your side the minute I brung it in. Cain't have you runnin' 'round in your condition. The pain any better today?"

"Some," Nate admitted. At another time he would have offered a prouder declaration, but the intimacy of the terrible story still hung in the air. He nudged his left elbow under his ribs, levering himself up a little as Elijah handed him a full dipper. He drank noisily, eyes fluttering low at the simple pleasure of the cool fluid in his parched throat. Elijah filled the dipper a second time, and Nate drained it with more control. Then he let himself sink back into the crackling straw, raising the faint scent of lavender. Elijah set down the pail and stood still, looking down at him with an expression rendered unreadable in the gloom.

"Who was she?" Nate said unexpectedly, surprising even himself. "The girl what died."

Elijah shook his head slowly. "Her name was Tunie," he said softly. He shuffled back to his low bed and eased himself down onto it. He drew the covers up under his chin and turned his face placidly towards the warmth of the fire, closing his eyes. Only when his breath leveled out into the rhythm of sleep did it occur to Nate that this was not really an answer.

_*discidium*_

The Mississippi State House was a grand white edifice built in the classical style: handsome columns and lofty windows, with a proud dome and cupola towering over the street. It dwarfed the nearby buildings: brick business establishments three and four stories high, with awnings and the odd balcony to break their starkness. To the right of the Capitol was a small wooded park with paths and benches, strangely ethereal beyond the glow of the sparse street lamps. Cullen crossed the road to walk beside it, hearing the call of the crickets in the neatly-tended grass. He stopped at the park's very edge, where the State House rose above him like a white colossus in the night. Few of the upper windows were lighted, but the dome was ablaze and the lower floor seemed alive with lamps. He stood for a long while, looking at this symbol of the power of the state in which he had been born, the state he loved with the inbred loyalty a man only feels for his homeland.

He had not intended to walk this way, when he had first set out from the station. It had not even occurred to him to include such a pilgrimage in his journey. Though it had featured prominently in his first journey to New Orleans, with his father at the age of twelve, and he had on occasion made the detour on his own, over the years it had lost some of its novelty. Now he found himself awed anew by the sight. Something stirred in his breast, intangible but very powerful. Was that patriotism, he wondered: to look on the symbol of Mississippi herself and to be moved?

The aura of wonder dimmed a little as he took his first step up the cobbled way that led to the splendid front doors of the building. It was just that, after all: a building. Its purpose was as much to house the daily minutiae of government life as it was to inspire the citizens. In that respect, it was not so much different from the courthouse in Meridian, filled with bureaucratic backbiting and backroom dealing, paperwork and haggling and argument. And it was this last that had drawn Cullen here tonight: argument, or the hope of watching it. At least he was curious as to what exactly each side of the debate had to say, and which way it might be swaying.

He passed first through an oak-panelled corridor, flanked on both sides by imposing doors labeled with brass plaques proclaiming various services. Cullen was not here on matters of business, taxation or security, and in any case the occupants of these rooms had long ago taken their leave for the day. He walked on past these nests of the bureaucrats, and down to the end of the hallway where it opened into the rotunda under the dome.

The grand vestibule was a marvel of stonework and carven columns. Hung in arched alcoves were portraits of the governors of the state, from the young and foppish David Holmes right up to Governor Pettus himself, bearded and imposing against a drape of red velvet. As a boy, Cullen had moved from one painting to the next – stretching only to McNutt in those days – and listened as his father offered brisk and often caustic commentary on each statesman's legacy. Now, he had little interest in the likenesses of these politically savvy wranglers, though as he passed the portrait of clean-shaven Alex in his high, stiff collar and cravat, Cullen did tug at his own muffler to loosen it, grimacing at the memory of such unyielding contraptions on his own neck.

The ghosts of youthful discomfort could not distract him long, for even at the base of the arcaded staircase that ran up to the senate chamber, Cullen could hear the commotion within. The chatter of rapid, earnest voices was overtaken by a raised one, booming and stentorian with the full force of lungs accustomed to addressing crowds from hotel balconies and railway platforms. The hammer of heavy fists on desktops followed, and a chorus of cries that were either expressions of vehement disagreement or enraged accord: he could not tell which.

Cullen took the stairs with more energy than his body had voluntarily exerted in weeks, his riding boots clicking on the marble tile. He paused to glance at the ornate mahogany door, carved intricately with all the symbols of Mississippi's history, and turned to the carpeted steps that branched up off the landing towards the gallery. Halfway up these he lost some of his momentum, and his footfalls were heavy when he reached the top. There was a sitting room at the top of the steps, with heavy horsehair sofas and armchairs, small tables bearing spittoons and ashtrays, and racks of newspapers and periodicals. There was a tall secretary stocked with writing paper, inkwells and pencils for the convenience of the newspapermen and other interested parties who frequented the gallery, and a sideboard full of cut-glass tumblers and suspiciously empty decanters. Sparing all this only a swift appraising glance, Cullen put his hand upon the knob of the gallery door and slipped it open.

"… the moral _outrage_ perpetrated upon innocent citizens of the state exercising their right to traverse freely throughout the nation!" an enraged voice protested. Cullen stepped down into the carpeted space, furnished much like an opera box but at least four times as large. There were rows of six seats to either side of him, in four columns stretching down to the gallery rail. To his surprise, several of these were occupied. It seemed he was not the only one who was curious about the late-night debate among the senators.

"The Honorable Senator has a point!" said another man. Coming down to the front row and sliding into the first available seat to his right, Cullen was transfixed by the spectacle on the floor. He had never beheld a Senate debate, but he had witnessed a handful of sessions in the Lower House on the other side of the vestibule behind him. One, observed with grim interest in the autumn after his father's death, had involved the infamous and divisive Kansas-Nebraska act. Even that debate had not presented the picture of impassioned disorder that was spread before him now.

It was impossible to tell what percentage of the senate was present, for most of them had abandoned their tables to congregate around the row that bordered the floor. A few of the senior senators were still seated, but even those still at their desks had an agitated air as if they might spring up at any moment. Topcoats had been cast open or flung aside, so that a good three-quarters were in shirtsleeves. One or two had even done away with their vests, and there was hardly a tied stock or a buttoned collar to be seen. Some were brandishing pipes or cigars, and others flasks. Papers were scattered on tabletops and in the aisles, peppering the steps with their lush green carpeting. At the raised table that loomed over the floor sat a florid-faced man who could only be James Drane, the President of the Senate and the Lieutenant-Governor of Mississippi. He was brandishing a rolled document as he glared at the chaos before him, but he did nothing to intervene.

"The Constitution of the United States, to which Mississippi put her hand," declared a short man with a bushy red beard, who by his voice was the one who had been shouting as Cullen entered; "guarantees that _'citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states'_! Our citizens have the privilege, nay, the _right_ to travel freely throughout this great nation without harassment – a right that has been repeatedly infringed by abolitionist radicals and Republican scoundrels throughout the Union! It must be affirmed that the Senate of Mississippi utterly repudiates such conduct and refuses to abet it any longer!"

A roar of approval went up around him, but a burly man who was among the vestless shook his head. "It's a damned fool thing to muddy the waters with that," he said. "Different states have different laws and if a person traveling from Mississippi to, oh, say…"

"Ohio?" someone supplied.

"Ohio!" The man snapped his fingers. "If such a person is found to be violating the laws of Ohio while in Ohio, even if such conduct were legal in Mississippi—"

He was shouted down in a hailstorm of angry voices. "Don't make no difference!" roared the one with the red-beard. "The right to property is fundamental and immutable, and cannot be infringed simply because one brings one's property to a state that does not recognize the classification! Traveling with one's property is not a crime, and should not be treated as a crime!"

"I'm only saying it muddies the waters," bellowed the other man. "We want to present a clear account of our grievances in such a way that the Federal machine cannot reject them! The argument that travelers may on occasion be deprived of their property in Republican jurisdictions is not a significant point."

"It _is_ a significant point!" shouted another man. "Just like Denson said: if they take our property on _their_ land and get away with it, they'll come onto _our _land and try the same thing! It's just what they're intending to do, only on a grand scale. Four billion dollars' worth of property, and the United States Government and their rail-splitting puppet want to seize it!"

This raised another deafening wave of protestations and violent agreement. Cullen slid the valise under his seat and leaned forward, watching the faces of those below with grim fascination. Eyes were narrowed in fury or wide with indignation, mouths taut with tension or contorting in the acrobatics of a zealous exclamation. Most interesting of all were the creases of weariness and despair he saw on a few of the faces: while most were riled up in righteous indignation and patriotic fervor, there were those who seemed bent under a great, invisible burden. One man in particular, sitting at a favored seat just to the left of the center aisle, seemed lost in some sort of mournful reverie. He was twisted in his chair with his elbow resting on its back so that the hand could support his brow, or Cullen would have been unable to see anything of his face. The lines about his mouth and at the corners of his nose were drawn thin as if with pain, and his dark eyes were soft and profoundly sad. With his other hand he was toying with an ivory pen, twirling around and around his fingers. The ink had long since sprayed out to spatter his blotter, and there was no halo of dark wetness from the nib. The small, fretful action, it seemed, had been carrying on for hours.

"Where you from?" a low voice asked, amplified by proximity so that it made Cullen jump despite the roar from below. He shifted swiftly and warily in his seat, only to find himself nose-to-nose with a man of about his own age, grinning from under a waxed brown mustache.

"Meridian," Cullen said reflexively, not even pausing to think. The man had a stenographer's book in one hand, the page all but covered in loose shorthand. His grin widened and he whistled.

"Whew-ee! I knew we was here for the long haul, but I didn't expect to be sitting long enough for folks to come clear across the state to hear 'em shouting! Musta got the telegram early afternoon and jumped the first train out, huh?"

Below someone was shouting about the right of egress and ingress as defined by the Supreme Court, but Cullen was beginning to think that there was less to be gained from watching this than he had hoped. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of what the other man was saying.

"I'm happy to share my notes, so long as you buy the drinks afterwards," he went on. "You can tell your editor you was softening up a source."

Now Cullen understood, and he chuckled softly. "I ain't a reporter," he said. "Just an interested citizen passing on through."

"Oh." The man made a good effort at covering his obvious disappointment. He had clearly been anticipating a pleasant late-night binge at a colleague's expense. He slid back into his chair and crossed his leg, repositioning his notebook. "Funny spot for sightseeing."

"I take it they _is_ arguing over secession?" Cullen said, nodding his head towards the bear-pit full of politicians. One of them was waving his fist in the air, recounting the travails of some cousin or other to the general approval of those nearest him. The whole thing was beginning to have the feel not so much of a political debate as of a mob brewing up towards violence: more vicious agreeing than actual disagreement. He shifted uncomfortably and sank a little lower in the seat, feeling the throbbing in his temples start up afresh.

"The House of Representatives sent over a resolution," said the newsman, clicking his pencil against his front teeth. "They been debating the wording since dinnertime. Don't look to be winding down any time soon."

"Just the wording?" asked Cullen. "Not secession itself?"

"It ain't exactly a resolution to secede, not yet." The reporter shifted and sighed. "Just more of a statement of the reasons it might be a sound notion. What're they calling in, now…" He flipped through his notebook quickly enough to make the leather spine creak. "_'A declaration of secession to be the proper remedy for the Southern States_.' Don't exactly roll off the tongue."

Cullen pulled his upper lip over his teeth, shaking his head from side to side. This brought a wave of dizziness, and he closed his eyes against it, gripping the arm of the chair with white knuckles.

"You got some objection to secession, Mister?" the other man said, suddenly suspicious.

Cullen had to shake his head at that, but he did so tersely. "Not especially," he muttered. "But I got a Northern wife."

The journalist laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Sound excuse not to spend Christmas at the in-laws!" he crowed.

Cullen made no reply to this, for he was fighting the urge simply to slip down out of the chair and curl up on the carpet. He was miserably tired, and he never should have come down here. Curiosity be damned: how had he thought that sitting in a room full of squalling politicians would do anything to make him feel better? They were so caught up in the wording of the resolution (which did indeed need some tweaking, if the title was anything to judge by) that they were failing to address the critical issue: did the honor and pride of Mississippi, both of which demanded secession, measure favorably against the immediate costs and future risks of splitting from the Union? Cullen did not know the answer to this, and he had come in the indistinct hope of clearing his own mind on the matter only to find those vested with the power of determining the future of the state and her people mired in arguments over split infinitives.

A heavy pounding rang throughout the chamber, louder by far than the drumming of those beating their desks to voice approval. Several vitriolic conversations continued over the sound, and then trailed away to silence as all eyes were drawn to the high seat where Drane sat. He had his gavel in hand and was thumping it repeatedly on the desk.

"A little quiet, gentlemen, please," he said, authoritative but not without a certain weariness. Eight hours of uninterrupted squabbling was bound to take a toll on a man. "Senator Gwin. What were you saying?"

"That it is an outrage! An outrage not to be borne! The Republicans and the abolitionist sympathizers in the North are determined to bring about the end of our ancient and noble institution, and that we and we alone have spoken out against this agitation!" a short man declaimed, his voice ringing off the vaulted ceiling. Several shouts of approval were heard, and he flung his finger into the air. "If the government in Washington is determined to preserve the nation, _why_ do they not speak out against such hatemongering? The answer is simple, my friends: _they have no such determination!_ Their purpose is clearly divisive, and fixed upon our ultimate humiliation and degradation!"

The cacophony of approval that followed this pronouncement was deafening. Cringing instinctively against the noise, Cullen bent over his lap to reach for his case. He found the handle with some groping, and was about to drag it to him when another voice cut across the din.

"These are all valid points, as are those raised in the proposal as written!" the man bellowed, filling his lungs to a capacity that Cullen envied and using their full force to project his words. "But we cannot merely cite those indignities we have borne patiently for so long, in the name of unity and compromise!"

Cullen looked up over the rail, unable to shake the notion that he knew that voice. It took a moment to pick out the speaker in the throng, but just as he did the man took two steps into the vacant space at the centre of the half-circle before the Lieutenant-Governor's desk. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered but lean, and he wore his graying hair long and his beard trimmed to his collar. He had a pair of spectacles perched on his nose, which was crooked from a blow sustained in a barroom altercation that had escalated to a matter of honor. Cullen knew that because he knew the man: J. B. Ramsey, State Senator for Lauderdale County and one-time cohort of William Bohannon.

Despite his physical misery and his mounting exhaustion, Cullen slid back into the seat, watching intently. Joe Ramsey had been a frequent guest throughout Cullen's childhood and adolescence, and had it not been for the unfortunate breaking of his nose that night, he might have been the second in the duel that had had such permanent consequences. It was interesting to see him in his public role, dressed in a fine coat that he had not shucked like so many of his fellows, one hand tucked into the front of his waistcoat in the time-tested oratorical fashion. He bore little resemblance in bearing to the languid second son who had lounged with such ease on the sofa in the parlor and fallen asleep more than once on the rug, drunken and satiated, but the face was still the same. Cullen could almost imagine him dealing out a firm punch to the arm and an approving; "Good boy. Didn't flinch. Maybe you's going to grow up to be something, after all."

"We must address the _proximal _cause," Ramsey said, looking around the circle with the same hard, cold eyes he had worn in a hunt or when disciplining a disobedient darky on his plantation south of Sowashee Creek. "To wit: the unilateral election of a President whose support in the South was not merely tenuous but in fact almost nonexistent. That the current climate and the distribution of electoral seats is such that the North may select whatever leader it choses, without concern for or consultation with the states that have built the greatest part of the wealth of this nation!"

Again came the roar of approval, the drumming of the desks and the stamping of the feet. Vindicated nods and one or two triumphant whoops circled the senators, as if the ill-chosen President himself had heard Ramsey's vehement decrial. Cullen felt his own blood running hot, as it had not done during the squabble about the right to travel with slaves. This was the crux of the matter: the final indignity that was not to tolerated. Differences in philosophy were only to be expected in a nation as vast and diverse as the United States, but the inability for the South to gain recognition and representation in the national government was irreconcilable and unconscionable. It was a humiliation not to be borne, and a danger to the very foundation of the nation and the safety of her people.

"For lesser outrage than this, our forefathers threw off the tyranny of England!" Ramsey shouted. Cries of "Liberty!" and "Independence!" went up, but only from a few throats. The others were silent, listening instead. "Are we to bear such injustice silently? Let the resolution be added that we shall not tolerate this violation of our democratic rights!"

He stepped back into the throng, and the clamor of voices rose again. This time, however, Cullen did not flinch or look for an escape. His body was worn almost to utter enervation, and the cough would not hold off for long, but at that moment he could not tear himself away. Secession might not be the remedy for all of Mississippi's ills, but more and more it was appearing to be her only recourse. Rapt by the orators below, Cullen listened.


	92. Truth and Consequence

_Note: Ooh. SUCH a long time between chapters… it's been a crazy, stressful week. Enjoy! Writing makes me feel human. (This chapter was posted between 410 and 411.)_

**Chapter Ninety-Two: Truth and Consequence**

When the tall clock in the chamber read a quarter to ten, the embattled senators at last reached a consensus. It would have been too much to hope for an accord on the resolution they had been asked to adopt, but they did at last agree that they had been kept from their suppers for long enough, and that a recess was warranted. The Lieutenant-Governor adjourned the session until morning, and the disheartened statesmen began to gather their belongings and disperse. Cullen sat still, slouched low in his chair with one foot up on the wall of the box. His body felt weighted with lead and he did not relish the idea of rising at all, much less competing for the door with a crowd of overtired newsmen. He had managed to hold back his cough through the debate, and although his chest now felt tight he did not think a fit was imminent.

By the time the gallery was empty, the floor below was nearly deserted as well. The gentleman who had sat silent and mournful through all the posturing was now on his feet, leaning one hip against the side of his desk as he consulted a bundle of shorthand notes. Drane had descended from his perch on high, and was talking in hushed tones with Ramsey and a small, clean-shaven man. Around the perimeter of the room, the Negro footmen were already moving, silent as shadows. They were gathering the detritus of the day and beginning the process of rendering the room fit for tomorrow's session. It would be long past midnight, Cullen suspected, before these slaves could put away their polish-rags and brushes and go to their beds. This thought aroused his own longing to stretch out his sore body and sleep.

He dragged his valise from under the chair and picked up his hat. Actually climbing to his feet was a more difficult proposition, for his body had stiffened again and his head protested the change in altitude. He let the leather case fall onto his lately-vacated seat so that he could grasp the brass rail at the edge of the box.

He swayed, eyes swimming with greenish-black fog, and his ribs spasmed with a deep and reluctant cough. Cullen sucked in a wary breath over it, hacked feebly again, and was silent. His pulse eased as he realized that he was not about to explode in a full-blown fit, and he dared to let go of the rail to bring out his handkerchief. He wiped the corners of his mouth, and took four unsteady steps to the corner, where a large porcelain spittoon stood for the convenience of the observers. He expectorated a string of milky phlegm muddied with dark particles: soot inhaled in the boxcar.

At last Cullen collected his hat and his case and abandoned the gallery. He had scarcely stepped into the sitting room alcove beyond when he realized that he had misjudged his body. Another cough took him, rapidly followed by another and then a third. Conscious of the way the sound ricocheted off the walls, he tried to resist the drive to keep coughing. It was a stupid thing to attempt. As soon as he tried to swallow one spasm another came crashing upon its heels. He felt his diaphragm shudder, and he hastened to the nearest armchair before want of air could rob him of his sense of balance.

Sitting hurriedly, perched on the edge of the slickly upholstered cushion, he dropped his hat on top of his valise and curled his right arm around his ribs. He bent low over his knees, putting firm pressure on his own ribs in much the same way his palms did for his son. Coughing and gagging helplessly, with only the occasional whoop to break the fits, he balled his left hand into a fist and pounded it against his leg. Damn it, how much longer could this damned disease drag on? He could not afford this weakness. What if this happened in the middle of a business supper, or during the delicate negotiations over quality and price?

Vast, desperate fury gripped him, and the coughing began to take on a harsher note, as if he were trying to force the sickness from his body along with the last of his wind. When he finally did take in a thin, wheezing gasp that relieved the awful pressure building in his temples, he sagged the last few inches forward, so that his forehead touched his knees. Bowed low, he drunk in small sips of air until his nausea eased and his limbs stopped quaking and he sank into a stupor of utter enervation.

But he could not huddle here forever. The night watchman would be doing his rounds soon, shutting up the building for the night. Cullen had to get up and walk back to the station. He could collect the things he had left behind and then…

And then what? He dimly recalled having some sort of a plan for this first night of his journey, but he could not now remember what it had been. In the haste to haul the tobacco into Meridian, the chaos surrounding Nate's ill-starred encounter with Brannan, the piecemeal adaptations made in the wake of his injury, and of course the unremitting whirlwind of whooping cough, any itinerary for this evening had escaped from Cullen's memory. Last year and the year before, he had stayed at the rail hotel down by the junction depot, but with the value of his crop uncertain and his debts so towering he was reluctant to part with a quarter for lodgings – much less the fifty cents for the boarding house the conductor had mentioned.

Cullen had no close friends in Jackson. He was not a person who attracted flocks of pleasant acquaintances wherever he went, for he was impatient with the social niceties and had his own ideas (often contrary to convention) about what constituted a man's worth. His family connections were equally sparse, and he could think of no house in town where he would be welcome to knock at this hour of the night. He might be received out of ritual courtesy in any of half a dozen, but that was a very different thing. He was not interested in subjecting himself to smiling resentment and obligatory Southern hospitality.

With a soft grunt of effort, he got to his feet, bringing valise and hat with him. He could mull it over during the walk back to the depot. Perhaps the cold night air would clear his head a little. His thoughts were muddled and his first steps unsteady. When he reached the stairs, he clamped his hat in the fingers gripping the valise handle so that he could take a firm hold on the bannister. The cascade of the staircase swam dizzyingly before his eyes, and he screwed them closed as he took a downward step.

Once he was moving, it was easier to bear. Either his body was adjusting to the feeling, or it had simply given itself over to gravity. He stumbled when his foot landed unexpectedly on a level surface instead of a lower one, and he caught himself against the carven pillar that flanked the left side of the broad landing before the Senate Chamber door. Cullen curled his arm around the plinth and rested his temple and cheekbone against the cool, fluted stone, breathing shallowly and trying to gather his energy for the next phase of the descent.

He had just lifted his head again when a low and mildly surprised voice asked; "Bohannon, ain't it?"

He turned uncertainly, just in time to see the door to the Senate floor swing closed. Senator Ramsey had just come through it, a bundle of papers in the crook of one arm. He squinted, tilted his head forward, and finally removed his spectacles entirely. "It is, ain't it? William's boy, from Meridian?"

"That's me," Cullen rasped, unable to force any confidence into his words. His raw throat was thwarting him, and he feared if he pushed too hard he would set off the cough again. He released his hold on the post to offer his hand. "Pleasure to see you, Mr. Ramsey. I mean to say Senator Ramsey."

"Likewise. I thought I saw you up top," Ramsey said, seizing Cullen's hand and pumping it vigorously. "What's brought you out here? Tobacco time, is it?"

"Yup." Cullen hitched his left shoulder a little higher: the valise was dragging him into portside list. "Heard you all was arguing late, and came to see what the fuss was about."

Ramsey chuckled ruefully. "Can't stop a senator from quarreling. At the core we's all in agreement, but just try and get a man to put his hand to it and he'll find a thousand small things to quibble over. It don't help that these wounds been festering for years now, and everybody wants a chance to be heard."

He moved to the head of the broad marble stair and looked back at Cullen. "Come down to my office?" he invited, fluttering the bundle of papers. "I got to put these away before I leave, or I'm sure to forget 'em in the parlor tomorrow morning. You can give me all the news from home."

Cullen nodded his tacit acceptance of this invitation, and started down the stairs with deliberate firmness of foot. Although his head reeled again as he took the first step, he did his utmost not to let it show in his face or posture. "Not much news to tell, I'm afraid," he said, struggling not to wheeze. "I ain't been paying much attention to the county gossip."

"Well, what about your own news, then?" asked Ramsey. They had reached the vestibule floor with its inlaid compass rose, and he led the way to a side corridor lined in doors with brass nameplates. "How's that pretty little lady of yours? Charming girl, for a Yankee."

"She's well," said Cullen, ignoring the backhanded nature of the remark. "My boy's growing up quick, too. Going to be four next month. Thinks he's just about ready to go bear-hunting with me."

Ramsey laughed. "They do grow up quick, so I been told," he said. "Here we are."

From his waistcoat pocket he took a bundle of keys, selecting the right one with care before unlocking the door. The last lamp in the hallway was a good fifteen feet behind them, and for a moment Ramsey disappeared into darkness. Then there was the fizzle of a match and a bright flare of flame that settled into a gentle kerosene glow. Ramsey replaced the glass chimney with his fingertips, mindful not to leave smudges, and again Cullen found himself struggling to recognize the man he remembered. This new Ramsey was far more fastidious than the old, who had cursed and spit with the best of them. The old Ramsey had never cared about disheveled clothes or mucky boots or the more unpleasant sequelae of drinking oneself into a stupor.

The senator slid around his desk and sat in the leather-padded chair behind, spreading his papers over the clean blotter. "Go on and have a seat: this won't take long. I s'pose you'll be leaving on the early train tomorrow?"

"That's right," said Cullen, lowering himself into the simple wooden seat in front of the desk. He set his valise on the floor and balanced his hat on top of it. On a small table behind Ramsey's chair was a grog tray with small decanters of whiskey, brandy and sherry, a soda bottle and a little carafe of water. Cullen found that he was not interested in the spirits at all, but would have been very glad of a tumbler of the water. He pressed his lips together, feeling them rasp dryly, and tried to swallow against his stinging throat.

"I don't much care for trains, myself," Ramsey muttered. "Noisy, filthy contraptions. Though they do cut down a long journey – when you was just a boy, your father had to send the tobacco by barge from Mobile, you know."

They had done so well into Cullen's early marriage, but it would have been discourteous to point that out. Instead Cullen nodded. "Much quicker this way," he said.

"Hmm. You had supper yet?" asked Ramsey, still absentmindedly as he thumbed through his notes and sorted them into heaps. "Sairy will have mine waiting, good and hot. You're welcome to spend the night in my rooms, if you ain't laid out for the hotel yet. Less chance of catching lice."

The invitation was unexpected, but not unprecedented. Southern hospitality was renown throughout the world, and it was only the custom for a man to open his home to an acquaintance – particularly the son of an old friend. Certainly it would solve Cullen's dilemma neatly enough. "That'd be much appreciated, thanks," he said. Then he remembered Bethel's basket, containing not only another two or three meals' worth of food, but his flask and his box of cigars. "I got some baggage back at the station—"

"I'll send the boy to collect it," Ramsey said breezily. He fiddled with his spectacles as he examined one sheet, and then in a sudden flourish whisked the four separate piles back into one and flung them into a lower drawer of the desk. He grinned at Cullen. "The road to secession is paved in waste paper!" he chuckled.

"We _are_ going to secede, then?" Cullen asked. "No one's quite sure back in Meridian."

"Looks like it," said Ramsey. "Can't see how it could be avoided now; not unless Congress voted to impeach that Republican orangutan and give us our rightful voice. We're a proud people, Southerners. We won't just let 'em trample our rights in the name of compromise. All we're dickering over now is wording, and the precedence that ought to be given to each grievance."

"I thought you made a good point in there," said Cullen, falling at last into the cadence of a political conversation. It had been so long since he had really relished one, distracted as he had been by life's practicalities. "About making it plain that the proximal cause is the one that needs urgent addressing. The slavery debate's been going on for years now, and we've taken our fair share of indignity because of it, but this business with the election…"

"It's an outrage," Ramsey agreed. "The Kansas-Nebraska fiasco was bad enough, but now – oh. Son, I'm sorry. I didn't think…" His expression of affable camaraderie morphed into gray-hued horror, and his eyes grew wide with penitence. "Look, Bohannon, I…"

"Forget about it," muttered Cullen, casting his gaze uncomfortably away. There was a shelf of law books along the wall, and he focused on their embossed spines. He did not want to talk about this. These days he scarcely even thought of it, and it was better that way. He did not want to look back into the black abyss of unrequited fury; back into the cold heart of vengeance. He had thrown himself into new pursuits in a new city rather than give in to that longing, and he had found Mary. Now that he had her, he would not risk losing her – certainly not over that stubborn, hot-blooded fool of a dead man.

"It's in the past," he said, breathing slowly through his nose and letting the flare of reflexive rage. "It don't matter now. That's just what I mean: Kansas-Nebraska _don't_ matter, but the result of this election does. It was good to have someone point that out to them."

Ramsey nodded wordlessly, smoothed his cravat, and then looked around the room. His eyes passed over his left shoulder, and Cullen was for a moment hopeful that he might think to offer a drink. He could not just take water, of course, but a well-diluted whiskey would be almost as welcome. But Ramsey shrugged rose, plucking his greatcoat off of the stand in the corner. "Let's get on, then, boy," he said, now more weary than jovial. "Supper's waiting, and I could eat an elephant. Unless you got business with your State senator?"

It was a tenet of Christian marriage that the wedding ceremony made of two people one person, one flesh and one voice. As he opened his mouth, Cullen was surprised to discover that that voice was Mary's.

"As a matter of fact, there is," he said, his joking denial to the joking question forgotten as he realized what his wife would have wanted him to say.

Ramsey looked surprised: and why not? He had been expecting that same negative response. "There _is_?" he parroted blankly.

Cullen nodded firmly. Realizing that the other man now towered over him, he stood swiftly – perhaps too swiftly, as he felt the blood drain from his face and the room began to tilt perilously towards his five o'clock. But he gripped the back of the chair and held his ground, forcing his expression to remain casual and his voice calm and courteous.

"If a man wanted to manumit his slaves," he said; "just how exactly _would_ he go about it?"

*_discidium*_

Gabe's warm weight rested against Mary's left side, his head cushioned between her breast and arm, one leg hooked up onto her lap, and his right arm tucked up against her ribs and under his. His left arm was sprawled over her stomach, pillowed by the heap of bedclothes. His hand still clutched the stock of his popgun, which he had refused to relinquish upon climbing into bed. His downy curls were damp and sweet-smelling, and she had tucked her chin to lean near his head. His proximity and the cozy smallness of the room were a consolation to her, for the house beyond the nursery door seemed vast and silent without Cullen's strong, vital character to fill it. She had missed him at supper: his dry wit and his low laugh and even his pensive (sometimes brooding) silences. Now it seemed that the room on the other side of the wall was nothing more than a vacuum of solitude, and the guest room at the far end of the house had the feel of a crypt.

She reached carefully across her body to stroke Gabe's velvet cheek. His lips pursed instinctively at the contact, but only for a moment. She remembered when the gesture had been met by eager questing of a tiny head. It seemed like only yesterday that she had held her new baby with almost comically overprotective care. How much longer before he would not want to snuggle close to h er like this? He was growing so quickly.

Closing her eyes against the wave of bittersweet melancholy, Mary turned her face back towards the wall. The air was growing cool as the embers settled in the little stove. She longed to sleep, and yet somehow she could not settle herself. She should have been glad of the sustained quiet. Gabe had only coughed once since lying down, briefly and without waking, while Cullen's fits had awakened her many times in recent nights. Just at that moment, however, she would have been glad to hasten up out of bed to attend him, if only it meant he were home.

The slow creak of the nursery door sent her eyes flying open in the gloom. A nebulous gray shape slipped over the threshold: white nightclothes that seemed to phosphoresce faintly in the curtained moonlight. For a moment Mary was paralyzed, remembering every childhood story of ghosts and wandering spirits, and then she felt a flush of embarrassment at such a foolish thought.

"Bethel?" she whispered, more warily than she meant to.

A soft sigh came from the figure as the door squealed closed. "Aw, Missus, I was hopin' you'd be fas' asleep an' dreamin' pretty things," the old woman said softly. "I jus' come to put 'nother log or two in the stove. It brewin' up to be a bitter col' night. Might be we gets snow 'fore the mornin'."

There was a low _clink_ as she set something on the stovetop, and then her kind dark face was illuminated in the orange glow as she opened the door of the heater and stirred up the embers. Bent double, she laid the quartered logs with care and tossed in a couple of woodchips so that the fire flared brilliantly and began to burn hot once more. Bethel fastened the door, and Mary was left blind in the blackness while her eyes adjusted.

"Do you really think we'll see snow?" she asked.

"Might do," said Bethel, moving nearer to the bed. "Leastways it goin' be a good, deep frost. Thank the Lord we's got all the fall garden in. What we gots out there now ain't goin' be hurt by the weather."

"Is it… will it hurt our chances of putting in the wheat?" Mary ventured, heart fluttering. The wheat crop was not as essential as the tobacco, but the small influx of cash it brought in the spring might prove essential this year. Of all years to put it in late, this was the worst.

"Don' know," Bethel admitted. "Cain't see how it would: ain' like we's got some in the ground awready. So long as the fields don' freeze too deep fo' plowin', I don' 'spect much of a problem. An' them fields ain' froze but once in fifteen year."

But this would be the year, Mary thought, and she hugged Gabe a little closer. Then she found herself reaching into the darkness as Bethel held something out to her. "What's this?" she asked, as her hand closed on a hot porcelain mug and she smelled the faint perfume of vanilla over a deeper, creamy scent.

"Warm milk an' nutmeg," said Bethel. Her silhouette lifted a tin cup to its lips, sipping gingerly. She exhaled in quiet pleasure. "Jus' the thing fo' a wakeful night with a frost comin' in."

Mary slipped her left arm carefully from under Gabe and propped herself on her elbow so that she could sit up to swallow. The milk was just the right temperature: hot enough to warm her to the core without scalding her tongue. She savoured the faintly spiced sweetness, hardly noticing the underlying tang of the sorghum. When she had taken her first generous swallow she smiled wryly. "I thought you believed I was asleep," she said.

"Hoped it, Missus Mary, didn' believe it," said Bethel fondly.

Dear Bethel. Mary smiled to herself and shifted to a more comfortable position, sitting up on her hip so she could curl both hands around the cup. The warmth was radiating from the stove again, even as the cold wafted off the window.

"You know me too well," she murmured. Then she sighed. "How do you think Cullen is managing?"

"Jus' fine, I reckon," said Bethel. "He kin look out fo' hisself, awright. It jus—"

She was cut off when the small sleeper between slave and mistress stirred, rolled leftward onto his back, and sat up.

"Pappy?" Gabe said sleepily. "You coughin'?" Then he sensed the presence standing over him – and no doubt the lack of his father beside him – and brandished his popgun one-handed until his right could clamp down on the base of the barrel. He barked; "Hot! Who goin' dere?"

Mary, whose first concern had been to keep her mug from spilling all over the bedclothes when Gabe had sent the tick bouncing, now reached to caress her son's shoulder. "It's all right, lovey. It's Bethel," she soothed.

The suspicious scowl was evident in Gabe's voice as he said; "Dat so, Bet'l? Is you out dere?"

"I's right here, Mist' Gabe," Bethel said calmly, reaching to touch his head. "Now, what I done tol' you 'bout pointin' that gun at folks?"

"Don' do it," Gabe muttered guiltily. Then he perked up as he found his argument. "But Bet'l! _Pappy_ say you don' never wants to point de gun at nut'in' you don' wants to shoot, an' if'n you's a bear, or a Redcoat, or a robber den I _wants_ to pop you wid de popgun!"

"That fine, honey," the old lady said; "but now you knows it me, you don' want to shoot your ol' Bethel, does you?"

"No," Gabe allowed, and laid his weapon in his lap. He looked from one shadowy woman to the other. "What we all 'wake for?" he asked. "It ain't mornin', I didn' cough, an' you bot' healfy."

"Bethel just stirred up the fire, and she brought some warm milk," said Mary. "Would you like a taste?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Gabe said happily, twisting to reach towards her. "Where dat milk at?"

"Scoot a little closer, dearest, and I'll help you," Mary instructed. "We mustn't spill."

"Not goin' spill it," Gabe promised. "Not me."

Mary put one arm around him nevertheless, and held the base of the teacup with both hands as he steered it to his mouth and slurped eagerly. He smacked his lips.

"T'ank you, Mama," he said. "T'ank you, Bet'l." Then he bowed his head to drink again.

"You're welcome, lovey," said Mary, daring to take one hand from the mug to stroke his hair. Her curiosity was piqued. "Why did you say 'hot' when you pointed the popgun at Bethel?"

"Dat what Pappy say," Gabe explained. "When we's playin' soljurs. 'Hot! Who goin' dere? What de backward?'"

Mary closed her eyes, taking advantage of the darkness that hid her grin. Sometimes the gulf between what was said and what Gabe heard was wide and hilarious. "The password," she said.

"Dat what I say," declared Gabe. "De backword, it 'Stewpot'. Dat way I don' forget it, an' my soljurs don' git left out de camp."

"I see," Mary said gravely. "I think Pappy says 'halt', not 'hot', you know."

"Hot!" Gabe yelped melodramatically, releasing his hold on the cup to flap his hand as if burned. He twisted his head back towards Mary and explained proudly; "Like 'Ottie say when she touch de door on de stove."

Bethel made a low noise suspiciously akin to laughter, and Mary cleared her throat delicately. "Ah. Well, when Pappy says 'Halt!', he means 'stop'."

"'Stop' mean stop," said Gabe. "An' 'woah', it mean stop, too. An' 'ho!'. An' 'Mist' _Gaaaabe…_'." He drew out the syllable of his name in the way that Bethel did when she put a warning in her voice.

Now Mary could not keep her mirth out of her voice. "Yes, darling," she yipped, her mouth pulled tight against the urge to laugh aloud. "And 'halt' means stop, too."

"'Halt' mean stop, too." Gabe considered this. "Halt! Who goin' dere? What de backword?"

"Password," Mary gasped breathlessly. Then she gave up the effort of restraining herself and let out a string of airy giggles as she hugged Gabe to her one-armed and kissed the crown of his head, careful to hold the cup safely out of the way with her other hand. "You're my funny little man, dearest," she sang softly. "What would I do without you?"

"Don' know," said Gabe after some consideration. "Drink all de warm milk youself?"

This time Bethel laughed, too, and Mary took a hasty sip of the sweet fluid so as not to offend Gabe by carrying on too long. "Here, finish it up, lovely," she said, holding it for him again. "Then we shall say our prayers again, and try to get back to sleep."

"Bet'l goin' say prayers, too," Gabe decided. He scooted right up onto Mary's lap and thumped his foot on the feather mattress. "You sit, Bet'l, an' say prayers wid us."

Mary wondered whether Bethel would hesitate, and hoped she would not. She was glad when the elderly slave smoothed her nightgown and settled on the edge of the bed. Gabe immediately planted both feet in her lap, and she covered them with a corner of the quilt.

"Them toes cold, honey?" she asked playfully.

"Not no more," Gabe declared. He nuzzled into the crook of Mary's arm. "I's all cozy now: I gots my mama an' my Bet'l. No Pappy, dough," he added regretfully. "He gone 'way to sell de tobacco. How many days 'til he come back, 'gain, Mama? I's forgot."

"Nine," Mary reminded gently, her merriment fading. She only hoped Gabe would not take a melancholy turn.

"Oh, yes, nine," he agreed matter-of-factly, to her enormous relief. "I tooked out de half bean: nine days lef'." He took a last long draught from the china teacup and smacked his lips again. "Dat nice, t'ank you. Now let's pray."

Strangely enough, after repeating the bedtime ritual that she had performed only a few hours before, settling back into pillows freshly plumped by Bethel's capable hands, and letting her child curl up beside her again, Mary found she was able to sleep after all. Perhaps the hot milk had worked its magic.

_*discidium*_

For a long moment, Ramsey merely stared at Cullen in blank incredulity. Then a spark of comprehension ignited in his eyes, and he laughed aloud.

"Like father, like son," he chortled. "William always did know how to put one over on me, too. Manumit his slaves: very nice."

"I ain't putting one over," Cullen insisted. The other man's laugh had gone through his head like a rail spike, and now his pulse was pounding behind his eyes. "If I wanted to give my people their freedom, how'd I go about it?"

Now Ramsey's face was blank again, and he was staring. This time his eyes were hard with incredulity. "You can't be serious."

"Don't know that I am, yet," Cullen said, trying to sound offhand. The sting in his throat made it difficult to modulate his tone. "But saying I did, do I talk to you, or to Mr. Semmes? I assume it goes through the House of Representatives first, but if I had my senator sponsor the motion—"

It was on Cullen's tongue to protest that he had only raised a hypothetical question. Something in Ramsey's expression of sudden disgust silenced him, however, and he watched wordlessly as the senator's lips went as crooked as his nose.

"The Senate's fighting for the survival of Mississippi," Ramsey said tersely. "It's a matter of national import, and all you can think about is a Christmas present for your mistress?"

"My _what_?" Cullen spat, wondering if he had misheard. His muddled faculties tried to make sense of the accusation – for by the tone it clearly was an accusation – but they could not.

"That's who we're talking about, ain't it? That pretty doe with her fine hips, and the child? I assume you'd include the child," said Ramsey.

"What? No! No," Cullen blustered, shaking his head more vigorously than it wanted to be shaken. A wave of dizziness took him and he tightened his hold on the back of the chair. "Meg ain't my… we never… it ain't – ain't like that."

Ramsey blinked in mild surprise. "Oh. I guess I always just assumed: thought that was why your pa didn't sell her up with the rest."

"My father didn't sell any of them," said Cullen. "They was took."

"Sure."

Ramsey fell silent, seeming to gaze inward upon a landscape he did not much like. Cullen himself was not fond of looking back on those years: years of reckless spending, still more reckless gaming, blighted crops and bad debts. After his father's death he had had fled to New York, found the makings of a new life in an unexpected quarter, and thrown himself into it so he could forget the past. But the plantation and the tobacco and the mud kept sucking him right back.

"Who are we talking about, then?" asked Ramsey, finally breaking the hush. "Your old mammy? Hell, just _tell _her she's free: ain't like she'd leave you."

"No," Cullen hissed. "I ain't goin' lie to Bethel." He drew in a breath as slow and deep as he dared, trying to steady limbs that quaked with anger and exhaustion. He should have kept his mouth shut, kept the matter to himself. Damn Mary's endless talk of natural rights and loyalty and lofty ideals: it just wasn't feasible to live that way.

But now he had laid out a path, he had to follow it. He was too obdurate to back down just because he was exhausted and exasperated: not when Ramsey was taking the opposite tack so arrogantly.

"If'n I was going to do it, I'd want to free all five of them," he said firmly, safe in the hypothetical. "Two men, two women, and the child."

Ramsey whistled in dismay. "Five. Hell, Bohannon…"

"I don't want your condescending bullshit," Cullen said coldly. "Just tell me how I'd go about it, and how much it'd actually cost. I made up an estimate a few years back, but I didn't make no serious inquiries—"

"Are you drunk, boy?" Ramsey barked. "You just saw me in there with men that's fighting for the freedom of Mississippi. Freedom we need because of the abolitionist bias of the Federal government. D'you really expect those men to go and turn loose a bunch of niggers on your say-so?"

It was Cullen's turn to stare, angry, flummoxed and comprehending all at once. A half-dozen strong rebuttals warred for precedence: the daily business of the state could not be suspended for any matter, however weighty; he had every right to make just such a request of a politician he had voted into office and supported with his hard-won tax money; after all that had happened with his father, Ramsey owed him at least this; and more. What came out at last was the most philosophical argument, but also the hardest for an opponent to answer.

"Formal protests, secession, maybe even a war," he said coldly. "Ain't the point of all that to protect the right of a man to do as he sees fit with his own damned property?"

Ramsey's jaw loosened and his mouth grew slack. For a moment he looked like the forty-year-old – then dark of whisker and straight of nose – who had missed the parlor armchair by inches and landed smack on the rug.

"Look, Bohannon…" he spluttered. "Look, maybe when this matter of states' rights is settled… maybe when the mood ain't so set against manumission… maybe in a few months when Mississippi's secure again…"

"I see how it is," Cullen said coldly. He loathed a coward, but he loathed a hypocrite more, and this was hypocrisy. "You wouldn't even try it."

"Son, if I did," puffed Ramsey; "They'd only laugh you out of the House."

The phlegm was rising in his throat, and Cullen felt the urge to spit out his disdain for this tiny man toying with great matters. There were times when it paid to show one's breeding, and this was one. Himself, he might be only a tobacco farmer, but at least he knew it.

"At least I'd have the courage to give 'em a chance," he sneered.

Then he bent, snagging his hat and tossing it to his other hand so he could pick up the valise. He straightened slowly out of mere deference to his unsteady head, but the motion had a deliberate control that lent him a certain air of command. Despite the desk between them, Ramsey took a half-step back.

"I'll give you goodnight, then," Cullen drawled, cocking his hat in front of his breastbone in a pantomime of respect he did not feel. "It was a pleasure to catch up with you, sir, even if we don't much see things eye-to-eye. Thank you for your time, Senator. Good luck on the resolution."

Ramsey's eyes softened. "Now, don't be like that," he wheedled. "We got catching up to do. Come across to my rooms, and we'll talk it out over a meal."

Cullen studied him: a man who had run through the best of his manhood drinking, hunting and fighting openly, whoring on the quiet. He was a barnyard bully who had gone from picking fights with strangers in drinking-houses to throwing his weight around the State House. Cullen had sometimes feared him, often ignored him, and never liked him. Now, for reasons he did not wholly comprehend and certainly could not articulate, he despised him. And Cullen Bohannon could not sleep beneath the roof of a man he despised.

"I'd sooner not, Mr. Ramsey," he said dryly, turning towards the door. "G'night, now."

_*discidium*_

Cullen managed to make it all the way to the last of the stone steps outside before he stumbled, catching himself against the carved balustrade with a force that wrenched his bruised shoulder. A thin, icy rain was falling, and the stairs were slick. He righted himself, straightened his hat, and clumsily buttoned his greatcoat. He reached the end of the block before he thought to wind his muffler around his throat.

His temper began to simmer down from the boil as he walked back down Pearl Street. He could see the sense in what Ramsey had said: the prevailing wind was blowing so harshly against the Republicans and their rabid abolitionism that anything smacking of an anti-slavery sentiment, even on such a microscopic scale, was sure to be rejected. Mary's sweet dream of a subtropical idyll where Bethel was legally, not merely actually, her own woman and Nate earned a weekly wage was just that: a dream. It was a pretty one, and it reflected the beauty of Mary's soul, but it was impossible. And that was what made Cullen angriest of all. His wife, his angel, the woman he loved wanted something from him, one earnest and innocent wish, that he could not grant. It wounded him, and like a gored bull he had been ready to lash out at anyone near at hand.

He was much less ready by the time he emerged from the dark blocks of cotton houses into the lamplight of the depot. The rain had begun to freeze on contact with whatever it happened to land on: the brim of his hat, the shoulders of his coat, and the boards beneath his feet. It had been a relief when the boardwalk ended and prompted him to step down onto the rougher surface of the road, where his boots did not skid uncertainly over patches of ice. That the solution had only occurred to him then, when at any time he could have simply moved over into the empty street, way just another frustration in what was turning out to be a bitterly long and miserable day.

The warmth and light of the ticket office was welcome, and Cullen trudged as quickly as he was able back to the stove. His basket and jug and the newspapers were still sitting there, waiting for him, and after letting a little warmth seep back into his fever-riddled bones he slid his hand under the napkin and brought out the flask. He took a slug of whiskey, and then a dose of soothing syrup. The cordial he left, though he did have presence of mind enough to ensure the box of cigars was still where it belonged. Then he leaned against the slatted back of the bench and closed his eyes.

He did not really sleep, but drifted vacantly alongside the hushed world of the station. From outside he heard the final calls of the Negro foremen, dispersing their crews. Only the few waiting to meet the last train remained, sheltering from the rain under the rim of the car-shed. Cullen caught snippets of their conversation when someone opened the ticket office door and let in a draft of freezing air. The ticket clerk was reading, rustling pages now and then. And the big clock ticked off the minutes until midnight.

The blast of the train whistle roused him only slightly, and not enough to bestir him. The place near the stove was warm, and Cullen began to try to make up his drowsy mind to the idea of turning so he could stretch out flat on the bench. He would feel better for it, he knew, and yet somehow he could not quite muster the energy.

When someone poked tentatively at his shoulder, he sat up with a start and a snort. The ticket agent was standing over him, overcoat buttoned and collar turned high. He had his hat in his other hand, and was wearing an apologetic expression.

"Beg pardon, Mister," he said, his yellow mustache wriggling uncomfortably as his mouth pursed. "Ain't you waitin' for someone on the Vicksburg train?"

"Nnnn…" Cullen's attempt at a denial came first as a thick, guttural croak. He straightened and coughed just hard enough to clear the mucus. "Naw," he grunted quietly. "Waiting for the first train for New Orleans."

"That train don't come 'til half past six, Mister. It don't leave 'til seven o'clock," said the clerk. "I… I got to lock up now. You can't stay in here."

Cullen grimaced, rueful and not a little embittered. "Course I can't," he muttered, not sure whether he was agreeing or merely casting aspersions on a string of luck he should have been able to predict by now.

"The rail hotel's just across the way, or there's the Maddox Inn in town. Or Miz Whittaker, she takes night boarders… only you can't sleep in here, Mister. Railway don't allow it."

The man looked genuinely sorry, and Cullen wondered just what sort of a spectacle he made in his damp, sooty coat with his pale face above it. Slowly, and not without protestations from his stiff limbs, he got to his feet and gathered his possessions. "Sure they don't," he said thickly, still addled and halfway on towards badly-needed sleep. "You got to lock up. G'night to you, then. See you in the morning."

"Oh, I don't work 'til two o'clock. Jim'll be here first thing, and—yessir, tomorrow, sir," the man said, perhaps realizing that it did not really matter.

He held the door, which Cullen thought was a kindly gesture until the man snuffed the last lamp and stepped out right after him, dragging it closed. He put on his hat, tipping it, and sputtered an apologetic farewell before hurrying up the platform towards the steps and whatever home was waiting for him. Alone in the light of the signal lamp, Cullen stood dumbly under the shelter of the long, shingled awning that fronted the station.

He could go and take shelter in the boxcar, he supposed. He had the key, and no one would question his right if they even thought to look for him. But the thought of sequestering himself in that small, confined space – the very space that would contain him for twelve hours tomorrow – was somehow unpalatable. He supposed he could wander down to the rail hotel and see if they bedded penurious travelers in the livery stable for a cut rate, but he did not much care for that option, either. He would have been better off wandering behind the rail-yard in search of the slaves' bunkhouse, to see if they would take him in. But that, of course, would cause far too much furor and upset to be worth the walk.

There was nothing wrong with the open air, so long as the wind didn't shift and bring the rain in under the awning. He looked around and chose a likely-looking bench two up from the ticket office door. He put his basket underneath it, with the earthenware jug. He put the copies of _Harper's Weekly_ on one end of the bench, and sat down sidelong with his feet on the other end. He tugged the edge of the muffler up over nose and ears and then lay down. With the valise between his leg and the clapboard wall, he settled into an almost comfortable position on the hard, narrow surface. Finally, he set his hat over his eyes and slipped each hand up the opposite sleeve for warmth. He was shivering, but it was most likely just the fever. Exhausted beyond reason or sense or even indignation, he slept.


	93. A Posse at the Door

_Note: I can't say anything about tonight's episode without sizeable spoilers… except that isn't it an interesting time for Cullen to be thinking about his farming prowess? But yay! "Hell On Wheels" is officially renewed for an expanded, split fifth season: 7 episodes next summer, and 7 in 2016! It's not *quite* the full two seasons that John Wirth and Anson Mount were wishing for, but I hope it will be enough for the team to complete the arc. SO happy to go into these last episodes of Season 4 knowing it's not the end! (This chapter was posted between 411 and 412.)_

**Chapter Ninety-Three: A Posse at the Door**

On Tuesday morning, Ma and Elijah began the important task of preparing the smokehouse for butchering time. First everything had to be moved so that the walls could be wiped down, ceiling to floor, with a dilute lye solution prepared by Bethel especially for the purpose. Then Ma would scrub the floor with the same mixture, while Elijah laid a fresh coat of whitewash on the clean walls. The hooks and chains had to be scoured with sand to remove any rust, and then greased with hog fat. The tables and shelves needed wiping, too, and then all the knives and butchering prongs and the saw for cutting through thick hambones had to be honed and polished and put back where they belonged. The remaining barrels of salt had to be brought up from the cellar, to be joined by those Mister Cullen would bring back from New Orleans, and plenty of green hickory wood had to be chopped into thin lengths that would smoke generously to cure the pork.

It was a big job for only two people. Last year, with Nate and Lottie and Mister Cullen helping, it had taken two whole days. But Mister Cullen was away, and Nate laid up in Elijah's cabin on the doctor's orders. As for Lottie, she had wanted to help, but Ma had said she mustn't. The day was too cold, she said, and the only place to light a fire in the smokehouse did not, of course, draw a good draft. Lottie had tried to argue while she and Ma had walked up to the house, but Bethel had heard them on the stoop and had put in her own two bits. Lottie wasn't ever going to get well if she didn't keep warm and rest up, and the whole family needed Lottie to get well.

Still Lottie would have been disconsolate, between missing out on the novel business and feeling she was nothing but useless, had not Missus Mary come into the kitchen at that very moment to point out that she was needed elsewhere. If Lottie felt up to the task, the mistress had said, she could mind Gabe through the morning. That way, Missus Mary could go out to help Bethel with the laundry, as Tuesday was washday. Relieved to know that she could be helpful, Lottie had readily agreed, and after the breakfast dishes were washed the two women had gone out into the yard with firm instructions to the children that, should either of them start coughing, the other was to call for them at once.

Lottie felt as if she had coughed out everything there was to cough last night. She felt as if she had hardly slept at all, waking again and again with her chest constricted and her throat burning as she struggled to breathe. She thought maybe it was the business of lying down that made it worse, and she had thought of how Mister Cullen had held Mister Gabe upright night after night, so that he could sleep comfortably on the man's chest. Lottie was much too big for such things, of course: Ma would never be able to support her and sleep, too. So she had propped herself up with her pillow as best she could, and wished for morning.

Now that morning was here, she found she had very little strength to face it. With Bethel and Missus Mary outdoors, Lottie had meant to get down on the floor and play with Mister Gabe. He had brought his horses down from the nursery today, and had set up the whole herd under the table. But Lottie was exhausted and her whole body ached, and she found it much simpler just to sit on the récamier with the quilt over her lap and talk with him as he played. After a while even this seemed too difficult, and she lay down on her side, propped up by the curling arm of the couch with the worn velvet bolster under her shoulder.

By this time, the little boy had tired of the horses and turned his attention to his kitten. Stewpot was now gangling and half-grown: vastly changed from the tiny, blind handful of fluff that Lottie had first discovered up in the hayloft. He was also full of adolescent energy, and he had not received as much attention these last few weeks as he was accustomed to. He came eagerly when Mister Gabe called for him, and immediately began to chase the wool tassel while the child made it dance. When he started to jump after it, Mister Gabe raised his arm higher and higher so that the kitten could take lofty leaps after the swinging string. Every time he snagged it with his claws, Gabe laughed delightedly, thumping from one foot to the other in excitement.

"Look, 'Ottie! He jumpin'! He jumpin' so _high_!" he exclaimed.

"Jus' see him jump," Lottie agreed softly, tucking the quilt up under her chin. She blinked her eyes resolutely, fighting off the urge to fall asleep. She wouldn't: she promised herself that she wouldn't. But she was so _very _tired.

Mister Gabe was now on the tips of his brass-toed boots, his right arm stretched to its limit, and still Stewpot was jumping high enough to bat the tassel with ease. But he was moving with such swift, predatory grace that Lottie worried he might miss his mark and scratch the child, or at least tear his shirt or his trousers.

"Mist' Gabe?" she said, and he looked at her with happy expectation, his arm falling to his side. The tassel landed on the ground and Stewpot dropped into a crouch, rump high in the air as he plotted how best to spring on his prey. "Why don' you git up on the chair? Then you kin hol' the string higher, an' you don' gots to strain."

A gleeful grin spread across the boy's face. "'Ottie, you's a good t'inker," he said enthusiastically. "Dat jus' what I's goin' do!"

Lottie wondered whether he would need her help to execute the plan, but Mister Gabe marched into the corner and pulled one of the plain wooden chairs around the stove to the middle of the room. He stretched his right leg up to kneel on the seat, and with a small grunt of effort hefted himself up. Then he stood up and shook the string with its fringed bauble out again.

"Here, Stewpot!" he called, and the kitten gave a proud, prancing little hop as he turned to look up at his master. Immediately his gaze was transfixed by the tassel, now swinging like a pendulum from the small hand far above. "Come an' git it! Ketch dat string! Ketch it!"

Now when Stewpot jumped Mister Gabe was able to twitch the tassel just out of his reach, much to the delight of the child and the enchantment of the kitten. Best of all, so far as Lottie was concerned, there was now very little chance of a wayward paw catching the little boy and hurting him. The chair rattled and clattered when Mister Gabe danced from foot to foot, but it was a sturdy piece of furniture and more than adequate to take the strain. The cat leaped and the boy laughed, and in the fevered fog of whooping cough, Lottie drifted for a long while.

Then suddenly, amid the calls to Stewpot, Mister Gabe beat his feet upon the seat of the chair and crowed; "Look, Mama! He jumpin'! Stewpot jumpin' _so _high!"

Lottie's eyes flew open, guilty at being caught lounging while she was supposed to be minding the child, and she sat up hurriedly. Much too hurriedly, as it turned out, for she felt the room tilt perilously and had to drive her palms deep into the upholstery to keep from falling back again. Her vision swam, and she heard Missus Mary before she saw her.

"My, he _is_ quite the jumper, isn't he?" she applauded, and the back door swung closed just as the first cold tendrils of air reached Lottie's right cheek. "I hope you've been a good boy for Lottie."

"Good boy," Mister Gabe agreed. "An' I gots my popgun handy, jus' in case. Is you all done de washin', Mama? Dat din' take so long."

"There wasn't much to do, with all of Pappy's clothes already taken care of," Missus Mary said. Lottie's eyes had cleared and she could see her now, pink-cheeked from the cold with her winter wrap buttoned up to her throat. It was a loose garment, almost like a cape but with bell sleeves that made her hands look impossibly small and dainty. They too were flushed with blood, though Lottie knew Bethel would not have allowed the mistress to scrub the clothes. She was restricted to stirring them in the boiling pot, perhaps running them through the mangle, and helping Bethel to hang them on the line.

"You done Pappy's clo'es jus' de udder day," Mister Gabe remembered. "So's he could take 'em on de train."

"That's right, lovey," Missus Mary said. She was unfastening the buttons on her wrap, and she slipped gracefully out of it, looking around before hanging it on one of the sunbonnet pegs by the back door. "Bethel will be in in just a minute to fix dinner, and I thought maybe afterwards you and I might go to visit Charlie."

The tassel fell to the ground, where Stewpot promptly sprung on top of it. Mister Gabe stared at his mother in astonishment. "Go visit Charlie?" he said. "Go outside? An' me, too?"

"Yes, dearest, you too," Missus Mary said, coming further into the room and bending to kiss his cheek. "Charlie's getting restless, cooped up in the nursery day after day, and Leon is very bored with no one to play with. I know they'd be happy to see you."

"An' I's gettin' well," Mister Gabe agreed vehemently. "I didn' hardly cough but once't las' night, an' it wasn' so bad. I ain' coughed since you gone out wid Bet'l, ain' dat right, 'Ottie?"

"That right," she agreed quietly, easing against the récamier's curved back. Mister Gabe was getting stronger and going longer between coughs every day. Though she knew it was wicked, she felt just a little jealous of his vigor in the face of her own exhaustion.

"It will give you a chance to rest, too, Lottie," said Missus Mary kindly. "I know it can't have been very restful, looking after this little man for me. I'm very grateful: the washing went much quicker with two."

"You's mos' welcome, Missus Mary," Lottie said with a little glow of pride. "I kin min' him a li'l longer, if'n you wants to go an' put on your hoop fo' visitin'."

Missus Mary looked down at her cotton dress, pretty but plain, and smiled almost shyly. "I suppose I really can't turn up on Verbena Ainsley's doorstep dressed like this," she said, more to herself than to either of the children. "Thank you, Lottie: I shall just dart upstairs and change, if you don't mind. I won't be more than a quarter of an hour, and Bethel really will be back at any minute: she's just putting the yard to rights."

"We'll be jus' fine, Missus," Lottie said stoutly. "Mist' Gabe an' me, we's good together."

"Sure we is," Mister Gabe agreed, sitting down with a _thump_ and then wriggling off of the chair. Stewpot, having lost interest in the string now that it was no longer animated, was lying near the stove and panting contentedly. The child grabbed his mother's skirt and tugged her towards the dining room door. "You go 'n git dressed, Mama, an' we's goin' go visitin'! We's goin' see Charlie 'n Leon! An' I ain' goin' cough!"

Missus Mary laughed, trotting to keep up with him. "All right, lovey, all right. Let go now: you're going to trip me!"

"Yass'm," Mister Gabe sighed, releasing his hold and turning his attention on the doorknob instead. He held it open with one hand and his left foot, shooing her through with the other. Missus Mary lifted the hem of her skirt, showing a decorous inch of petticoat ruffle, and made a show of trotting through into the dining room. "I'll be straight back down, Lottie," she called merrily. "Gabe, you be _good_!"

"I's good," the boy said to himself as he closed the kitchen door and marched over to the couch. "Why she t'ink I ain' goin' be good?"

"It on'y what mamas say," Lottie told him, lifting the edge of the quilt so that he could climb up beside her and scoot beneath it. He patted his lap, smoothing the blanket, and looked up at her curiously. "My ma say the same thing jus' this mornin'."

"She did?" he asked, interested. "But you's allus good."

"Not allus," said Lottie cunningly, nudging him with her elbow. "On'y mos' of the time."

"Dat me, too," said Gabe. "Mos' of de time."

He leaned his head against her arm, and she shifted to wrap it around his shoulder so that he was resting against her ribs instead. His skull was pressing just where the muscles were sorest from coughing, and the pressure brought welcome release from the ache. Lottie hugged him closer, and suddenly she felt a hollow loneliness in her breast. She loved Mister Gabe, truly she did. But she was lonesome for children her own age. The mention of visiting over at West Willows made her think of her friends there: Sairy, who could make baskets out of reeds and palmetto fronds and fistfuls of straw; and Louanne, who was supercilious and superior but awfully funny; and even dumb old Eli, who thought he knew so much more than he did. And there was Nell in the kitchens, and Glory who had just started working with the laundresses, and all the little ones, too. Even Pip wasn't above running around with the children, if the coachman wasn't looking.

Sometimes Lottie wondered what life was like on a big plantation with plenty of darkies. She knew that _some_ big plantations were terrible places, with cruel overseers and stern masters. Even Mister Ainsley frightened her a little, but for the most part he treated his people well. Ma said so, and so did Sairy and Louanne. Lottie had never quite forgotten that day back in July when she had watched Eli get a whipping from Mister Ainsley, and she was glad she didn't live at West Willows and thankful for Mister Cullen and Missus Mary… but she did wish, sometimes, deep in the secret places of her heart, that she had more children – black children – to be with.

"What dat noise, 'Ottie?" Mister Gabe asked, jerking her out of her wistful musings.

"What noise?" she said reflexively, but then she heard it, too. It was coming from outside, around the front of the house, and it was a sound she recognized at once: hoof-beats on the drive. Her first thought was that it was the doctor come to call, but her stomach did a slow, anxious flop as she realized it was the noise not of one horse but several. "Horses, Mist' Gabe," she whispered. "Horses out front."

"Pappy?" the little boy said hopefully, perking up considerably.

"Cain't be," Lottie breathed. The horses had stopped moving now, but she could hear them pawing the earth, and the occasional jangle of a harness. She wanted to shout for Missus Mary, but her voice was caught in her throat.

Then through the closed dining room door she heard it, like a drumbeat of doom. Someone was knocking on the door.

"I t'ink I needs de popgun," Mister Gabe squeaked, sliding off the récamier and hurrying to the corner of the table where he had left his toy. He picked it up and held it, battle-ready and pointed at the dining room door. "Who goin' see what bangin' on de door?" he asked.

Lottie knew the answer, but she did not want to face it. Missus Mary was upstairs, dressing. Bethel was still out in the dooryard, her apron likely soiled from doing the laundry. In such a situation it was Lottie's responsibility to answer the door, and she had been taught by Bethel how to do it. She had done it, too, on a number of occasions – but always for the doctor or some other expected visitor. They weren't expecting anyone today, or Missus Mary would not be thinking of calling on the neighbors.

The knocking redoubled, and it sounded louder this time; fiercer.

"'Ottie?" Mister Gabe said uncertainly. "'Ottie, dat don' soun' like de doct'r."

Lottie got to her feet, trying to keep her knees from trembling. One of Missus Mary's bedshoes slipped off, and rather than try to fumble with it she stepped out of the other as well. "You stay here, Mist' Gabe," she said hoarsely, taking four quick steps to the door and closing her fist on the handle before she could think too hard about what she was doing. "I'll go see who out there."

"Uh-uh," the boy declared, marching up behind her. The tip of the popgun brushed her elbow. "I's de man of de house while Pappy gone 'way. I's comin' to see. If it a Redcoat, I's goin' pop it good!"

Lottie knew that it was silly to take comfort in the protection of a small boy, not even four years old, with a popgun, but she did. His determination and his stout little presence beside her gave her the courage to open the door. "Awright," she said. "Jus' you stay behin' me, an' don' you shoot if it a visitor."

"Yes, ma'am," said Gabe firmly. Then, with the noise of knuckles on wood echoing up the house, Lottie hurried through the gloomy dining room, around the corner where Missus Mary's sewing machine stood, and past the parlor door. Behind her, Mister Gabe came stalking, popgun at the ready and a fierce expression on his face.

Somewhere upstairs Lottie could hear hasty footsteps pattering back and forth, as Missus Mary hastened to make herself decent – while at the same time doubtless wondering just as anxiously as Lottie who might be calling unexpected on a Tuesday forenoon. Lottie reached the door and gripped the handle, drawing in a deep breath and squaring her shoulders as Bethel had taught her. Then before she could reconsider or lose her faint courage, she swept the door open with a respectful little dip.

There was a man on the veranda, and another a couple of paces behind him with one foot down on the first step. They were both older than Mister Cullen, tall and gray-haired with long greatcoats over fine wool suits. They looked so much alike that Lottie had to blink before she was sure they were two people after all, and that her vision hadn't doubled with the fever. Of course, old white men generally looked a lot alike, but these two especially so. Their horses were tethered to the hail-pocked fence rail nearest the gate, and behind them were another bunch of horses, each with a young white rider. Nine of them were young men, all of whom looked very much like one another and all of whom resembled the two older men. And one was a young lady, sitting gracefully on an elegantly inlaid sidesaddle.

Lottie was supposed to say something, something that Bethel had taught her to say, but she could not remember it. She was staring at this crowd of people, and after the initial census taking there was only one thing she could see. Every single one of them, except for the young lady, had a sheath strapped to their saddles. And in each sheath was a rifle.

The man who had knocked removed his chestnut-colored felt hat. "Morning, little lady," he said. "Is your master about?"

Lottie wanted to speak, but she didn't know what to say. Looking at this crowd of men – of _armed _men – she didn't want to admit that Mister Cullen wasn't home; that the mistress was all alone with the slaves and the children and there was no one to protect them. She felt a small hand reach to tug at her skirt.

"'Ottie?" Mister Gabe said in one of his throaty whispers that was too loud to be a whisper at all. "'Ottie, is dem a army?"

_*discidium*_

Mary's fingers fumbled with the buttons of her basque. She had just been lifting the frock over her head when she heard the first knock, and she was moving as swiftly as she could, but there was a limit to how quickly a woman could dress herself. She tried to think who it might be. Doctor Whitehead was not expected until tomorrow, though of course he might stop by if he were calling at Hartwood or West Willows. And the thought of West Willows brought a fresh burst of fear completely unlike that of an unexpected or hostile stranger. What if it was a rider from the Ainsley plantation, coming to fetch her urgently or bearing bad news? Neither Daisy nor baby Lucy had passed their crises, so far as she knew, and Charity was surely not entirely out of danger, either.

She had reached the throat of her blue tartan day dress now, and she hastily lanced her bar pin through the top of the placket, already moving to the door. As she strode through the narrow corridor, she was smoothing her hair with her palms. At the top of the staircase she halted, heart in her throat, as a young, breathy voice asked uneasily; "'Ottie, is dem a army?"

Her bones resonating on a narrow, quivering frequency, Mary laid her fingertips on the bannister and plucked up gown, petticoats and hoop with the other hand, lifting them just enough that she could sail gracefully down the steps. She affixed a pleasant smile upon her lips and promised herself that, whatever the identity and intentions of the callers, she would deport herself with the dignity befitting Cullen Bohannon's wife.

Lottie was holding open the right side of the front door, bracing it with the side of her stocking-clad foot. Her dark eyes were wide and very bright as she stared at the man before her. At her side, simultaneously sheltering beneath her elbow and bolstering her courage, was Gabe, popgun in hand and a curious expression on his face. It seemed to vacillate between instinctive fear and defiant ferocity, and he was gripping his popgun very fiercely indeed.

It took Mary a moment to recognize the man at the door: she did not truly place his face until she reached the bottom of the stairs and achieved an angle from which she could see the gentleman just behind him. Nowhere in the county were there two men of middle age who bore a more perfect resemblance to one another.

"Why, Mr. Ives!" Mary sang out pleasantly, coming up beside the children and using her first two fingers to guide Gabe's popgun down to a less threatening angle. "And Mr. Ives." Then she saw the throng behind them: young, vital and practically identical men on horseback, leaning on their pommels with the ease of lifelong riders. "And all the young Masters Ives!"

Several of the boys exchanged gratified grins, and one of them took off his hat and waved it. "Mornin', Miz Bohannon!" he called. "You's a pretty sight on a dreary day!"

His father – or uncle: the foremost member of the delegation – glanced back over his shoulder before turning back to Mary with a bow as she favored the forward youth with a gracious smile.

"Good mornin', ma'am," he said courteously. She wished she could remember if he was Elmer or Albert. "I was wondering, begging your pardon, if Mr. Bohannon might be around this morning?"

"I'm afraid he is not, Mr. Ives," Mary said pleasantly. Lottie's head snapped left to stare at her, anxiously enough to give Mary pause. Should she simply have admitted that she was alone on the property? But surely it was common knowledge, or would be soon, that Cullen was away from home. "He has gone to New Orleans to meet with his tobacco buyers," she elucidated smoothly. "He will not return until next week."

"Oh." Mr. Ives frowned deeply, and his brother shook his head. A ripple of murmurs passed through the crowd of riders as those near enough to hear passed the word back to the others. One of them kicked his stirrup, and another swore under his breath. Mary noticed abruptly that it was not only the Ives boys who had come out on this expedition, but Felicity as well. She was wearing a splendid riding habit of robin's-egg blue, with a broad hat festooned with ostrich plumes dyed to match. The boys were gathered protectively around her, the lone hen-chick in a brood of young roosters. For her part, Felicity did not seem to notice her escorts. There was an air of sudden disappointment about her.

"You see, Miz Bohannon," said the other brother, stepping the rest of the way onto the veranda and smiling ruefully at her; "your husband bore witness to an incident in town on Friday; an incident involving my girl and one of your Negroes, and a close pass with a loaded wagon."

"My husband informed me, Mr. Ives," Mary said calmly, though her heart began to hammer frantically against her corset. She glanced at Lottie, who had taken a half-step back as if she wished she could disappear, and Mary placed her hand on the doorknob so that the girl's could withdraw. "Thank you, Lottie," she said as reassuringly as she could. "You may go back and see if Bethel has come in yet."

Lottie nodded, curtseyed hastily, and fairly flew up the entryway and out of sight. Gabe turned to watch her go, looked uneasily back at the men, and then stamped one foot firmly and stood fast beside his mother. Mary pushed the door to its widest point and then withdrew her hand carefully, making certain it would stay. The natural place to rest her palm was on the crown of Gabe's head, and she did so. She wondered what these men – these eleven _armed _men – had heard of the incident with Nate and the sheriff, and what sort of retribution they were seeking. She could not protect Nate on her own, and he was in no condition to fend for himself. Perhaps Meg could run to West Willows for help from Boyd Ainsley, but…

"We was hoping to hear his thoughts on the matter," said the man whom Mary now knew to be Albert, if Felicity was his daughter. "You see, Felicity was injured in the altercation: got her wrist bruised. The man that done it has to answer for it, and as your husband's got grievances against him too, we thought he might like to join us."

Mary had to fight to exhale slowly, instead of emptying her lungs in a vast sigh of relief. They were not here to make Nate pay for the near miss with the two carts, but to ask Cullen to join them in confronting Sheriff Brannan. Almost as comforting was the fact that Cullen was not here to do it. He almost assuredly would have wanted to, and would have charged off and made more trouble for himself, but he was safely away to the west, on a train bound south for New Orleans.

"Oh, I'm sure he would have wished to," she said earnestly. "I know he was most displeased with Sheriff Brannan's handling of the affair. Nate said that Miss Felicity and her beau were very kind, and seemed willing to let the matter drop; he certainly never intended to endanger them."

"Nor did he, neither!" Felicity announced, urging on her pretty sorrel mare to come right up to the gate where the older men had tethered their mounts. She gathered the reins with hands clad in soft buff gloves and tossed her head so her feathers danced. "It was Tommy Tucker who came 'round the corner too quick, and your boy stopped just in time to save us. We wasn't put out in the least, only that horrible old man insisted on making trouble. I didn't want him to do it, Miz Bohannon! I told him to stop, only he wouldn't. Not 'til I whacked him with my parasol."

She blushed becomingly at this unladylike confession, and the boys all chuckled. Her father's face took on a pinched, long-suffering look, but his eyes glittered mischievously. "That's enough from you, Miss," he said. "You promised to behave if we let you ride this far."

"Would you care to come in?" Mary asked, hospitality rising like a reflex as her fears dissolved. She did not know what these gentlemen and their half-wild boys had in store for Brannan, and she did not much care. He deserved whatever he got, after what he had done to Nate, and so long as Cullen was not mixed up in it he was welcome to it, too. "Bethel was just going to fix some dinner, and in the meantime there's tea and…"

She paused, wondering what else there _was_ to offer on such short notice, and how Bethel could lay on a meal for a dozen guests at such short notice, with no flour and no sugar and precious little of any other store-bought amenity. But Elmer Ives was already shaking his head.

"I regret that we can't, ma'am, but it might take some doing to flush out the fox once he gets wind we're coming," he said, nodding over his shoulder at the throng of eager young men. "Though perhaps Felicity might like to take you up on an afternoon's visit? Seeing as how she'd agreed to stop home once we'd come to collect Mr. Bohannon."

Felicity's lips twisted into a sulky frown that told Mary she had indeed made such a promise, but had hoped to wheedle them out of it. Mary smiled radiantly. Her intention to call at West Willows had been earnest, but she owed this little belle a debt of gratitude for helping Cullen out of a situation that, though quite bad enough, might have been truly disastrous. She would be happy to entertain her for an afternoon, and it would give the men an excuse to come back when their business was done – likely with a story that Cullen would want to hear.

"Oh, please do join me, Felicity!" she said. "I have been wanting to thank you for your kindness; both Nate and my husband spoke highly of your comportment on Friday."

"Hmmph!" Felicity snorted, jerking her chin and looking with vindication at the boys to her left. It was difficult to look to the right when riding sidesaddle. Then she turned her eyes on Mary and smiled. "I'd like that, Miz Bohannon; I surely would," she said. "Daniel!"

Obediently one of the boys hopped down out of his saddle and hurried to her side. She looped the reins over the pommel of her saddle and placed one hand delicately on each of his shoulders. He took her by the waist and lifted her down with a fond fraternal grin on his face. Then he took the reins of the mare and looked around.

"Carriage boy, Miz Bohannon?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry; we haven't one!" Mary exclaimed softly, dismayed at her forgetfulness. She had grown so used to guests tending their own mounts, as Jim Secrest had, or stopping so briefly that it was not necessary, as was ordinarily the case with the doctor. She looked down to the sentry at her side, still waiting eagerly for any call to arms. "Gabe, run and ask Bethel to have Elijah come and—"

"I ain' a boy, Missus Mary, but I kin take her," said a quiet, familiar voice from the far end of the veranda. Mary looked up in astonishment to see Meg standing near the flowerbed at the corner of the porch. She must have heard the horses and come to see what was going on. Now she scurried swiftly over the hard, frost-bitten ground and accepted the reins from Daniel Ives. "C'mon, pretty lady," she murmured. "Le's git you sumthin' nice to munch."

Felicity gathered the long, trailing skirt of her habit and danced daintily up the veranda steps. She rose on her tiptoes to kiss her father's cheek. "I still say it's too _mean_ of you not to let me come along," she pouted playfully. "After all, I stepped in while all the boys were just watching!"

"Aw, Felicity, that ain't fair!" one of the boys protested.

"We was trying to get through the crowd," said another.

"We _did_ help chase him off," added a third.

Albert folded his daughter's hands in his own and shook his head. "It ain't a young lady's place," he said patiently, with a fond indulgent air that reminded Mary of her own father. "This here business is between men, and we'll take care of it. You'll have nothing to fear from the sheriff after today."

She batted her eyelashes coyly. "I ain't never been afraid," she said. She patted his lapel. "You go on and have fun." She waved at the young men. "Have fun, boys!" she called out gaily. Then she lifted her skirts again and approached Mary with a girlish smile. "Let's go in, Miz Bohannon, and let 'em have their fun!"

Mary stepped back to admit her, and Felicity slipped into the front hall, looking around with interest as she twitched her sheared velvet train over the threshold. Mary made a small, gracious curtsey to the men on the stoop. "Please do take care, Mr. Ives. Mr. Ives," she said.

"Yes ma'am, we'll do that," said Elmer, bowing and stepping back to the stairs so he could put on his hat. Albert was already untying his horse. Elmer started to do the same, cocking his head towards the boys. "Say good day to Miz Bohannon: was you-all raised in a barn?"

A chorus of whoops and chuckles and "Good day, Miz Bohannon"s filled the air, and Mary felt Gabe shrink in against her leg, startled by the din. With one last smile she closed the door, turning towards Felicity at precisely the moment Bethel appeared at the back of the hallway.

"Oh, Bethel!" Mary said, relieved to see her helpmeet and greatest ally while at the same time realizing that she had just made an invitation of hospitality that they might not be in any position to provide. "Miss Ives has come to call. She… she'll be staying to dinner, and I thought perhaps…"

"Cup of tea in the parlor, Missus?" asked Bethel. She had shucked her heavy fustian apron, splashed with wash-water and homemade soap, and despite the worn work-dress under it her starched best apron gave her the look of a head woman in a fine home. "Lottie gots the kettle on. Jus' give me a moment to light the fire. Does you wan' me to bring your knittin' from the mornin' room?"

"The morning room?" Mary echoed softly, not quite sure what Bethel meant. Her knitting was in the kitchen, where she worked on it in the evenings when the light grew too dim for mending. She had hoped to fix the back seam of Nate's coat today, but that was not the sort of handwork one did in the presence of company.

"Yass'm," said Bethel soberly. "Where you's 'ccustomed to sit of a mornin'."

Mary did not laugh, but she knew her eyes sparked as Bethel's glittered knowingly. The "morning room" in a grand house was a sitting room generally reserved for the repose of the mistress, or casual visits with intimate friends. In Bethel's sly parlance, it meant the kitchen – where Mary had indeed been spending her mornings of late.

"Thank you, Bethel; that would be very nice," Mary said. She was not certain whether the stringent image of the decorative Southern woman permitted the knitting of stockings before a guest, but she could not justify spending perhaps several hours plying her silk needlepoint when there were feet in need of clothing. If Bethel had suggested it, then either it was within the bounds of propriety, or near enough for the pragmatic old woman to accept the stretch. "Here, Felicity, do let me take that charming bonnet."

"Ain't it cunning?" Felicity said merrily, sweeping the sporty black hat from her head and petting its floating feathers. "I had it made up at Miss Dillinger's in Meridian, can you believe it? Mama says that when she first come to the county, there wasn't a decent milliner closer than Tuscaloosa!"

Mary draped the hat carefully over one of the hooks near her own best bonnet, and then stepped forward to help Felicity out of her tailored riding jacket. It was trimmed with black braid to complement the bonnet, and there were handsome jet paillettes applied in a pattern of vines and leaves travelling up each sleeve. Mary could not quite help a little thrum of longing as she admired the beautiful work, remembering her own wardrobe at sixteen, when no extravagance was too great nor any fad too frivolous to please Leonidas Tate's pampered youngest daughter. There was not a woman in the world who dressed at twenty-six as she had dressed at sixteen – at least not successfully. But vain though it was in both senses of the word, Mary found herself wishing for a new, fashionable and handsomely embellished gown.

Under the jacket, Felicity wore a blouse and waistcoat of the sort only permissible when one was out riding. Mary took it as a sign of the girl's ease in her presence that she chose to remove her coat (which, matching the skirt, presented a more formal ensemble). She hung it with care, suddenly very glad that the callers had turned up just as she was changing. She would have been embarrassed, though not precisely ashamed, to have been caught in her washday frock.

During these maneuvers, Gabe's hold on her broad tartan skirt had shifted with her motions but never wholly relinquished. He was half-hidden in the modest bell formed by her narrower hoop, meant originally for travel and street wear but now worn for practicality instead of the broader model she donned on formal occasions. Mary swept her hand around her hip to find his head where it lurked behind a fold of cloth, and cupped the back of his skull to draw him around to her front.

"Would you like to go and see what Bethel is up to, dearest?" she asked. "Or would you like to come into the parlor with Miss Felicity and me?"

Felicity had been adjusting her chignon in the small looking-glass over the long, narrow hall table. Now she looked down at Gabe, paused, and turned eagerly. "Ooh, who's this?" she exclaimed delightedly. "Your little boy, Miz Bohannon? Oh, Mammy said he was the very image of his papa, but I never imagined!"

She swooped down onto one knee, skirts billowing around her. One did not wear a hoop under a riding habit, but Felicity had obviously layered on numerous starched and ruffled petticoats, whether for the sake of fashion or because of the chill of the day. She clasped her hands approximately over the elevated knee and smiled radiantly.

"Hello, there," she said in the sugary cheerful way that some women had of speaking to children, as if they could only understand you if you sounded like a happy _inamorata _in a harlequin play."Ain't you a handsome little gentleman! Now what's your name again… Joshua! It's Joshua, ain't it? I'm Miss Felicity. How d'you do?"

Gabe was watching her warily, not quite sure what to make of her. He glanced up at Mary, who smiled reassuringly. "Joshua's his Christian name, but we call him Gabe," she said.

"I's Gabe!" Gabe agreed fervently, as if asserting this point was essential to his sense of being. He looked shyly down at his popgun, fumbling with the stock as he muttered; "I's de man of de house while Pappy gone."

"I'm sure you'll do your pappy proud!" declared Felicity. "I see you're well-equipped for the job. Is that your rifle?"

"It my popgun!" exclaimed Gabe, surprised and pleased that she had noticed it. "De rifle, it unner de stairs. Sometime dis my _pretend_ rifle, dough. When I's huntin' fo' bears. Or it my mug-sket, when I's lookin' fo' Redcoats. Dat time in de big plants, I didn' 'member to bring it, so I had to git me a stick mug-sket, an' I dropp't it."

"Oh, my!" said Felicity, losing her saccharinely gleeful voice for a more sincere one that made Mary smile. Now she sounded more like the young girl she was, instead of a fussy old matron trying to play at youth. "That must have been quite the adventure."

Gabe nodded vigorously, and now he was meeting her eyes. "I gone t'rough dem trees – not really de trees, you know, jus' de corn. An' I couldn' see my mama, an' Bet'l, she gone too, an' 'Ottie awready a Redcoat, but anyhow she gots lost. An' de big monster – it wasn' a cow, I knows it! An' de Injuns' water, it really _Pappy_'s water, an' dem plants was de tobacco all 'long!"

Felicity clearly had no conception of what he was saying, but she folded her lips over a silent giggle and nodded. "I see," she said soberly. "Well, I'm glad it all worked out for the best."

"Yes, ma'am," Gabe said, grinning. Clearly she had taken from the story what he wanted her to. "All fo' de best!" He cocked his head to one side, considering Felicity carefully. "Does you know my pappy?"

Now she did giggle, and a flush rose to her cheeks. "A little," she said. "He danced with me at a party once, and we met in town just the other day."

"Please do meet you," Gabe said, mangling the greeting only a little as he let go of Mary's skirt to offer his hand. Instead of shaking it, as he clearly expected, Felicity looked at it thoughtfully and then turned it palm-upwards.

"Do you know what a young gentleman does when he takes a lady's hand?" she asked. Gabe did not answer, so she went on smoothly. "He kisses it. Well, not _it_: that would be too intimate, and not suitable at all! But he kisses the air just _over_ it."

Gabe's eyes widened in comprehension. "Pappy, he done dat!" he said eagerly. "He done it to Mama, I see'd him!"

Mary could not recall when Gabe might have seen Cullen make such a gesture, but clearly he had. When Felicity said; "Go on and try it!", he bent like a perfect little gentleman, puckered his lips just above her slender knuckles, and made a soft smacking sound.

"Bravo!" cried Felicity, clapping her hands delightedly. She looked up at Mary adoringly. "Oh, he's such a darling!" she sighed. "And his curls… just like his father's!"

She reached to hook one of Gabe's silky brown waves with her index finger, twisting it once and letting it fall. Then she got to her feet. "I do hope you'll come in and sit with us, Gabe dear," she said; "and not go and sit with your mammy instead."

"She Bet'l; ain' no mammy," Gabe corrected. Then he looked up at Mary. "I guess I may sit a while, Mama." He raised his hand to her, and she took it gladly. The feel of his soft, plump fingers curling around hers was uniquely beautiful.

Mary had not noticed Bethel passing through the corridor after her swift departure, but evidently she had. When she stepped into the parlor with Gabe in tow and Felicity behind, she found the fire already blazing cheerfully. The drapes had been drawn back, and the cushions on the sofa were tilted invitingly. Her knitting basket sat on the pillar table between the couch and Cullen's armchair. There was no sign that the room had scarcely been occupied this last month.

Mary moved to her usual corner of the sofa, and was both pleased and surprised when Felicity sat beside her. Gabe looked at his father's vacant chair, considered it, and then plopped down where he stood, on the hearthrug at Mary's feet. He tucked his legs halfway to crossed, and laid his popgun across his lap.

"What a charming room, Mrs. Bohannon!" Felicity said, gazing around and taking in the furnishings, the sideboard, and the ornaments on the mantel and the bookshelf. Her back was turned to the vacant place under the window where the récamier usually stood. "Did you decorate it yourself, or is it your mother-in-law's handiwork?"

"You might say I had a small hand in it," said Mary. "The curtains were my chief contribution, and of course a little touch here and there, but the greater part of it was very much like this when I came to Mississippi."

The truth was that if anyone was responsible for the décor of this room, it was Bethel. Cullen's mother had died so long ago that any touches of her personality had been preserved by the loving hand of her head woman. Under Bethel's care, a room that must have been a smoky den of masculinity until William and Caroline's marriage had taken on a sedate, dark-wooded dignity that was somehow comforting instead of pretentious. The wallpaper with its deep olive green damask pattern had scarcely faded at all during Mary's years as mistress, and the furnishings, though old, were well-polished and spared the gores of careless spurs or pocket-knives that were a danger in so many homes. The Bohannon parlor lacked some of the frilled ostentation of neighbors' rooms, but it was handsome and well-suited to its master.

"What was it like?" Felicity said with a romantic little sigh. "Leaving everything you knew to travel so far from home, just for the man you loved?"

"It was frightening," Mary admitted; "and so very exciting. We were married in wintertime, and came home from our honeymoon through country knee-deep in snow. I remember when we came to St. Louis, and so much of it had melted that the yards were all bare grass and brown shrubbery – it was such a surprise! And then to come here, to a place where spring was just starting to blossom when back at home I knew it was still the heart of winter, was positively delightful."

She reached into the basket and drew out her knitting: the ball of fine cotton thread and the five needles. She was making a pair of stockings for Gabe, and had just finished shaping the first heel last night. She found her place on the foot and began to knit, one finger looping the thread almost more quickly than the others could slip the needle. She had grown up on lace-knitting, shaping complex figures and blossoms with needles even finer than the slender steel ones she plied now, and she had hated it. The work had seemed so picky and tiresome, and Mary had poured her care and detail into her embroidery instead. Knitting socks, however, was different. Though she followed a pattern perfected by trial and error and noted on a little card in her basket, taking in stitches or letting them out to follow the contours of the wearer's leg, the rhythm of the stitches was steady. Mary ribbed the tops of her stockings so they would stay up even without garters – which Cullen disliked and even Bethel could not convince, bribe, or command Gabe to wear – but for the rest of the body she simply used plain knit for a smooth, unembellished surface. It was soothing and simple, leaving her free to talk of the household planning with Bethel, to make conversation with her husband, to tell stories to her child, or to visit with a guest.

"I've always wanted to see really _deep_ snow," said Felicity. "I've been to New York, you know: the September before last we went to Saratoga – for the baths, you know? - but of course there was no snow then! Have you been to the spas at Saratoga?"

"Oh, yes," Mary assured her, smiling. "They're just as much an attraction for residents of New York City as they are for the rest of the country, I assure you. We used to start our summers there, before heading out to the house on Long Island Sound."

As she spoke, she could almost smell the salty spray of the sea and feel the crisp damp upon the air, so different from the heavy humidity of a Mississippi summer. She had spent many carefree days on those beaches: as a barefoot child running through the sand and splashing in the surf; as a growing girl balancing dignity with delight in her ruffled bathing dresses as she waded with her friends or climbed the rocks to explore tidal pools; and as a young lady sitting decorously beneath a parasol in a plank chair at the edge of the sand, dreaming all the while of a certain shipping clerk she had left behind on Manhattan Island to brave the city summer. The memories drew her eyes to Gabe, who had never seen a body of water larger than the little lake on the Trussell plantation. She felt a guilty little pang. He ought to be able to visit the seaside while he was still young enough to revel wholeheartedly in its glories.

"I've heard New York is positively _unlivable_ in summertime!" said Felicity with relish. "It was an article in _Godey's_, I think… do you subscribe?"

"I'm a little behind in my reading," Mary admitted. She was looking forward to the winter evenings, when the sun went down before a body was wrung to utter exhaustion and she and Cullen could pass a couple of quiet hours together, he reading aloud from _Harper's Weekly_ or _The Mississippian_ or one of their few prized books while she sewed. This year, more than any other before, winter seemed so very long in coming, and the months of heavy, ceaseless work so intolerably slow to pass. "But it's true that the smells are dreadful in the city, and the air has almost a weight to it."

"I'm amazed _anyone_ stays behind!" Felicity declared. "But the article described the streets as fairly teeming with bodies, all sweaty and breathless and miserable."

"Well, many people cannot afford to go: they cannot maintain a country home or, if they have friends or relations to stay with, cannot spare the months away from their jobs or businesses," Mary pointed out gently.

Felicity's mouth shrank into a startled "O". "I didn't think of that," she said. "I s'pose there's poor folks everywhere, ain't there? Even in New York City."

Gabe had laid aside his popgun and fetched the little box of toys they kept in the parlor for him. It had been forgotten in his illness, and as a consequence he had not seen its contents in a long while. He was sitting with his legs folded under him, feet sticking out to either side behind, and he bounced eagerly as he took out his ball with the chipped green paint. At once he rolled it towards the place where the rug had crept up onto the lip of the hearthstones, forming a shallow ramp that allowed the ball to roll straight back. Gabe giggled softly, glanced at the women to make sure he had escaped notice, and rolled it again. Mary had averted her eyes just in time to preserve his illusion of obscurity. Felicity stole a glance as he was intent upon watching the ball return to him.

"Such a handsome little man," she said earnestly. "He _do_ look a great deal like Mr. Bohannon, don't he?"

Mary nodded. Suddenly she remembered her last personal encounter with Felicity Ives. It had been at the Ainsleys' anniversary party, during the segregated hour after dinner when the younger ladies had gathered in the back parlor. She felt the urge to laugh. Felicity had asked her a shockingly indecent question about her marriage bed, which Mary had tactfully declined to answer. And she had been seated next to Cullen at supper, no doubt because Boyd knew she would be a sufficiently intelligent companion. _And_ she had jilted her pre-arranged partner to dance with Culllen when he had been in haste to join Mary and Boyd in the reel. Felicity Ives, so it seemed, had a sweet spot for Mary's husband.

"I've always thought so," she said cheerfully, still trying to conceal her amusement. Of course Cullen was the natural target of a young girl's infatuation: handsome and gallant, clever, accustomed to speaking to a woman as if she had a brain in her head, dangerous in his disregard for society's rigid norms but safe because of his fundamental integrity, and maybe (with his romantic struggle to farm his own land after a fall from fortune) just a little bit tragic. Yet it had not quite occurred to Mary that someone so _very_ young might be pining for him. Felicity's apparent infatuation, whether mild or deep, was quite simply adorable. "I do believe it's the eyes, more than anything."

"Oh, yes, he has _beautiful _eyes," Felicity sighed blissfully. Then she remembered herself, and the strict rules of Southern girlhood that prohibited, above all else, the careful study of other women's husbands. She sat up a little more stiffly on the sofa, and folded her hands hastily in her lap. "Dear little Gabe, I mean, of course."

"Of course," said Mary knowingly. She had come to the end of another round, and dipped a quick purl to form the false seam that made it easy for Gabe – or anyone dressing him against his will – to find the back of his sock. "Little boys always have beautiful eyes."

For a moment Felicity was quiet, as if trying to think how to say what she wished to. Then she drew a little breath and came out with it. "Mrs. Bohannon, what shall become of you if Mississippi does leave the Union?"

Mary felt a painful flutter under her ribs. She did not even like to think of such an awful thing, though she knew the whole county must be talking about it. "Why, whatever do you mean? I shall stay here, of course, with my husband and my family. I'm a Mississippi lady now, don't you think?"

"Yes… well, no… I mean, of course you are," said Felicity. "But what about your other family? Your mother and father and… oh, I don't know. Do you have brothers? Or sisters. Cousins? I know I'd miss my brothers terribly, and the cousins, if I married someone and moved to a different state."

"Why, Felicity," Mary said pleasantly, offering her a sidelong conspiratorial smile of the sort she had not used since the days in New York when she and her girlfriends would tease one another about beaux. "Are you thinking of marrying someone from out-of-state?"

"One of Thad's school chums asked me," Felicity admitted. "Well, one of the chums from the school Thad got sent home from. I told him 'no'. It wasn't a real proposal, you understand; just the sort a boy makes when he thinks you might like him to. Boys are always doing silly things like that, don't you find?"

Mary, who had turned down two sincere but unappealing suitors before consenting to the one all her friends had thought merely toying with her affections, just shrugged her left shoulder: the right was busy knitting. "I think when a gentleman makes you an earnest proposal, and the right proposal, you'll know it."

"I do hope so," Felicity said. "Thank you, Mrs. Bohannon. That's the soundest advice I can get from any matron. Mama is sweet, but she's a little empty-headed sometimes. I think I got my mind from Papa. And all the others just tell me that nice girls shouldn't boast about the number of proposals they get." She sighed. "It isn't _my_ fault it's considerably above the average."

Mary looked her over, with her exquisitely coifed hair and her deliberately charming manner, her waist laced just a little too tightly to be practical for riding, and her daintily shaped nails, and she wasn't quite certain that Felicity was as innocent in the matter as she made out. But she was sixteen, and of course love was a game to her, and so long as she wasn't fool enough to accept the first passionwild offer of marriage she attracted she would be all right.

"I suppose it isn't: the boys must just naturally flock to such a charming and intelligent girl as yourself. I've always admired your wit, and I know that Mr. Bohannon does as well," she said.

Felicity's eyes widened, and her rosy bow of a mouth quivered uncertainly. Mary realized that it was unlikely that she received many compliments on her mind, especially not with the Southern premium placed on pure ornamentation. She let her needles hang from her left hand, and reached to squeeze Felicity's fingers.

"Don't be ashamed to be clever," she confided. "It will help you to find the right sort of husband: a husband who respects you for all you have to offer, not just your beauty. And do call me Mary, please. I think we ought to be friends."

Felicity flushed, and looked suddenly far younger. Hesitantly at first, and then with sincerity, she squeezed Mary's hand in return. "Thank you, Miss Mary," she said. "I think I would like that very much."

There was a soft knock at the ajar door to the hallway, and Lottie came in. She paused to curtsey to the two women, and then hurried to move the low, square Chippendale table that ordinarily sat by Mary's sewing chair under the window. She carried it to the middle of the floor with ease, for it was not very large and despite the whooping cough Lottie was strong for her age. From the waistband of her apron she took a small tablecloth that Mary recognized as being among the family's best linen, and she spread it over the table. Then she hurried out the door again just as Bethel came in bearing the big dinner tray.

"I thought as it jus' you two ladies, Missus, we might lay out dinner in here," she said as she lowered her burden carefully onto the table. The tray held not only the tea service, but a platter of cold venison sandwiches, a dish of devilled eggs, cut-glass savory bowls each with a different variety of pickle, and a tureen of freshly-picked collard greens in butter. There were two small plates, one for each diner, and the necessary silverware.

"What a lovely idea, Bethel: thank you!" Mary said happily. The presentation was delightful, and she knew the food would be unimpeachable. She did not know how Bethel had managed it all – in particular the eggs – in so short a time, but she would be sure to marvel at it freely when the guest was gone. In the meantime, this saved the trouble of laying out the dining room, spared them the lighting of yet another fire, and kept her and Felicity in the place they had come to such a pleasant accord.

Lottie came back in with a smaller tray, this one bearing two tumblers and a pitcher that, on closer inspection, contained cold, sweet tea. Mary's lips parted in astonishment, and she glanced wonderingly at Bethel, who had somehow produced this confection without ice and – so far as Mary knew – without sugar. Knowing that Bethel would never serve sorghum to company, she had to conclude that the shrewd manager had kept back some of the more expensive sweetener against just such an emergency.

"Col' tea to clear the palate, an' warm to comfort the insides," Bethel said quietly. Lottie curtseyed again and hurried from the room. "Jus' you ring if'n you need anything, Missus Mary." She nodded at the little-used handbell that sat on the mantelpiece. Then she crouched down and clapped her hands, offering them to Gabe. "C'mon, Mist' Gabe, honey," she said. "Bethel gots you a san'wich all your own, an' it might be there some lef'over yams all fried up crisp fo' my li'l man."

Gabe scrambled to his feet eagerly, and was about to climb up onto Bethel's hip when he thought of something. He turned and looked from Mary to Felicity and back again. Then he put his right hand before his waistcoat, and his left in the small of his back, and he bowed.

"You ladies goin' have a nice dinner," he predicted. "Me an' Bet'l, we gots bidness in de kitchen." Then he picked up his popgun, offered Bethel his hand, and marched out with her.

The two young women watched him go, transfixed, and then found themselves watching an empty door. Then Felicity clapped her hands together and let out a silvery laugh. "Oh, he _is_ a darling, Miss Mary! Such a little gentleman!"

Pleased and as proud as a mother could hope to be, Mary turned to the task of serving up the elegant cold dinner with which she had been provided.


	94. Sugar and Virtue

_Note: Well, I topped up a colossally stressful week by crashing my laptop. Everything was backed up except for – you guessed it! – this chapter, 2/3 finished. After spending longer tried to save the file than I had spent creating it in the first place, I cobbled this rewrite together on a twelve-year-old desktop. I hope it didn't lose anything in the retelling. Sigh. (This chapter was posted between 412 and 413.)_

**Chapter Ninety-Four: Sugar and Virtue**

Every jolt and shudder of the freight car rattled through Cullen's tailbone and up his spine to explode like a sparkler in his throbbing skull. His teeth shuddered against one another, gritted against a dull, constant anguish that he was almost too far gone with weariness to feel. _Almost_ too far gone, he thought grimly, as the iron wheels jounced over another poorly-fitted finish plate and the boxcar quaked inexorably beneath him. He hugged his arms closer around his aching ribs, and tucked his chin as a fresh tremor worked its way through the broad muscles of his back and the deep tissues that wrapped his long bones.

The day seemed colder than the one before, or else he had taken a chill in the night, for he shivered almost constantly. He had given up on sitting properly, and had turned sideways on the tobacco box. With his feet tucked close to his backside, he could draw up his knees and huddle forward over the meager heat of his thighs. His collar was buttoned to the throat, his hat tugged low, and the folds of his muffler arranged to cover his ears. It was a little lower in front, for his nose kept trickling with petulant insistence, and he kept wiping it with a rumpled old handkerchief stained with tobacco juice.

His night in the open air had been tolerable, if not exactly comfortable. He had slept surprisingly deeply on the bare bench, head pillowed by the pile of _Harper's Weekly_. Only twice in the six hours had he awakened to the tortured fury of a coughing jag, which was a notable improvement on his recent average. On the second occasion, when he could breathe again, he had staggered over to the pool of light cast by the signal-lantern and very carefully removed his gloves from the neatly-packed valise. The effort had seemed useless then, when the leather itself had been cold and stiff, but Cullen was glad of it now. His fingers were still cold, but they had not yet stiffened as they had last night.

The boxcar rumbled over another rough place on the rail, and Cullen hissed involuntarily. He had no real sense of how long he had been in here, but the gray November light that came in through the cracks was steady and indifferent with none of the richness of late afternoon. Briefly he considered pulling out his watch, which he had wound and set to Jackson time before boarding. Meridian, having been first a Mobile and Ohio Railroad hub, was on Mobile time, eight minutes ahead of Jackson. This was less of a convenience to Cullen than it might have been: even if he had forgotten to change his watch, he would have simply been eight minutes early for business engagements, rail connections, and social gatherings. Still, whenever he travelled he was irked by the absurdity of having towns on the same line, sometimes only four or five miles from one another, on different times. Synchronicity was clearly needed, and ought to be introduced across the nation, and no one was better situated to organize it than the railroads.

His head began to pound in protest of this line of thinking. Any minute now he would be making calculations and adjustments, trying to figure out the best way to establish a universal time and to implement it from city to city. It was the sort of problem that he found irresistible, but he did not have the strength or the mental fortitude for such acrobatics today. Right now, it was taking all his focus just to endure this miserably uncomfortable journey.

He should have brought a blanket, Cullen reflected as a fresh bout of tremors took his body and sent his teeth chattering. It was not much below freezing, but this boxcar was draftier than Henrietta had been and he was fairly certain that his physical state was deteriorating. He might have got through his brief night with only the two fits, but since departing Jackson he had had four, and he was coughing in between the breathless episodes as well. His chest felt tight, and his ribs felt bruised and tender beneath his close-crossed arms. His right temple was resting against the stack of tobacco boxes that towered over him, the brim of his hat bent awkwardly upward to accommodate the proximity, and every rattle and bump jarred his skull against the rough wood. It was still preferable to letting his head bounce and jostle at the end of a neck already riddled with tightened sinews ready to knot into cramps at the slightest provocation.

Rail travel was never especially comfortable, and in some respects Cullen would not have been significantly better off in the second-class carriage. The hard seats were only a little less unpleasant to sit upon than the tobacco boxes. The quality of the air was somewhat better, with the glass windows to filter some of the soot from the engine, but he would also have had to put up with other passengers' cigar smoke, perfumes and bodily effluvia, to say nothing of their small talk, intrusive questions and general desire to make conversation. The one vast improvement the coaches boasted over the boxcars was the presence of the small stoves on either end. They provided varying degrees of heat, proportional to the proximity one was able to secure, but even in the middle of a passenger car Cullen would have been warmer than he was now. A blanket, he thought again, his bitterness growing. Why hadn't he thought to bring a damned blanket?

Of course, a nasty little voice reminded him, if he had simply _told_ Mary and Bethel how he would be traveling, they would have taken care of that as they had everything else. But he hadn't wanted to worry them, or to have them insist upon the expense of a passenger ticket. He was saving at least fifteen dollars this way: enough to shoe all of the slaves. That was worth the discomfort. It had to be.

The whistle blasted loudly enough to resonate in Cullen's teeth, and he could feel the drag of deceleration as the train approached the next station. Stops were farther apart on this road than on the Southern Railroad, and often the train ran for forty minutes without pause. Thus far, Cullen had not disembarked even briefly at any of the stations. This time, he decided, he had no choice. His jug was empty and his bladder was full, and if he did not get up and move around some they might be offloading him as a frozen hunk of meat in New Orleans.

He began to unfold himself as the brakes squealed and the wheels locked and the whistle rang out its warning again and again. First he slid his left foot onto the floor, nudging the basket aside. Then he let his right knee slide down, baring his sleeves and stomach to a draft of cold air that made him shudder. Cullen raised his head with some trepidation, expecting and experiencing a wave of bone-deep dizziness. He panted shallowly as he rode it out, his disorientation heightened by the sudden jerk to the left followed immediately by a fall back to the right as the train stopped.

Blindly he reached to straighten his hat with one hand, while the other swabbed the handkerchief against his nostrils. He shifted his hips, and his right boot cracked down beside the left. The conductor was shouting: "Tangipahoa! Tangipahoa Station! All disembarking for Tangipahoa Station!"

Cullen leaned his forearms across his knees, hanging his head and breathing heavily. A phlegmy cough burbled from his lips, and he screwed his eyes closed for a minute. Tangipahoa was the first stop over the Louisiana border, which meant he was about eight hours – or two-thirds – into his journey. With a dull groan of effort, he hefted himself to his feet, catching hold of the bracket by the door as he swayed. Belatedly he realized he had left his earthenware bottle on the floor, and he stared down at it with a stupidity born of fever and exhaustion.

He thought distantly of the little feather bed in the nursery, with the cast iron stove blazing merrily at his feet and his son's warm body pressed against him, and for a moment he would have thrown away the crop, the earnings, and his family's future security just to be tucked up there. But he was out here now, at a little whistlestop far from home, and there was nowhere to go but onward. He fumbled with the latch-bar, and slid the door open. It squealed its protest, and thin shards of ice rained down. Perhaps it was further below freezing than he had thought.

His breath came out in a head of steam nearly as opaque as that billowing from the smokestack, and Cullen squinted in the daylight. The platform was behind him, more or less aligned with the first passenger car. He was standing over a level stretch of grade, raised only about a foot above the field through which it had been laid. A packed-dirt road ran parallel to the tracks and about three feet away from it. Holding fast to the wall of the boxcar, Cullen stretched out his left foot and bent his right leg, lowering himself almost far enough for his buttocks to graze the floor. He tilted forward with far too calculated a motion, and hopped down from the boxcar. The impact in the sole of his foot jarred up into his spine, repeating the same tormented journey up into his skull that the train's jostling had, and he swallowed a sound that wanted to be a weary little whimper.

At least from the ground it was a simple matter to reach across and collect his jug: he did not have to bend so much as lean forward a little. He stared stupidly at his other baggage for a moment, before deciding that he would take the chance of leaving it. He hauled the door almost closed again, but did not trouble to lock or even latch it. He looked up towards the front of the train. The fireman was on top of the engine, reaching for the canvas hose of the water-tower. Cullen had at least ten minutes before the conductor would even start trying to load up for departure.

Only a handful of passengers were disembarking here: more were waiting to board. He did not need to compete with them, either, for those choice seats nearest the stoves. Cullen shuffled onto the platform and past them, keeping an eye out for the amenities he needed.

The first he came upon was the outhouse, around the other side of the tiny ticket office that doubled as a telegraph station. It was a narrow, squat building with a door in each of its shorter ends. Cullen set his jug down on a barrel conveniently set nearby for the offloading of such sundries, and went into the dark, rank-smelling structure to take care of his needs. The process required more fumbling with garments than he was accustomed to, with the gloves and both coats to cope with, but he emerged a couple of minutes later feeling, if not precisely better, at least a little less bloated.

There was a pump under an open roof a little ways up the track, and it was there he went next. Buckets and drinking vessels were lined up on a bench, clearly delineated by race: tin dippers for the whites, hollow gourds for the blacks. At a larger station, there would have been further segregation: perhaps a second bench! But travelers at this little wayside stop had to make certain sacrifices to expediency.

Cullen was not interested in the pails at all. He shoved his left glove into his pocket and tried to push the cuffs back from that wrist. With his right hand he worked the pump, at first producing nothing but a rusty creak and a dry glugging sound. Then there was a low _whoosh_, and the water began to flow. His left hand and the bottle were thrust into the stream, and he held them there until the vessel was full. It took longer than it should have, and he wasted more water than he caught, but in the end he withdrew his dripping jug and wet, reddened hand. He stoppered the former and shook the latter in the air, setting his teeth against the unpleasant tingling sensation. Despite his efforts to the contrary, his cuffs were wet, and he expected they would be damp for the rest of the day. More irritated than the small inconvenience warranted, he started up towards the boxcar again.

The sparse crowd had thinned almost to nothing. A man and a woman in wilting mourning garb were getting into the back of a small trail wagon with a skinny adolescent boy on the driver's board. As Cullen stepped up, a bearded man with a carpetbag in one hand and a bulging sack slung over the opposite shoulder stepped down. This left only a ferrety gentleman overseeing the loading of numerous unwieldy parcels into one of the baggage cars, the railmen themselves, and the hawker who was selling glazed buns and coffee.

She was a mulatto woman between thirty and forty, plump and pleasant-looking but with shrewd eyes that scanned the environment as she moved back from the front end of the third-class car. She had done brisk business in the buns, at least, for her tray with its leather neck-strap was almost empty. The gallon jug on her hip seemed to be riding more heavily, but it was difficult to tell. She sized up Cullen as he passed her, and said; "Sundries, Massa? Sugar bun, good hot coffee?"

He turned back and looked at her more closely. Her faded calico dress was rumpled but clean, as were her hands, and she wore a heavy fustian apron of the sort Lottie and Meg used in the garden. Her head-cloth was blue gingham. She was likely the property of the stationmaster and telegraph operator, at this small waystation one and the same. She did not quite meet Cullen's eyes, but there was a certain silent confidence about her that told him she could hold her own in a scuffle.

"Thank you, no," he muttered. The scent of the buns had done little to tempt an indifferent stomach, but he could smell the deep, toasted aroma of the coffee now, and it made the glands in his jaw burn with longing.

The woman swayed her hips so the tray rocked. "Fresh out the oven not fifteen minutes past, Massa," she enticed. "Baked 'em my own self. Real cane sugar, bes' white flour."

He shook his head. The two Negroes who had been shifting baggage were through now. One leaned against the wooden post at a corner of the awning, and the other squatted beside him, drawing with one finger in the dust on the platform. The brakeman was walking the length of the train, checking the couplings. As soon as the locomotive's water tank was full, it would be time to depart.

Cullen took a step away from the woman, and she stepped right along with him.

"They's still warm in the middle," she sang seductively, sensing his craving and misinterpreting its target. "Gots two lef': penny each."

"I ain't hungry," Cullen said, truthfully enough. He had tried to eat a little more of Bethel's bountiful picnic that morning, with unimpressive results. The wholesome, homey bread, the rich preserves, and even the savory smoked venison had all tasted like ash, and sat uneasily in his belly for hours.

"Go on, sir: it sure to warm you," the woman wheedled, undaunted and determined to make one final sale before the train moved on.

"I said _no_!" Cullen snarled. His voice ground dangerously low, grating over raw vocal chords. Something must have flashed in his eyes, too, for the slave took a skittering step backward. Then, instead of withdrawing, she squared her shoulders, set her jaw, and stood her ground.

"Awright, then," she said, mild and yet unyielding. She was used to the raucous diversity of railway passengers, from the most genteel to the roughest. She was not easily cowed. "You's on'y deprivin' youself."

Cullen was surprised by a hoarse little laugh. He respected her fearlessness, even though he did not believe he looked much of a threat in his current state. And this last declaration put him in mind of Bethel, whose brusquely fond ministrations he found himself missing. Besides, he could smell that dark tropical perfume wafting from the vessel on her hip. He relented.

"How much for coffee?" he asked hoarsely.

"Penny a cup," said the Negress. "Mine or your'n."

It took a little awkward juggling to tug off his glove while holding the earthenware bottle, secure the leather garment in the crook of his elbow, dig into his watch pocket, find the coin he wanted, and present it to the hawker. In the end, all this was done. From a corner of her tray the woman took an enameled tin cup, and filled it from her jug. Slender tendrils of steam arose from the dark fluid, and Cullen forced himself to be patient as she offered him the roll-edged handle. Hastily he lifted the mug to his lips, and drank.

The coffee was not very hot – deliberately so, he guessed, since the drinker was encouraged to drain the cup as quickly as possible so the next might have his turn with it. Still, it was hot enough to warm his chilled, phlegm chest, and it was strong, and it was sweet. Like the buns, it had been made with real sugar. Cullen let the deep, black flavor roll over his tongue, and sublimate into his suppurating sinuses. It was cheap coffee, home-roasted without much skill, but it was glorious. Cullen had not had a cup of coffee since… since when? Taking another swallow, he remembered. He had last had coffee on that awful frostbitten night when he and Nate had crowded half-frozen before the kitchen stove after exerting an almost superhuman effort to save the yams.

The thought made him shudder, and he took another long draught. The mulatto woman was grinning at him.

"Good, ain' it?" she asked. "Jus' the thing to warm you."

Cullen grunted in quiet agreement, bobbing his head at her as he drained the cup. As he extended it towards her, tempted to ask for a second cup, the locomotive let off a huge head of steam and the whistle sounded. The conductor, who had assumed his place on the deck at the rear of the first-class car, cleared his throat and bellowed in his deep, rolling voice; "Departing Tangipahoa! Tangipahoa, Manchac, New Orleans! All aboard as comin' aboard! All _aboo-ooard_!"

Cullen hastily let go of the empty cup, leaving the woman to fumble to catch it, and took off up the platform at a painfully concussive trot. He leapt off of the edge of the platform, disregarding the wooden steps, and landed hard in the dying grass. When he reached his boxcar, he shoved the door wide and clambered up in one ungainly motion, leaving his jug on the floor with a clatter of earthenware on board. The pistons were already puffing as they started to move, and by the time he got himself turning around to slide the heavy door closed the ground was already shifting sickeningly as the car began to roll. His hands and arms shook as he hauled upon the door, the brief exertion of energy abandoning him to unsteady exhaustion. As he lowered the bar and latched himself in, his knees gave way and he landed hard upon the tobacco box. His elbows struck his knees and he leaned forward, panting shallowly and praying that he would not break into another fit.

The engine was picking up speed now and the air slipping around the boxcar shrieked as it built speed and whisked the worst of the soot up and over the curved roof, but it was too late. Bent low over his lap, head pounding and vision shifting darkly, Cullen lost himself in the vast, awful chasm of the cough.

_*discidium*_

It was the elder Mister Ives who came back to collect his niece in the middle of the afternoon. When she came to the door and found him there, Bethel looked him over surreptitiously from beneath her respectfully lowered eyelids. There was no sign of violence upon him: no bruised or bloodied knuckles, no stains upon his fine coat, not a button or a pocket-flap out of place. Whatever had passed between the Ives men and the sheriff, there were no signs of it upon this man. With a polite murmur of invitation, Bethel led him into the parlor where the two young women were laughing softly together.

"Mr. Ives!" Missus Mary exclaimed, swishing to her feet and laying aside her knitting with a graceful waft of her left hand. She brushed past Miss Felicity's voluminous velvet skirts to offer her hand to the gentleman. He raised it a little and then bowed neatly over it, miming a kiss. "Have you come to join us?"

"No, Miz Bohannon, regrettably not," he said. "I'm just here to fetch up this bit of baggage, as she's expected home for supper. Unless you's planning to stay the week, my girl?"

Missus Mary's serene expression faltered only for an instant: far too briefly for the notice of anyone who did not know her. But Bethel read that look of sudden anxiety all too clearly. She was afraid that Felicity might actually seize upon this suggestion, in which case Southern hospitality would compel them to accommodate her, and that if she did the much-depleted resources of the household would not be adequate to entertain her.

Of course, the man was only teasing, and Miss Ives laughed.

"Oh, if I stayed a week, I should have to stay_ forever!_" she laughed. "We had the most scrumptious venison sandwiches, and Miss Mary told me how Mr. Bohannon had been out hunting all day long with his friend, and come home empty-handed only to find the doe right in his own garden! What was it doing there, again, Miss Mary?"

"Munching on the turnips," Missus Mary said with a fond lilt of humor in her voice. She was thinking of Mister Gabe's eager pronouncement.

Like a little velvet whirlwind, Felicity turned back on her uncle. "Is it all done?" asked the girl eagerly. "I hope Thad done what he promised. Did the boys come with you?"

"Only Daniel," said Mister Ives. "He's saddling up Dewdrop as we speak. I hope you'll forgive the presumption, Miz Bohannon, but as we didn't see a groom about he decided just to get on with it."

"Oh, that's perfectly all right, and thank you," said Missus Mary. "I know Meg and Elijah will be grateful to be spared the disruption."

This was a breach of etiquette of the kind she was prone to in her innocence. Ladies of the planter class might know their field hands by name, even on large properties with many slaves, but they never spoke of them this way in company. Bethel had heard wealthy women complaining, perhaps, of an ornery farmhand, or speaking proudly of one who had been successfully delivered of a new baby, but for the most part these slaves were ignored in the parlors and rose gardens of the county. Certainly to speak of their wants and needs was nearly unheard-of, and it was something that made Bethel's heart swell with pride in her sweet Northern mistress. Even Miss Caroline would not have gone so far as to think, much less say, that Meg and Elijah had enough work on their plates without being called away to saddle up a guest's pleasure-horse.

"But where is our little man?" Miss Felicity exclaimed as she whirled past Bethel and into the entryway. "I couldn't think of leaving without saying goodbye. You should see him, Uncle: he's the very image of his father!"

Missus Mary cast a questioning eye on Bethel, who offered a small smile and a nod. She moved to the dining room door, which stood ajar, and was just about to pass through it when she caught a glint of silvery eyes in the gloom of the unlit room. She pushed the door open instead and beckoned to Mister Gabe, who had apparently followed her when she had left the kitchen to answer the front door.

"Come say goodbye to Miss Ives," Bethel said softly, straightening his little collar and smoothing his hair as she guided him into the narrow vestibule. "Stan' up straight like a li'l gent'man."

The child complied obediently, but as he rounded the corner and saw the tall stranger in the parlor doorway his eyes grew great and round. He took a hurried step backward, pressing his spine against Bethel's leg through the padding of petticoats, and he clamped his hand closed on a fistful of skirt. His other hand twitched emptily, and Bethel knew that he was thinking of his popgun, which had apparently been left behind in the kitchen.

"Bet'l…" he whispered loudly. "Who dat? Where he come from?"

"That Mist' Ives," Bethel reassured him quietly. "He come to take Miss Ives on home. Say 'good day' like a good li'l gent'man."

"G'day!" Mister Gabe squeaked, drawing the man's eyes as the quiet presence of a servant and child had not.

He grinned and squatted down, cupping his hands over his knees. "Well, now! You must be Mr. Bohannon! How do you do?"

"G'day," Gabe repeated, unsteady but determined. Bethel let her hand rest lightly on his shoulder, and felt the pressure against her shin ease a little. "How-do."

Miss Felicity had been buttoning her short-waisted riding jacket with the extravagant decorative work. Now she looked up and smiled radiantly. "There he is!" she exclaimed, swooping down to the boy's level and caressing his cheek with one dainty hand. "It was such a pleasure to meet you, darling. You take good care of your mama, now, until your pappy comes home."

"Yass'm," said Gabe, shy but clearly pleased. He swayed from side to side as he looked up at her. "I's goin' take good care of Mama. Pappy, he goin' be back pretty soon. Jus' nine more days: we tooked 'way de li'l half-bean."

"Nine days!" Miss Felicity repeated, as if committing the figure to memory. "Well, that ain't so very long, now is it?"

"No, ma'am," Mister Gabe agreed fervently. Then he glanced back at Bethel and added; "Goodbye, now. You ride careful an' git home safe."

The girl giggled and glanced up at Missus Mary, who was smiling proudly. Miss Felicty stood up. "Thank you, I'm sure I will," she said to Mister Gabe, then moved gracefully back towards the door so she could take her bonnet from his mother. She settled the dark confection on her head, checked her reflection in the small looking-glass, and adjusted the angle of the hat. Then she pinned it deftly in place and fluffed the brightly-dyed plumes. She plucked up her gloves from the narrow table and began to tug them on.

"I trust I _may_ call again, Miss Mary?" she asked. "And you must promise to call on me! I think we shall be great friends, you know."

"Yes, I think so," said Missus Mary, graciously earnest. Bethel restrained herself from a firm nod. It would do the foolish little child good to be friends with her mistress. She was not unintelligent: all she really needed was a guiding hand. "Please call again whenever you like."

Miss Felicity's smile grew, and she cast a little sidelong glance at her uncle, who was watching this feminine exchange with a look of manly indulgence. Plainly he didn't value ladies' minds, except as an amusement. Abruptly Bethel felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, wondering whether this attitude was universal to the crowd of men that populated her life.

"Thank you, darling!" Miss Felicity exclaimed softly, taking Mary's hands and rising on her toes to give her a swift peck on the cheek. Then she crooked her elbow out to the side with a coy little tilt of her head: the gesture of a girl who had grown up into the perfect certainty that when she did so a man would be immediately on hand to take her arm. Sure enough, her uncle obliged.

"Thank you for minding our girl, Miz Bohannon. Albert and I will be by for a call when your husband returns, just to discuss the matter," he said.

"I'm sure he'll be glad of it," said Missus Mary sweetly. It was plain from the shift in her gaze that she knew, just as Bethel did, that Mister Cullen would not so much be glad as irritated that he had missed his own chance of some comeuppance. And just like Bethel, Missus Mary could not have been more relieved at that. She moved to the door and opened it so that the man could escort the girl over the threshold.

Through the open door, Bethel could see the young man holding the mare. The other two horses were tethered to the fence. She noticed at once that his clothes had the rumpled look of expensive garments that had been worn during some sort of physical exertion. Having raised Mister Cullen, Bethel was intimately familiar with such circumstances: a young man would go off on a wild ride, or hop down to wrestle with a friend, or yield to the urge to shinny up a tree without regard for his clothes. The boy's face was unblemished, but at this distance it was impossible to see the state of his hands. Bethel's curiosity burned, but there would be no satiating it today. Whatever had transpired, news of it would inevitably reach the Bohannon household, though it might take a day or two. With Nate's situation no doubt common knowledge by now, every slave in the county would be eager to bring word of the sheriff's punishment, whatever it had been.

"Thank you again, ma'am," said Mister Ives.

"There's no need to thank me. It was a pleasure," said Missus Mary; the perfect reply.

Just as they were about to step out onto the veranda, Bethel felt a small hand pushing back against her knee, launching a little body into a run. Gabe dashed to the door and – to Bethel's private consternation – tugged at the skirt of Miss Felicity's riding habit.

She turned, her arm stretching in her uncle's grasp but not leaving it, and smiled down at the little boy. "What is it, darling?" she asked.

"I gots to say g'bye," Mister Gabe declared. He held his hand out to her, palm upraised.

Grinning radiantly, she put her right palm upon his. Mister Gabe gave a little bow over it, kissing the air just above her daintily gloved knuckles. "You come back an' visit, now," he instructed. "Jus' ride on over on dat horse."

"Bless his li'l heart!" Miss Felicity exclaimed delightedly. Then she sobered a little and nodded to the child. "That's just what I'll do, Gabe honey. Thank you."

Then she and Mister Ives were over the threshold and down the steps, and Missus Mary gently closed the door. She stood with her hand upon the knob for a moment or two, gracefully erect as the sounds of mounting and gentle departing trots came from without. When the hoofbeats faded up the drive, her backbone suddenly slumped into as deep a curve as her corsets would allow, and she turned to Bethel with a look of abject relief upon her face.

"Oh, thank heavens!" she breathed softly. Bethel stepped swiftly forward so that Missus Mary could clutch her arm. "If Cullen had been here, he would have gone off with them: I know it."

"Pappy awready gone off," Mister Gabe said, marching over to the staircase and sitting stoutly down upon the third step. "Sellin' de tobacco."

"What do you suppose they did to him?" Missus Mary asked, anxious eyes on Bethel.

She shook her head. "No tellin'. Might be it jus' a stern talkin'-to, but then why bring all them boys? They's ap' to go off half-cocked an' miss their target altogether – or go too far with it if they gits him."

Missus Mary closed her eyes, and Bethel felt the shudder that ran through her body. When she looked up again, her face was very white. "Thank God, thank _God_ they didn't come yesterday," she whispered. She met Bethel's eyes, and Bethel could feel the depth of her dread and her relief in their near miss. Then her expression softened. "You carried it off beautifully!" she exclaimed softly. "Dinner, I mean. However did you do it? The eggs, especially: that takes hours!"

"On'y if you don' gots hard-boiled eggs sittin'," said Bethel modestly, trying not to beam with pride. "But I allus makes up a extra half-dozen of a mornin', on 'ccount it a quick thing to give to the fiel' hands when they comes over hungry."

Missus Mary glanced back in the direction of the kitchen. "Then perhaps we ought to boil up some more…"

"Awready done it," Bethel assured her, and enjoyed that moment when the initial surprised changed to an expression that said Missus Mary should have known that all along. "You carried it off good youself, Missus. Ain' ev'ry lady coulda tooked that chile int' the parlor like that, in the circumstances, like it jus' a ordinary day."

"She's very sweet," Missus Mary said. "It's hard to believe that her mother…" She shivered and shook her head, determined not to think on that. "I had no idea you were hoarding sugar!"

"Had to keep some back, Missus," Bethel explained, half apologetic. She did not like to deprive the family, but there were situations in which it was unavoidable. "A gent'man's house gots to have store sugar to give to guests."

"Well, I thank you!" Missus Mary said firmly. She took out her handkerchief and blotted at her throat, then smiled a small and unsteady smile. "What a domestic adventure."

Bethel only nodded, and for a moment there was quiet. Then from his perch on the stairs, Mister Gabe piped up.

"Dat lady gone now," he said. "Is we goin' go?"

"Go where, dearest?" Missus Mary said absently, in that tone of casual but unthinking interest that all mothers of small children employed when their minds were elsewhere.

"To see Charlie an' Leon!" Mister Gabe crowed, bouncing on the step. "You done changed your dress, an' you's all prettied up. Is we goin' go, now?"

It was plain that Missus Mary had forgotten the intention that had sent her upstairs that forenoon, and Bethel wished regretfully that the little boy might have proved as easily waylaid as his mama. She had not liked the suggestion: letting that child out in the cold with his chest still rattling seemed like a very bad idea to Bethel.

"It gittin' 'long to late aft'noon, honey," she said soothingly. "Them childern is likely takin' a nap."

"Charlie don' nap," Mister Gabe declared, evidently forgetting that he himself ordinarily did. "He growed up. He six. Mama?" He turned imploring eyes upon her. "Mama, ain't we goin' go? You said we was. An' me, too. I's all dressed: jus' needs me a coat."

In the face of this plea, Missus Mary was helpless. "I suppose we could go for a little visit, darling. Just a couple of hours," she added hastily. "I don't think we ought to stay for supper."

"Awright," Mister Gabe said, climbing to his feet. "Don' need no supper. But I's goin' play wid Charlie an' Leon, jus' like I allus wants to."

Bethel shook her head. "Missus, he don' gots no business goin' out in the cold," she said quietly. "That cough…"

Now it was Missus Mary who looked with pleading eyes. "But he's so much improved," she said; "and West Willows is only a mile up the road. We can bundle him warmly and tuck him under the laprobe in the buggy…"

"Who goin' drive it?" asked Bethel. "Meg an' 'Lijah be workin', an' Nate ain' in no fit state to totter to the privy on his own, let 'lone go visitin'."

"I can drive it," Missus Mary said firmly. "Pike and Bonnie will behave for me. We'll be back in time for supper, provided everything is all right with the children."

Bethel looked at her mistress, pale and still faded with the weariness of tending her child into this endless convalescence, but so very determined, and her heart melted. What harm would there be in letting the child go visiting? Mister Gabe _was_ much improved, and the day was not as cold as it had been that morning.

"Awright," she sighed. "Jus' let me go an' tell 'Lijah to hitch up them horses, an' you git that li'l rapscallion int' his good warm coat. Cap an' muffler an' mittens, too," she added with a stern look at Mister Gabe, who usually chafed against these garments. "If'n he don' git all dressed up like you tell 'im, he goin' stay home with me an' shell peas instead of goin' callin'."

"Yes, ma'am!" Mister Gabe chirped eagerly, anxious to please her. "I goin' put on dem mitts. I goin' mind my mama. I goin' visitin' wid Charlie!"

Missus Mary smiled, shooting a little thankful look at Bethel. Then she held out her hand to Mister Gabe. "Come, lovey: we'll put on your new blue coat!" she declared.

Bethel walked back into the kitchen, shaking her head ruefully. She was too soft, and she knew it. But what was an old woman to do when two of the three people she loved most in the world were united in desire and purpose – such a well-meaning purpose, at that? Visiting the sick was a blessed thing: it said so in the Bible. And Missus Mary was a blessed lady, taking her little boy off to teach him how to do it. It would do them both good to be out of the house for a while, anyway. The void left by Mister Cullen was dragging on all their spirits.


	95. Far Beyond Exhaustion

_Note: Well, we__'__re up for another long wait! The season finale promises interesting times ahead, and raises a very interesting question. Mostly I__'__m just SO relieved to know for certain there__'__ll be a fifth season. Also, apologies for any inconsistencies with regional spelling and/or compound words. The laptop fiasco has necessitated a change of word processors and the attendant growing pains of bending its spell-check to my will.__(This chapter was posted after 413.)_

**Chapter Ninety-Five: Far Beyond Exhaustion**

Bundled in his warm winter clothes, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, and tucked under two lap-robes, Gabe was hot even though the air nipped at the exposed tops of his cheeks. They peeped out over his muffler, and his hat was tugged down onto his eyebrows so that only a small strip of his face was open to the chill of the day. He didn't mind. He didn't even mind that he had to wear his scratchy mittens, or that Bethel had insisted upon swathing him in the blanket herself and carrying him out to the buggy like a baby. He was outside for the first time in ages, and he was going to visit Charlie and Leon!

He was all by himself on the padded leather seat, too, which was very exciting. Usually when he rode in the buggy, he sat on Mama's lap. The last time, way back before the tobacco had eaten up all of Pappy's liesure and most of his attention, he had been allowed to sit beside her instead. Even though Mama had kept her arm snugly about him all the while, Gabe had felt very grown up. This was even better! Now Mama was up on the driver's seat with her broad skirts carefully covered by the canvas lap-robe they used in summer. She was wearing her winter wrap and her riding gloves and a pretty checked scarf, but Bethel hadn't made _her_ put on a wool hat with ear flaps. She wore her best bonnet instead. She sat very straight, holding the reins with a meticulous care that was very different from the lazy ease with which Pappy drove. But the horses moved smoothly and the buggy bounced comfortably and the turn out of the drive was neat and steady. Gabe decided that Mama was a good driver.

It was thrilling to be out on the open road, all by himself in the middle of the broad seat. Gabe bounced a little – but only a little, because he did not want to be caught doing it. Bethel had told him to sit _very still_ and not to move until Mama came to help him down. He did not know whether his mother would be as strict about this as Bethel was – sometimes she wasn't – but he didn't want to take the chance of spoiling this wonderful outing. Still, he thought that he was probably allowed to move his head, so long as his bottom stayed put, and so he looked side to side as much as his cocoon allowed. He saw the trees and the low bushes and the ditches on either side of the lane that were full of wildflowers in summer. Gabe's heart beat strong and proud. He was a big, grown boy. He was a little man. And he was going to call on his friends today!

They reached the break in the woods and Gabe could see the fields that belonged to Charlie's pappy. The nearest field was empty, dark soil speckled with frost and strewn with the occasional broken branch. These were cotton stalks, but Gabe did not know it. He was more interested in the field beyond, anyhow. There were people working in it: pushing funny-looking things behind pairs of mules. Gabe counted six funny things, and twelve mules. That excited him, because he had only just learned to count that high and there were – there were! – _exactly _twelve mules.

But the funny things puzzled him. They had two wooden grips like a wheelbarrow, but no bowl. Instead there was a crossbar about knee-height, and a big fin of metal that went down into the earth. It didn't look like they had any wheels, either, unless maybe they were stuck in the mud and _that__'__s_ why the mules were pulling them.

"Mama?" Gabe said, unable to restrain his curiosity although he had determined to be good. "What dem folks doin'?"

Mama glanced swiftly left, then put her eyes back on the road. "They're plowing," she said pleasantly. "They're putting in the wheat."

Gabe considered this, watching the dark and distant figures as he remembered things he had heard and seen at home. "Dat what Pappy do!" he said eagerly, now looking with greater interest. "Plowin'. An' de mules, dey maked him a mud monster." He narrowed his eyes. "Whose mules is dem?"

"They're Mr. Ainsley's. His mules, and his field hands." Mama's voice changed as she said this, faltering. After a tiny pause, she said more cheerfully; "That's just how Pappy and Nate do it, only they don't have anyone sowing until the fields are all ready."

Gabe frowned. "Dey ain't sewin'," he told her. He knew what sewing looked like: he had seen Mama do it, both with her needle and with the sewing machine. Bethel did it, too, but just with a needle. "Dem ladies is t'rowin' t'ings in de dirt."

He couldn't see what they were throwing: it was too small. But they were using just the same sweeping arm motion that Lottie employed when she fed the chickens.

"Not sewing, lovey. _Sowing_, with a round 'O' sound. It means spreading the seed in the furrow," Mama explained. "They're sprinkling the seed wheat into the rows the plows have already turned, and then the ones with the hoes go after them to cover it with a little dusting of earth. When the rains come in February, the little seeds will sprout and grow into stalks of wheat."

Gabe squinted, but could not see the small seeds at such a distance. Wheat was smaller than corn, and the black women were very far away. "Mama, is Pappy goin' put in wheat, too?"

"As soon as he comes home," Mama breathed, the words coming out so swiftly that they sounded like a prayer. Then she said; "Are you sitting nicely, darling? Stay in the middle of the seat."

Before Gabe could answer, she looked back over her shoulder. She did indeed see him sitting nicely, right where Bethel had put him with the lap-robe over his chest and a fold of the blanket tenting on his head. Gabe grinned at her proudly, even though she could only see his eyes and the tops of his cheeks. He was doing just what he had been told.

Mama nodded. "Good boy," she praised, making his chest feel warm. Then she looked back at the road, laughing softly. "Bethel was a little overenthusiastic, wasn't she?" she asked.

Gabe wasn't sure what that word meant, and he was still contemplating the difference between _sewing _and _sowing. _He rode quietly for a while, and very soon Mama was leading Pike and Bonnie into the turn that led to Charlie's house. He bounced again, unable to help it. He thought he might just burst with excitement.

Charlie's house was big and white: much bigger than Gabe's. That made sense, because there were a lot more people living there. Charlie had a brother and sisters, while at home there was only Gabe. Bethel had said that Jesus decided when Gabe could have a brother, but He sure was taking His time doing it. Leon was almost as old as Gabe, and he had two littler sisters. Gabe wasn't sure if he wanted any sisters, though. Charity was bossy, and the baby didn't do much but scoot on her bottom and giggle, but Daisy wasn't so bad. She liked to run after the boys when they played, and she would pretend to be whatever Charlie told her to. She had been a horse, and a hound pup, a little soldier and a princess and even a parrot. Of course, she got bored easily because she was only little, but that was all right.

Mama called; "Woah!", and the Morgans drew up gracefully before the house. Almost at once, a tall and skinny black boy popped up beside her and reached automatically for the reins. Then he looked up at Mama on the driver's seat, and goggled in astonishment.

"Thank you, Pip," Mama said. "How do you do?"

"Miz Bohannon!" he said. "Jus' leave me go a minute, an' Matthew kin come an' fetch you down from there!"

"Oh, I can fetch myself down," said Mama. "If you'd just give me a hand with the rug."

Pip nodded hastily and put one foot up on the cast-iron step. Mama folded one edge of the lap-robe carefully over, mindful not to spill dust or flecks of mud onto her skirts. Pip took hold of it and rolled it off of her lap, then gathered it up and hefted it out of the way. He slung it over one shoulder, and then took the lines. Mama held the rail firmly with one gloved hand, using the other to manage her hoop and petticoats. Daintily she stepped down, showing only a little peek of her black buttoned shoes. Then she opened the door of the buggy as Pip set the lap-robe on the driver's seat and brought the reins to the front.

"I don't think you need the blanket, Gabe, do you?" Mama asked as she flipped back his lap-robes and started unwinding the sheath Bethel had wound around him. "It's just a few short steps into the house."

"Don' need it," he agreed, leaning forward eagerly as she freed his head and shoulders and looking up at the impressive edifice. Charlie's house had so many windows: more than Gabe could count. The front door was very big, too, and it had a half-circle of glass over top of it. "May we go now, Mama? May we? I wants to see Charlie an' Leon!"

"I know you do, and you've been such a good, patient boy," Mama said, uncovering his legs. "Hop down, now, and let's see if Matthew will answer the door."

Gabe slid off the seat and took Mama's hand, holding onto the handle at the side of the buggy with the other. It was one small step onto the little shelf bolted to the side of the carriage, and then a big long one down to the ground that made his legs stretch. Then he was walking with his mittened hand in Mama's gloved one, along the last few feet of the lane and up the stairs to the big front door.

"May I knock?" he asked, too excited to restrain himself while she did it.

"Of course!" said Mama sunnily. She bent and picked him up, boosting him with a little grunt of effort so that he could take the heavy brass knocker in both hands. He thumped it loudly, imagining how the sound would echo through the vaulted vestibule beyond. Mama set him down again, and he straightened his back and held up his head as Bethel had taught him.

The door opened, and there was Matthew! The corners of his eyes crinkled a little as he saw them, and even though he did not smile Gabe could see they were welcome. "Missus Mary!" he said. "An' the young massa. You comed out on a day like this? Step on in here an' git warm."

"We's warm," Gabe said, marching over the threshold while Mama murmured her thanks to Matthew and slipped delicately after him. "We dressed up good."

As he always did when he stepped into Charlie's house, he looked around at the room. The floor was slick and polished so it shimmered, and the ceiling was very, very far away. He took in the chairs in one corner, and the table to the other side of the door; the corridor that led to Mr. Ainsley's library, and the door to the big dining room. Then he let his gaze follow the huge, sweeping staircase that he and Charlie and Leon loved to charge up and down. He had to remind himself that he couldn't go running up it right now, even though he wanted to. He had to mind his mama and wait until she said that he may.

Mama had taken off her gloves, and was untying the ribbons of her bonnet as Matthew closed the door. He had a grave face, and his fine clothes made him look imposing, but Gabe knew he wasn't, really. When the grown folks weren't looking, Matthew always had a grin or a wink for a little boy, and he kept peppermints in his waistcoat pocket to slip into a small, eager hand if you happened to meet him while running up an empty corridor. Now he was wearing his business face as he took Mama's bonnet and helped her out of her wrap.

"Missus Verbena goin' be right glad to see you," he said. "She was askin' Mammy jus' this mornin' whether she thinked you might come back or not. Mist' Charlie, he jus' 'bout better 'part from th' occasional cough, but Miss Charity weak like a li'l kitten, an' Miss Daisy gettin' mighty sick. Baby ain' doin' so well herself."

"I was afraid that might be so," Mama said softly. She was no longer smiling, but she dipped down to Gabe's level and untied the chin-strings of his hat. He shook his head as she plucked it off, feeling his curls loosen gratefully. Then she started on his mittens. "Is she still having—" She stopped, pursed her lips, and gave a tiny shake of her head as though she had decided not to say whatever it was after all. "I hope it isn't a problem that I've brought Gabe to see the boys."

"Oh, no'm," Matthew assured her. "Mist' Leon, he still as healthy as a horse, an' Mist' Charlie doin' bravely, jus' like I say. They's goin' be powerful glad to see 'im: they's gittin' bored an' lonesome without no visitors."

"Me, too," Gabe said, using his lately-freed fingers to help Mama undo the buttons on his coat. "I's bored an' lonesome widout no Charlie to play wid me." He twirled, slipping his arms out of the heavy wool sleeves. "May I go now, Mama? May I? May I _please_?"

"Yes, darling: let's go," Mama said. She stood up and gave his outside clothes to Matthew. "You needn't show me the way; thank you."

"Yass'm, Missus Mary. You go right on up. They's all in the nus'ry. Goin' be glad to see you." Matthew offered a little bow.

Mama smiled at him, though her eyes were anxious, and started on quick feet for the stairs. Gabe trotted along beside, happy because Mama always hurried at just the right pace for him. He never had to struggle to keep up, as he sometimes did with Pappy and even with Bethel. It was as if Mama knew that she couldn't leave him behind. They climbed the carpeted stairs and turned down the hall that led to the nursery. Gabe was so excited that he could not even say anything more.

The door to the playroom was closed, and Mama tapped lightly on it. It opened just a crack, and a girl a little bigger than Lottie looked out. Her eyes widened, and then so did the gap in the door: she pulled it all the way open and stood to the side.

"Missus Bohannon!" she said. She was wearing a frilled cap over her headscarf, and a sensible brown dress with a white apron. Gabe didn't recognize her: she wasn't one of the nursemaids, and she wasn't one of the upstairs maids who did the cleaning and made the beds, either. He might have asked her name, but beyond her he saw something much more captivating.

"Charlie!" he cried eagerly, slipping out of Mama's grasp and running to the big Turkey rug in front of the fireplace. "Leon!"

The two boys were sitting on the rug, building a castle out of blocks. At Gabe's approach, Leon jumped to his feet and Charlie looked up, grinning. "Gabe!" he said. "You's come callin'!"

"Gabe come callin'!" Leon said happily. He was almost as old as Gabe was, but he didn't speak so well. Mama said some boys learned things at different times than others. Bethel firmly declared that "Mist' Leon" just wasn't as clever as _her_ boy. He held out his hand, and Gabe shook it. "Come play wid us!"

"We's building a fort," said Charlie, patting the rug at the prime place beside him. Gabe sat down.

"Thank you, Nell," Mama was saying as the girl closed the door. "May I go through?"

"Oh, yass'm," said the girl. "Ma goin' be glad to see you! Missus Verbena, she jus' 'bout comed to the en' of her rope, frettin' over them li'l ones. She…"

Gabe stopped listening to their talk. He picked up a block and looked at it. Then he looked at Charlie. "You been sick?" he asked. "I been sick. Awful sick wid dat bad ol' cough."

Charlie shrugged. "Maybe some," he said. "Ain't so bad."

"Me, too," Gabe amended hastily, not wanting Charlie to think he was scared of the horrible, wicked cough that still sometimes came in the night to squeeze him and hurt him. "Ain' so bad."

"I's well," said Leon. "Ev'buddy sick but me."

"Them girls is sick," said Charlie. "The doctor say Charity, she's goin' get better, but it might take a long time. Daisy and Baby…" He shrugged. Then he planted another block firmly. "The soljurs is goin' live in this fort, and they ain't lettin' no one into Miss'ippi."

Gabe nodded wisely. His pappy had told him about forts. "Dem Injuns ain' goin' git in," he said.

"We ain't fighting Injuns," said Charlie. "We's fighting Redcoats!" He pointed at a box of tin soldiers. They weren't as nice as Gabes: some of the paint was smudged so that their pants were smeared red where they should be white, or dark blue where they should be light. The horses weren't painted with real markings, either: one was black all over, and one was brown. "I's the 'Mericans, an' Leon's the Redcoats."

"What 'bout me?" asked Gabe, frowning. If there were only two sides, he might be left out.

"Oh, you can be 'Merican, too," said Charlie generously. Charlie and Gabe and Leon never quarrelled when they played, and they were always courteous. Their mamas had taught them to be so, and there was always Bethel and Charlie's mammy to enforce good behaviour as well. "On account of you's the visitor. I'll be the General, and you can be my Lieutenant."

That sounded good. Gabe reached into the box and picked up a soldier who had a musket slung over his shoulder the way Gabe liked to carry his popgun. "I want dis 'un," he said. "Dat awright wid you?"

Charlie shrugged as though to say he didn't much mind which soldier Gabe took. "You gots to build a tower," he said. "Over that side of the fort where it stands by the hill. That's where the Redcoats is goin' come fighting."

"I don' wants to be Redcoats," said Leon unexpectedly. Usually he did not argue with Charlie, but perhaps being the only one who was not ill had given him a greater sense of importance. Gabe certainly was a little bit jealous of him for that, and also impressed. "I wants to be 'Merican, too."

"We can't all be 'Merican," argued Charlie. "Then who we gonna fight with? 'Sides," he added practically; "if you's the Redcoats, you can have more soldiers 'cause you ain't sharin'."

Leon considered this, shrugged his shoulders, and said; "Sure, Charlie, I's the Redcoats."

With this dispute neatly settled, Gabe happily gathered a lapful of the smooth wooden blocks. He was blissfully glad to be with his friends again, as if the sickness and the worries had all been a bad dream. He did not listen to the anxious sounds and the thin, feeble wailing that came from the other side of the door separating the playroom from the nursery, nor to the low female voices conferring in ill-concealed fear.

_*discidium*_

Dusk was deep over the city when the train from Jackson pulled into New Orleans. After a certain point, the bumps and rattles had passed the point of active torments to a background rhythm that was almost soothing. Yet despite his best efforts and the mass of shear exhaustion that seemed to pin him in his narrow pine prison, Cullen had found himself incapable of sleep.

He was coiled into a knot of heavy limbs and aching ribs, his head tucked low and his hat tilted to shelter his face. One foot trailed off the edge of the tobacco box, the toe of his boot caught on the lip between tow floorboards, but otherwise he was elevated on his coarse perch, He was numb, he was chilled, and he kept wandering off into fevered imaginings that had nothing to do with his present predicament.

He thought of the day when his son, not quite ten months old, had taken his first independent steps. Gabe had been on his feet for a couple of weeks, pulling himself up to cling determinedly to the seat cushions of the parlor couch or the legs of the dining room table and its handily positioned chairs. A favorite trick had been to grip Mary's third hoop right through her skirt and petticoats and totter along with her as she walked. Mary had exhibited boundless patience with these assaults, and had taken the utmost care to take slow, mincing steps to allow her child's unsteady feet to keep pace. She and Gabe had been engaged in this ungainly but beautiful dance in the dining room one day when Cullen had come in. He had been in town to fetch the mail, and had come in brandishing a precious letter from Mary's sister. As he had entered, calling cheerfully for his wife, Gabe had turned immediately to look at him. He had made the happy, popping "pah!" sound that had been his first overture to "Pappy", and he had come running.

That was how Cullen remembered it: running. Really it had been more of an unsteady scurry, with Gabe's feet in their soft baby moccasins trying to move swiftly enough to keep up with his round, bobbing head and outstretched arms. The ankle-length hem of his gown had bounced, and his hands had flexed, reaching greedily for the man in the doorway. Cullen had tossed the letter onto the table and knelt to catch him under the arms before he could spend the last of this precarious equilibrium and fall. Gabe had laughed, a full round baby laugh of purest delight, hurtling against Cullen's thumbs and grabbing at once for his beard as he was swung up against the strong shoulder. The triumphant pride in the tiny boy's eyes had only been equalled by the swell of that same fierce joy in Cullen's heart.

Now, struggling to gain his feet as the train lurched to a halt and the noise of the bustling city depot exploded around him, he thought he realized just how daunting his son's first steps must have seemed. He could not quite fix his resolve upon the massive effort required to get up and be about the business of disembarking. His arms were wrapped so snugly about his chest that he was no longer certain of their capacity for independent movement, and his right cheek seemed glued to the coarse slat it was pressed against. But he could hear the bang and rattle of boxcar doors and the call and response of Negro porters shouting to one another. He had to move.

When he rolled his hips to the left, Cullen intended merely to get his foot flat and his backside firmly on the crate. He had evidently lost his sense of orientation, however, for when he turned he found that too little of his lower body was actually on the box. He overbalanced and fell, landing hard on the floor of the car with his right heel still on the crate and his knee in the air. The shock of this ungainly descent sent his eyes flying wide, and every muscle in his body tensed. Strangely, although he might have expected such a blow to be the last needed to nudge him over the edge into happy oblivion, it had just the opposite effect. Suddenly aware and filled with frantic energy, he got his feet under him and stood.

He swayed perilously, but the dimensions of the space were narrow enough that there was no real chance of falling. He braced his right shoulder on one stack of boxes and slapped his left palm against another, leaning into its locked elbow while he hung his head and breathed through the crashing wave of dizziness. Two shallow coughs followed, making his sides sear with weary anguish. He had had more fits today, so it seemed, than in the entire preceding fortnight. But he straightened his back, let go of the pillar of tobacco, and dared to swing low enough to snag his hat by the seam at the crown. With it planted at its proper angle on his head, he felt more like himself again. He turned a hundred and forty degrees to the left, and opened the broad sliding door with vigor.

Cullen squinted in the glow of the lamps hung at frequent intervals along the platform, making the station almost as light as day. The New Orleans depot was far larger than those at Jackson and Meridian: six lines ran parallel between two long platforms, with a narrow wooden island separating the third track from the forth. The Jackson train was on the first track, right up along the larger platform and the enormous station-house. It had a ticket office and a telegraph, but also housed the business offices of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railway, several shipping firms, and at least two cotton brokers. In place of the simple benches in Jackson's ticket office, this sprawling structure held three dedicated waiting rooms. There was a salon for the first class passengers, lavishly furnished and hung with heavy portieres to muffle the din without, a simpler but still comfortable room for second and third class, and one for slaves and free blacks. There was an eating-house on one corner, and around the other side there was even a small barroom.

Cullen had no interest in any of these things as he picked up his valise and dinner basket. He was on the lookout for a familiar face amid the throng of passengers, both waiting and disembarking, porters and conductors and station agents, haulage laborers and rail-yard slaves, overseers and lollygaggers and the droves of eager friends and family waiting to greet long-awaited arrivals. He stepped out onto the platform, eyes questing with a sharpness and determination that should have been impossible in his present condition.

The person he was looking for spotted him first, which was not surprising. Cullen was looking for someone who could be anywhere on the wooden thoroughfare, while his contact only had to keep watch on the sleek length of the train.

"Monsieur Bohannon! Over here! You ain't forgot what Pepé look like, 'as you?"

Following the voice, Cullen at last set eyes upon a small, wiry man in an overlarge coat, weaving through the crowds towards him. He narrowly dodged a Negro with a handcart, and sidled up with a toothy grin on his face. He was about forty, with skin just half a shade darker than what might be considered pure-bred white. He might have passed for it anyway, if not for his jet-black, finely kinked, undeniably African-blooded hair. It appeared as he whisked off his broad-brimmed Panama hat and swept an extravagant bow at Cullen.

"Course I haven't," Cullen said, handing over his valise without hesitation despite the presence of Mary's jewel-box within. Pepé Dautreuil was a mixed Creole, a member of a class and culture unique to this corner of Louisiana. He was also the proprietor of one of the most reliable — if not most reputable — haulage firms in the city, and Cullen had been doing business with him for ten years. He offered his hand, and the smaller man shook it. "Just trying to pick you out of the throng. What's all this crowd?"

"Train comin' in on the line from Baton Rouge," said Pepé. "Word has it there be dispatches aboard, straight from Gov'nor Moore hisself."

Cullen grimaced. "Secession," he muttered flatly.

"Yassir, so folks is sayin'. Leastways the gov'nor made a statement, and so…" He gestured expansively and shrugged. "Who can say what the morning brings? Me, I got one of my bes' customers a-waitin', and twelve tons of tobacco to move b'fore I can get home to _ma belle femme._"

Despite the occasional French phrase sprinkled in his speech for flavor, Pepé's Creole accent was slight. He spent most of his days doing business with plantation owners far removed from the immediate vicinity of New Orleans, or the wealthy merchants of the city who were invariably far removed from the patois of those they called the "free people of color". Pepé's studied Louisiana drawl was, despite the occasional dropped fricative, an undeniable asset to his business.

Cullen shook his head. "Ain't twelve tons this year," he said, not without a bite of bitter regret. Memories of the hailstorm flashed briefly and all too vividly though his mind, and he flexed the fingers of his right hand as though he could feel them stiffening with cold, dampness and despair. "Eighteen thousand six hundred pounds."

Pepé grimaced manfully. "When you wired 'bout the four wagons, I thought maybe you 'ad you a bumper crop."

"Didn't want to overload you. They carry three tons apiece, don't they?" said Cullen. "Got to figure on an extra ten or twelve pounds a box on top of the sale weight."

"Sure, sure," said Pepé dismissively. He bent at the waist, leaning almost comically sideways to peer around Cullen. "That it? One car?" he asked.

"There's more in general freight," Cullen said, a little testily. His nervous energy was waning, and the desire to get this business over with growing strong again. Pepé might be anxious to get home to his pretty wife (or woman: French was a language uniquely vague in that distinction), but even though all that was waiting for Cullen was an empty bed at the St. Charles Hotel, he was no less eager for the prospect. "Conductor ought to know which car."

"You ride all the way here in that thing?" asked Pepé. "Why try somethin' crazy as that?"

Cullen frowned at him. He liked the casual familiarity between them: a sense of man-to-man ease that would have been impossible anywhere in the South — perhaps the world — but New Orleans. Yet it undeniably had its downside. He could have done without good-natured ribbing about the miserable ride he had just taken, particularly as his back was beginning to stiffen up from the torment.

"How quick can your boys load her up?" he asked. "I want to ride out to the warehouse with you, but if you leave it too long you might be putting me up in your yard for the night."

Pepé nodded knowingly. He was at least intimately familiar with the train schedule, and so well aware that Cullen had been on the road for fully half a day. "Get you a bite to eat: time you's finished, so'll we be."

Cullen had no intention of wasting money at the station's eating-house, especially not when he still had three or four pounds of Bethel's good home cooking dangling from the crook of his arm, but he did not volunteer this information. Pepé might be a friendly acquaintance, but he was also fond of indiscriminate talk and very well connected. From now until the moment the last tobacco sale was closed, it was absolutely imperative that Cullen exude a flawless impression of easy prosperity.

"Guess I heard one too many stories about trains getting jumped," he said thoughtfully, looking back over his shoulder at the gaping door of the boxcar. "Doesn't do to take chances when you're shipping a small fortune in top-quality leaf."

Pepé chuckled. "For a man who live 'is life with gusto, Monsieur Bohannon, you surely does spend a lot of it worryin' over things ain't likely to happen."

Cullen grinned, though there was nothing in the world he felt less like doing at that moment. He knew his eyes were still deadened with fatigue and the oppressive sense that his entire mission was as cursed as the crop he was carrying, but he could not help that. "You know me, Pepé," he said. "Cautious when I'm sober, mad foolish when I'm riled. Got to have the one to balance out t'other."

Then he clapped the small man on the shoulder, and strode off towards the double glass doors that opened on the second class waiting room. He could wash his face and hands, at least, and maybe try to tame his hair a little. Pepé might not bat an eye at the sight of a disheveled rail traveler smeared with soot and perspiration, but after the warehouse Cullen's next stop was the St. Charles Hotel. When he arrived there, he had to do so looking like a man who had endured a perhaps uncomfortable but hardly grueling journey in a first-class carriage. Hotels were hotbeds of gossip, and the buyers he dealt with undoubtedly had their own ears or those of trusted employees to that invaluable underground telegraph. If word got around that Cullen Bohannon had turned up at the St. Charles looking like a drowned rat, it would seriously undermine his bargaining position and almost certainly hurt the price offered for his tobacco.

The ugly reality was that this year Cullen was absolutely at the mercy of the buyers. Though he might go through the sacred ritual of haggling, in the end he could not refuse a sale simply because the final price was less than he had hoped. He did not have the advantage that wealthy men had: the option of simply holding onto his product until prices went up or the buyers grew desperate enough for supplies to pay what he demanded. He had to sell his crop this week, even if it meant taking less than he deserved or even, God forbid, less than he needed to meet his barest obligations. The security of the plantation, of his people and his wife and the trusting little boy who was waiting for his return with the same eagerness he had shown on that long-ago day he had taken his first steps, relied upon it.

Cullen leaned into the door, pushing with his shoulder. The effort should have been slight for muscles hardened by months of heavy manual labor, but it felt enormous. He dragged himself over the threshold and let the basket slip down his arm to sit on the seat of one of the bare wooden armchairs. It could sit there while he tried to make the best of his appearance. He didn't think he'd be able to stomach even Bethel's food right now. He felt he had never been so tired in his life.

_*discidium*_

Mary lifted the limp little legs, no longer plump but wasting with illness, and guided them over the rim of the tin tub into Ester's lap. Daisy whimpered piteously and curled in towards the warmth of the nursemaid's body and the fluffy nap of the towel spread over her breast and lap. The little girl's cheeks were flushed scarlet with fever, and there were blotches of red heat rash all over her poor body. Her eyelids fluttered low, flirting with unconsciousness but unable to rest in restorative sleep.

The call that Mary had nearly delayed after the unexpected arrival of the Ives men and Felicity's subsequent visit could not have been more timely. Once more the Ainsley nursery was a clutter of chaos and anxiety: Daisy had unmistakably come to her crisis, and little Lucy was desperately ill. These changes, Mammy had explained as she gave fragile-looking Charity a bed-bath with a large new sponge, had come about over the last few hours. The doctor had been sent for, but there was no telling how long it would take to track him down or how quickly he might be able to leave his other patients. The whooping cough was all around the county now, and Doctor Whitehead was fairly run off his feet trying to keep up with it.

Having come through Gabe's crisis only a couple of weeks before, Mary knew what to expect and she was afraid for Verbena. Even now she was pacing the length of the nursery with Lucy up on her shoulder, patting the baby's back with a frenetic tempo. Her hair was coming loose of coils usually smoothed with blown-glass perfection. Her frock was rumpled, and stains of perspiration were showing under her arms. Once again she had the desperate, wild-eyed look of a woman who had not slept in far too long, and during those brief periods when her arms were not filled with one or the other of her younger daughters, her hands seemed to gesticulate with an untamed will of their own. She was beginning to show signs uncannily like those of madness, and the worst was not upon her yet.

At least the boys were well, Mary thought as she sat back on her heels and wiped her wet hands with a cloth. Ester was blotting Daisy dry, mindful not to rub her already sore skin, and murmuring soft, soothing words to her. Daisy seemed comforted by the gentle touch of her dearest caregiver, and Mary felt able to get to her feet and leave her for a minute or two. She moved down to the far end of the nursery, away from the scattered disarray of soiled linens, empty medicine bottles and scarcely-touched supper trays. She passed the empty beds (Daisy's and Charlie's) and flitted swiftly out of Verbena's path. In the last bed, distant enough from the fire and the one burning lamp to be cast in twilight shadows, all three boys were sleeping. Charlie was in the middle, lying on his side with Leon spooned behind him and Gabe lying at a peculiar angle with his head tucked into the angle between Charlie's arm and side.

How they had all contrived to crowd onto the narrow tick Mary did not know, and she could not remember just how it had come to pass. With the hour growing late, she had overseen their bedtime, helping Leon into his nightshirt and dressing Gabe in one that was waiting to be handed down from Charlie to his brother. It was a little too large, the cuffs flopping down over Gabe's hands, but it was serviceable. There had been no question of Mary leaving West Willows once she had seen the situation, and though she might have considered sending Gabe home in Matthew's charge it had then been drawing on to dusk. She had not wanted to risk exposing her own little convalescent to the night air, and though she knew it would worry Bethel to have him away from home all night she also knew that the wise old lady would not want him out in the frosty damp of twilight. She had asked instead if someone might be sent over to the Bohannon house to explain, and Matthew had promised to send the chief groom.

So there they were: three young boys bundled into a nursery bed meant for one, cuddled together like puppies in a basket and sleeping serenely despite the anxiety that hung heavy in the hot, motionless sickroom air. Mary bent to draw the bedclothes higher, covering the younger boys' small round shoulders and most of Charlie's chest. So very gently she tucked the corners more snugly, hoping that neither Gabe nor Leon would turn in the night and tumble onto the floor. She had put those two into this bed, with Charlie climbing into his own. At some point he must have decided that it was too lonesome over there, two and a half feet away from his brother and his friend, and had crossed the divide to join them. It was perfectly adorable, and Mary absolutely did not have the heart to transfer one of the small bodies to the other bed.

"Are they sleeping?" Verbena hissed, fear giving her voice an edge that it would have mortified her to hear. She was coming to the end of her track, and Mary nodded as she stepped away from the bed, not wanting to draw the fluttering moth of worry too near the peaceful sleepers.

"Like cherubs," she promised. "It's such a wonderful thing that our boys get on so well, isn't it? With Cullen and Boyd so close, nothing could be more natural."

"Yes," breathed Verbena, eyes flitting over the crowded bed before darting back to the downy head lying against her collarbone. "Is _she_ asleep? I wish she could face this way, but every time I try to turn her it only gets worse!"

_It_ was a laborious rattle that sounded on the inhale. When Mary had come in to find Daisy fretful and burning with fever despite the careful ministrations of Mammy and the other women, Lucy had been breathing normally enough. At about the time the boys were eating supper at the low table in the playroom, she had been seized by a fierce coughing fit that had lasted nearly five minutes with no interruption but the terrible whoops. When it had past, it had left that ghastly sound. Sometimes it was scarcely audible and sometimes it was loud and unmistakable, but at all times it was almost unbearable to listen to. That tiny body, fighting for every breath and subsisting so miserably between coughing jags, was a portrait of Nature's cruelty that Mary could scarcely bear to look upon.

Yet she could not help but look, and nurse as best she could, and try to ease Lucy's suffering as much as possible. Flushed scarlet with shame at such frank and indecent admissions, Verbena had confessed that Lucy had been struggling to feed for days. She was as likely to start coughing when she lay back to be cradled in her mother's arms as she was to lie peacefully and suckle. Last night they had given up trying altogether, and were feeding the baby on the same gruel made with hominy and cream that they were giving to Daisy and Charity. Mammy had repeated several times, mournfully, that Lucy had doted on the porridge, lately introduced into her diet as she reached the appropriate age for solid foods. "Use' to et up all we could give 'er," the plump old lady had said, shaking her head. "Now she don' hardly taste it."

But that, too, was a sign of the crisis. Gabe had eaten almost nothing on that terrible Sunday, or indeed for a day or two afterwards. It was as if the fever that flared to burn off the sickness also scorched the appetite, leaving it shriveled and slow to heal. It was a terrible affront to that first instinct of motherhood: the instinct to nourish. It was a torment to watch. When Gabe had devoured his potato bowl yesterday night, Mary had felt a burden of worry fall from her shoulders. Now it was back again, but directed instead at these two little girls with whom she had only had a passing acquaintance before their illness. Now, they felt as dear to her as her own nieces far away in the North.

She looked obligingly at Lucy's face, turned outward from Verbena's neck. Her tiny lips were parted, cracked and sore from the dryness the women could combat but never overcome. Her skin looked thin as parchment and almost as pale, fine blue veins showing even in the dim light at this end of the room, but her cheeks had the same high petals of livid color that Daisy's wore. Mary reached to touch the baby's forehead with the backs of her first two fingers, feeling the heat of the fever and noting with a plaintive wish for relief that she was not _quite_ as warm as Daisy. The eyes beneath the closed lids twitched, and then were still again.

"She's sleeping," Mary murmured, her heart squeezing painfully as Verbena's empty shoulder slumped in thanks for this small blessing. "Why don't you let me take her awhile, and rest? You'll wear yourself ragged."

Verbena looked at her with such desperate terror that Mary felt the urge to shrink away. She did not, and instead put a comforting hand in the small of the other woman's back. Through the glossy poplin she could feel the crisscrossed corset laces and the shallow patter of Verbena's heart.

"I don't mean go to your bed," Mary soothed, understanding perfectly. "I wouldn't ask that of any mother on a night like this. But Charlie's bed is right there, vacant and unneeded. Why don't you lie down for a few minutes? If you sleep, I promise to wake you the moment there's any change."

"Do you?" Verbena asked, almost sharply. "Do you promise? Because Mammy and the girls wouldn't wake me: I know they wouldn't. They'd mean well; they'd do it for my own good, my own health, but…"

At the far side of the room, where she and Hettie were gathering up the detritus of changing Charity's bedding, Mammy stiffened and shot a glowering look at the back of Verbena's head. Mary's stomach lurched as she read the expression. Mammy and the girls did not dare to wake their mistress because they knew they would be upbraided if they tried, and the issue had obviously arisen already. Mary could certainly understand that Verbena was not at her best in these circumstances, fraught with worry and weariness and strain she was obviously not equipped to bear with grace. Any mother might be forgiven for being brusque with sisters or friends or servants at a time like this, but the implications of such impulsive displeasure ran deeper in the context of slavery – as did the resentment of a slave chastised for carrying out her instructions to the letter.

"It isn't Mammy's place to wake you, and it isn't fair to ask her, " Mary said softly, trying to keep her voice gentle and to remind herself that Verbena was suffering, and was not responsible for the tainted culture into which she had been born. "But you can ask me, and I will wake you. I understand."

She picked up one of the soft muslin swaddling blankets from the changing cupboard and spread it deftly over her own right shoulder. Then she held out her hands for the baby.

"Here, Lucy darling, come to Auntie Mary," she said, just as if the baby were awake to hear her. Only belatedly did she realize the intimacy she had presumed by her words.

If Verbena noticed it, she was too far gone to care. She shifted her hold on her daughter, and Mary drew close enough that the two narrow hoopskirts collided and collapsed against one another, steels billowing out in the opposite direction from the point of contact. Mary's breastbone and the busk laid over it pressed to the side back seam of Verbena's bodice. The transfer was seamless: two experienced mothers passing a sleeping babe with hardly a ripple. Then Lucy, feather-light and hot as a pillowslip full of live coals, was resting her harried little head on Mary's shoulder instead. Only then did she stir, mewing faintly as if she knew, even in her febrile slumber, that the arms that held her now were not her mother.

"Tsh-tsh," Mary clucked, first patting the baby's back and then cupping her head in its lavishly frilled cradle bonnet. "That's my pretty girl. Sleep, sleep. It's all right." She felt the small body relax again, and let her hand slip down again. She could feel the dainty knobs of Lucy's backbone even through the gown and petticoats.

Verbena watched this exchange with the dazed look of one who had just witnessed a near miss between two carriages in the street. Then she crumpled. There was really no other word for it. Her shoulders caved down and inward, the strength went out of the sinews of her neck, and her brows, eyelids and lips drooped. She swayed, too, as her knees lost their resolve to hold her, and scrabbled hastily for the nearest bedstead – thankfully that of Charlie's empty bed instead of the one with the three serene little boys. Mary had to fight the urge to startle beneath Lucy's sleeping weight, and reached helplessly with the hand that had been resting on the baby's back. She could not support Verbena one-handed, nor could she even try without jostling the infant.

But out of nowhere came Meelia, slipping her arm around Verbena's waist and taking her fluttering hand. "Here, Missus, jus' you come an' lie down a spell," she said, guiding her the two steps up the side of the bed and easing her down to sit upon it. "You want I should call fo' Clara to he'p you git comf'table?"

She was asking whether Verbena wanted help undressing, reluctant to assume too much of the lady's maid's duties herself. Mary wondered whether she ought to speak, but Verbena shook her head. "No," she said. "No, the doctor will come. He _will_ come, and when he does…" She looked down her front, at the pretty basque spotted here and there with the little ones' tears, perspiration and phlegm, and she sighed. "I'm in no state to receive the doctor."

"Doctor Whitehead won't mind," Mary told her. "He won't even see how you're dressed, much less care about it. All he'll be watching for is how the girls are faring. He's a very dear man, and his heart and his head are in the right place."

Verbena looked at her uncertainly, but the firm faith in Mary's voice and the murmurings of her own exhausted body won out. She nodded hypnotically. "Just the hoop," she decided. "If you could help me out of the hoop, Meelia, that would be much more comfortable."

This meant that she had to get back onto her feet, which she did so unsteadily, as if she felt faint. Meelia helped her lift the layers of flounced and frilled petticoats and then, while Verbena held the ungainly bundle up around her torso, unbuckled the waist of the crinoline and let it collapse into concentric rings of springsteel around her feet. Then the nursemaid dropped to her knees.

"Bes' take off your shoes, too, Missus," she said. "Don' want to tear through the sheet."

Verbena hummed vague assent, but Mary could see she was not really listening. Her eyes were cloudy and vacant, and she looked already half asleep. She was stretched far beyond her endurance, and Mary remembered all too well the almost panicked exhaustion she herself had felt during Gabe's crisis, when the frantic need for sleep had been a terror all its own, besides the fear she felt for her child. Gently, almost tenderly, Meelia lifted one slender foot into her lap and undid the jet buttons before rocking off the shoe. She set the stocking-clad appendage down on the floor again, and took the other. When the task was done and the shoes tucked under the bed, Meelia stood and held Verbena's upper arms, easing her down and coaxing her to lie back. She tucked the lady's now-deflated skirts about her knees and ankles, and then drew up the covers cast over the footboard when Charlie had made his clandestine transfer to the other bed. Verbena sighed and turned her head, rubbing her cheek against her eldest son's pillow. She was asleep even before Meelia finished arranging the counterpane.

Mary was swaying from side to side, gently rocking Lucy. On the floor by the hearth and the tub of cold water, Ester had finished dressing Daisy in a clean nightgown and cap. She was now sitting cross-legged with the little girl sitting up in her lap at an angle to keep the cough at bay. Mammy was in the rocking chair by the fire – not the velvet-upholstered one where Verbena set to nurse, but a plain willow rocker with a gingham cushion tied to the seat. Hettie was sitting next to the blanket chest at the foot of Charity's bed, her arms crossed upon it so her head could rest on them. Every one of them looked driven to utter enervation. Mary's own weariness, compounded over endless busy days and interrupted nights, was a burden across her shoulder blades, but she made up her mind to ignore it. She had slept well enough last night: she could sit this vigil.

She strolled smoothly back towards the fire, careful to keep a steady, comforting rhythm to her movements. It could not be long before Lucy awoke again, coughing horrendously and fighting for every little gasp of life, but in the meantime Mary had no intention of rousing her. She approached Mammy, holding out her hand in a staying gesture when the aging woman tried to shift her weight to stand respectfully.

"Please don't," she whispered. "Surely we don't need everyone in attendance. Whose turn is it to sleep?"

"Hettie's," Mammy said flatly, and the girl raised her head with a start, ready for orders. "An' mine. But I ain' budgin' my bones out this room 'til that doctor come here an' have his say. Meelia, she kin go an' git her some sleep. Mebbe tuck in her own li'l boys."

"I sent 'em down to stay with Uncle Alf," said Meelia. "All 'cept Zeke, an' he sleepin' in ol' Massa Ainsley's room in case he needs him some help in the night. Don' want Tommy an' li'l Jim up at the house while there sickness."

"There sickness in the cabins, too," Mammy pointed out. "They's been dosin' 'em out the kitchen door all week."

"I knows it," Meelia said with a haunted look in her eyes. Her daughter Nell, who had watched over the boys so nicely this afternoon, spent most of her days down in the kitchen. No doubt Meelia feared for her as much as for the little ones. "But Alf, he out by the cowshed. Not too close to th'other cabins."

"You should go and get some sleep anyhow," Mary suggested. Both women looked swiftly towards her as if they had forgotten her presence. "Everyone has been working so hard and so long to help the children. Please go, Meelia. Someone can fetch you if you're needed."

Meelia looked uncertain, but Mammy was not. "Git on, girl," she said. "Do as Missus Bohannon say. She gots a strong hand on the wheel, an' Ester an' me kin manage."

Respectfully, Meelia nodded. There was no higher authority in the house than Mammy, except the head woman and Verbena herself. In nursery matters, she reigned supreme. Meelia beckoned to Hettie and shepherded her quickly from the room. Daisy murmured something unintelligible, and Esther stroked her cheek and hushed her gently. And the long night watch began.


	96. There on the Avenue

_Note: Chapter title from Episode 304: "The Game"._

**Chapter Ninety-Six: There on the Avenue**

The St. Charles Hotel was a majestic five-story marvel built in the high Grecian Revival style. Above the foundation floor with its tall windows set in deep niches, pillars fully four stories high flew up to support the level roof with its rounded cornices and its one front-facing peak. Once, while discussing the new building with its lack of the splendid cupola sported by its incinerated predecessor, Boyd Ainsley had taken down one of his books on ancient civilizations and pointed out a picture of the Acropolis in Athens. Cullen had been forced to admit that the resemblance to the new St. Charles Hotel was unmistakable, if considerably overstated. There was something unsettling about the idea that the building meant to house the twin cogs of business and society might have been deliberately modeled upon an ancient temple: a place of worship.

Cullen had no such thoughts today. He was in no frame of mind for questions of philosophy, and in fact did not even raise his smarting eyes to the graceful façade before him when the hired hack he had hailed in the warehouse district drew up in front of one of the two stone staircases that traced an elaborate path up to the hotel's vestibule and office. He had overseen the unloading and sorting of his tobacco in the warehouse he had leased for the week at the unseasonably high rate of five dollars, muttering instructions for Pepé Dautreuil to relay to his men. Pepé's sons, his daughter's young husband, and a nephew were employed by the firm for wages, and Pepé also owned three strong slaves who made it possible for him to sit back and oversee the work rather than straining his own narrow back. Cullen, as the client, had not had to do anything but make his wishes known. Even this might have proved beyond his present capacity if not for the clear markings he had made on the crates as each had been packed on the flat ground outside the tobacco barn. He was grateful of the foresight his far more lucid past self had shown.

With the tobacco now on site, less than half a block from the market where the buyers were accustomed to meet, Cullen's worries for the day were almost at an end. All he had to do was deport himself like a prosperous gentleman long enough to get up to a private room and safely behind its door. Then he could let his guard down and give in to his whooping cough riddled body.

He took out a quarter from the scant supply of small change in his vest pocket, and gave it to the driver as the man opened the low door of the carriage. His valise was beside him on the seat, along with Bethel's basket. He had left the earthenware jug in the warehouse, conscious of how such a vessel disrupted the clean lines of his disguise. The basket did too, at least to an extent, but refusing to eat railroad food was hardly a foible unique to those trying to pinch their pennies: anyone with a discriminating palate might carry the work of his own cook. Besides, if he ever came out of this feverish stupor he was going to be glad of something to eat.

Cullen muttered vague thanks to the driver, who tipped his hat and then hurried to solicit his next patrons: a gentleman and a lady in elaborate evening wear, just coming down from the hotel. No doubt they were bound for the French Opera or some equally genteel amusement: the cultured night delights of New Orleans were just beginning. Cullen took off his own hat as the lady passed, offering a small, polite bow that was reciprocated by an equally formal smile and gentle nod. Then he took a deep breath and turned to tackle the stairs.

It was a long climb for a body worn down by sickness and stiffened after a dreary, rattling ride in cold and cramped conditions. Cullen took it slowly, declining the offer of a young black bellhop in showy livery who was waiting on the first landing for patrons who had overestimated their willingness to carry their own bags while down at street level. He was not interested in letting the valise out of his hands here. Pepé he might trust with Mary's jewel-box, at least while he did not know it was in there, but the staff of a hotel was another matter entirely. The stone steps were crisp and smooth beneath his boots, and he passed a few descending guests as he drew nearer to his goal. He was careful to keep his breath coming levelly, though his strained and inflamed lungs wanted to start heaving. He had no intention whatsoever of having a coughing fit in the foyer of the St. Charles Hotel.

They called it a "foyer" in the French style: like so much of New Orleans, the St. Charles was colored by the city's unique history and heritage. And indeed, in esthetic and in the extravagance of the service the hotel had what was described as a European flavor. Cullen had never been to Europe himself, though many of his school friends (and of course Boyd) had taken their Grand Tours as was customary for gentlemen's sons. In Cullen's case, it had at first been a matter of indifference and then of fiscal impossibility. He didn't much mind now. Such travels were for young men, and he had never been one for museums and ancient ruins anyhow. He had gone to New York instead, and had brought back something much more beautiful, practical and precious than an Etruscan paperweight.

When he reached the top of the stairs, where a stately Negro doorman was waiting to open the ornate portal for him, Cullen thought of Mary and was taken by a sudden wave of regret. She would have delighted at the spectacle of the elegant entryway, the columns within echoing those without and reaching up towards the high ceiling with its chandeliers. Scores of candles reflected off of the crystal ornaments, filling the space with a flawlessly diffuse glow only broken here and there where the light struck at just the right angle to turn one of the drops into a prism that cast a flitting rainbow on a pillar or corbel or the ornate white railings where the floor above opened up on the open space overlooking the entrance. Cullen had always wanted to bring her to New Orleans with him, to enjoy such sights and the unique flavor of this remarkable city, to shop and to dine with him at the fine restaurants he had only ever visited for the requisite business dinners that were part of opening negotiations, to hear the music of the French Quarter and to stroll down the handsome streets – and, yes, even to sit with him in a box at the opera.

He had to close his eyes for a moment as he whisked off his hat, shutting his mind to the litany of _if only_. Next year, he promised himself. Next year, when everything was a little more certain in their small world; then he could bring her with him. Always provided, of course, that he succeeded in his mission during _this_ trip.

He approached the semicircular oak desk that housed the concierge. Just off to the side of it, in an alcove that housed a velvet-upholstered récamier that bore a remarkable similarity in everything but age to the one that was presently occupying a large piece of Bethel's kitchen, was a large gilt looking-glass. Cullen stopped, unable to quite keep from looking at his own reflection. He had done a decent job of cleaning his face and brushing the worst of the soot from his whiskers. He had even given the shoulders and demi-capes of his greatcoat a cursory brushing. But of course the grit of rail travel was not his real problem.

His face was wan and gray-hued, so that even the hectic flush of the fever was muted to a sickly smear across each cheekbone. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, rising like staring islands from the puddles of shadow sunken deeply in his sockets. His lips were coarse and cracked: chapped with the damp cold and parched with fever. He looked like a man in need of a hospital, not a hotel.

Cullen smoothed his hair, which had suffered a clumsy finger-combing at the depot. It was still bushy from its Sunday night washing with Bethel's homemade soap, but Mary had trimmed it skillfully and on the whole it did not look too wild. Cullen tugged at his stock to straighten it, smoothed the lines of the muffler now draped around the back of his neck instead of bundled to his ears, and strolled as affably as possible to the desk.

"I'd like a private room," he said, setting his hat on the countertop as the man behind it turned. He was dressed in a costly and well-tailored suit, and his hair was oiled smooth. Behind him stood a wall of brass hooks, about a quarter of which held keys with numbered fobs attached. "Up above the street noise if you have it. No sitting room."

"Are you sure, sir?" the man asked. He had a thin, refined voice that he had obviously taken a lot of trouble in cultivating. Cullen disliked the pretention, but could see its value in this line of work. "We have some very nice suites available at the moment. Parlor, drawing room, dressing room for the lady wife…"

"I'd prefer a bedroom on its own," said Cullen. "If I'm entertaining in the hotel, it's likely to be in the smoking room or at supper. I like my privacy."

"Very well." The concierge consulted his manifest of rooms, which was contained in a costly leather folio, and then glanced over his shoulder at the wall of keys. "Number 17 on the fifth floor is vacant, if it suits you. Looks out over the Avenue, but it's high enough that you won't get much noise. Quite spacious, new hangings on the bed, and a first-rate looking-glass. Conveniences just across the corridor and down four doors."

"Sounds fine," Cullen muttered, glancing up at the balconies of the floor above. He was not sure he liked the idea of dragging himself up yet more stairs, but it would be a short-term inconvenience for solid gains. He waited for the clerk to open the guestbook, and filled in the first available line.

"Meridian, Mississippi?" the concierge said, reading upside down with ease. That, too, was likely an asset in his profession. "What brings you down here?"

"Tobacco," said Cullen, forcing his lips into something he hoped was more a lazy grin than a rictus as he set his basket next to his hat and slipped a hand into his coat. Out came the leather cigar case, which Lottie had given a good going-over with the blacking brush, and he offered one of its slender soldiers. "Best this side of the Gulf. Care to try?"

The concierge smiled, a simpering and sycophantic but genuine smile. "Why, thank you, sir: most generous." He rolled the cigar between finger and thumb, listening to the whisper of the leaf that wrapped it. From below the desk he took a cigar-piercer, and pricked one tip. The other he ignited with a taper from the pot of live coals, offering it to Cullen in turn. He shook his head, watching as the other man drew upon the cylinder, causing the leaf to curl and flare and then pale into ash. The concierge turned his head aside to let out the coils of fragrant smoke, then held back the cigar for inspection.

"Very fine," he said, nodding approvingly. "Yes, you should have no difficulty in finding a buyer for _that._ If you are interested, sir, our _maître de maison_ has extensive connections in the business community. He would surely be able to arrange some meetings that would be to your advantage."

Cullen's nose twitched a little at this familiar line. "Naw, thank you," he said. "I have my own connections, and they'd be mighty offended if I started looking elsewhere. I'll take the key, and a knock at seven o'clock tomorrow. And a bath…" He paused, reconsidering. There was no way he could scavenge the strength for a bath tonight. "A bath tomorrow morning, say half past seven."

"Certainly, sir," the concierge said, nodding somberly. "Someone to show you upstairs? Help you with your bags?"

"No, thanks. I travel light," said Cullen. He slung Bethel's basket back over his arm and picked up his hat, passing it off to the forefinger of the hand still holding the valise. He took the key from the man and turned it in his hand. "Send up copies of daily papers in the morning," he instructed. "And someone for a quick unpack and press as soon as possible."

Again the man smiled. "But of course," he said. "Welcome to the St. Charles."

Cullen nodded wordlessly and pushed himself up off the edge of the desk, making for the stairs as quickly as he dared. So long as he kept moving, he thought he could fight off the urge simply to melt into a puddle of weariness. He narrowed his vision to the tunnel immediately before him, not allowing his gaze or his thoughts to stray to the luxuriantly upholstered chairs and couches that dotted the foyer, or the enticing gentlemanly gloom of the smoking parlor. The scents and sounds of the dining room, at least, held no appeal, nor did the velvet-draped corridor that branched off towards the ladies' sitting room and salon. When he reached the stairs he took a firm hold of the bannister before attempting the ascent that left his knees unsteady and his head thick with dizziness.

Fortunately he had not much further to travel. The corridor swept back along the length of the entryway, open on one side to the balustrades overlooking the grand vestibule below, and then cut to the right. Two doors from that point Cullen found Number 17, and the key he had been given fit perfectly in the lock. He nudged the door open with his shoulder and slipped into a dark space smelling of citrus pomander and furniture polish. There was a small table by the door, situated so that the glow of the lamps in the corridor showed the silver ash bowl and the box of matches with _St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans_ printed upon the top around a woodcut of the hotel.

Cullen put the basket on the table and the valise under it, and found a hook waiting for his hat a little further along the wall. Then he struck a match and took stock of his immediate surroundings by its light. Before it lapped too near his fingertips and necessitated a swift snuffing, he found the sconce on the wall. He lifted its chimney before lighting the next match, and then he had a reliable kerosene glow by which to find his way further into the room.

It was sumptuously furnished, as were all the chambers at the St. Charles. The hotel was the foremost in the country, and one of the finest in the world. Of course this luxury came with a price, and a price that this year Cullen could ill afford, but it was an essential piece of the persona he had to maintain. The Bohannon men had been selling their produce in New Orleans since the cotton days, and they had been accommodated at the St. Charles every year since the completion of the original building in 1837. The lone exception had been 1851, when a fire had levelled the hotel and several surrounding structures. Construction on the present building had been well underway that November, but there had been no question of opening it to guests. That was scarcely sufficient precedent for casting aside tradition, and there was another consideration, too. The St. Charles Hotel was far more than a waystation for the traveler from afar. It was a hub of finance and politics and all manner of manly business. Nowhere in the city was there such a center of intellectual, philosophical and fiscal exchange. It lent prestige to a businessman merely to be housed here, and it was here that Cullen had always received his buyers. If he broke with that long custom it would raise serious questions about his liquidity, and if that was brought under any scrutiny it could not possibly hold up. One wire to a crony or distant cousin in Lauderdale County would turn up the extent of his debts, the rumors of critical damage to his crop, and the fact – known to almost everyone in and around Meridian – that he had been working his own tobacco. There had been enough trouble over that with local merchants quibbling over ten dollars' worth of groceries. It would be disastrous to negotiations over eighteen hogsheads of tobacco.

Cullen lit the lamp by the bed, which was a broad four-poster hung, as promised, with a new brocade tester and curtains. There was a round table, large enough to accommodate a lavish breakfast for two, beside the lofty window cast deep in the shadow of the pillars outside. He could have tugged back the drapes to take in his promised view of St. Charles Avenue, but he was not in the least bit interested in that. In one corner along the outside wall was a cast-iron heater, like the one in Gabe's nursery but far more highly ornamented. Its door was open, showing a tent of kindling and tinder awaiting easy ignition. The room was not particularly cold, being warmed to either side and from below by occupied chambers, but Cullen was shivering with fever again and in any case the chambermaid would need the stove for her iron. He flicked a match inside, watched the flames blaze, and then tossed on a couple of logs from the brass wood-basket on the floor. Even these had been cut with artful precision, uniform in length and perfectly squared, with the cuts smoothed so as to mitigate the risk of splinters lodging in guests' fingers.

There was a bell-pull between the bed and the stove, by which Cullen could summon a boy to fetch more wood, or water, or to relay a request for victuals, or to run any other errand he might require. An armchair and a half-length sofa occupied the area between the bed and the inner wall, where stood an ornately-carved clothespress and a matching dressing table hung with a large and expensive looking-glass. The washstand and chamber pot were discreetly hidden by a screen opposite the stove. There was a cupboard stocked with towels and napkins, topped by a tray with a cut-glass pitcher of water and matching tumblers.

Cullen took all of this in with the disinterested eyes of a man who has traveled so far, so swiftly and under such conditions that he no longer cares where he has stopped, so long as the journey is at an end. He dragged himself to the door to collect the basket and valise, and deposited them both on the dining table. There was a bootjack under the towel cupboard, and he dragged it out with his toe. Pulling one of the chairs out, he sat heavily, letting the strength out of his legs and the wind out of his lungs at the same time. He did the latter perhaps too vigorously, for his diaphragm rippled and he coughed, thickly and with an unreasonably intense burst of pain from deep within him. He pressed a splayed hand to the place nearest the source, rattling out several smaller coughs until the plug of phlegm dislodged from his throat and filled his mouth with its slimy salt. Leaning over the arm of the dining chair, he could just bring the spittoon in range, and he relieved himself of the unpleasant mouthful. Then he slumped low in the chair, panting and perspiring thinly.

He could no longer even muster anger at the illness that held his body in thrall. He fixed his waning focus instead on the bootjack, sliding it into place and levering each foot free in its turn. The effort was considerable, but at the very least did not bring on a fresh round of coughing. Encouraged, Cullen unbuttoned his greatcoat and got his arms out of the sleeves so that it could flop back over the chair. The room was beginning to grow warmer, or his chill was ebbing, for he was no longer shivering quite so violently.

The muffler had been dragged off by his coat, and now his fumbling fingers found the knot of his stock and the first two buttons of his shirt. Then he sagged back into inaction, left forearm sprawled on the tabletop, right draped limply over the armrest. The back of the chair came high enough that he could prop the base of his skull on its rounded apex, which he did. He had almost forgotten about his request for a chambermaid by this time. Now he was wishing wistfully for Mary's capable hands to help him through the rest of the marathon of undressing, and her tender voice to coax him to stay awake long enough to get into bed.

He might have fallen asleep where he sat, to the further detriment of his stiff limbs and aching backbone, but for the timely knock on the door. A young Negro woman entered at his grunted "C'mon in." She was dressed in a pristine parlormaid's uniform: a modest black dress, white ruffled apron, and a neat frilled cap. She was carrying a lidded basket over one arm and a narrow ironing table under the other, its legs sticking out before and behind her. She set the latter down, and then dipped a perfect curtsey and stood with her eyes lowered and her hands folded respectfully over the basket-handle.

"You called fo' unpackin', sir?" she murmured softly. "Mist' Gibbs sen' me up to ten' to you."

Cullen raised his head off the back of the chair and nodded heavily. "Just the one bag," he muttered. "Won't take long, but I need the pressing touched up in case it ain't traveled well."

"Yassir," said the girl. She was between sixteen and twenty, by his estimate, and despite her demure comportment it was obvious that she was experienced and confident in her work. She came further into the room without hesitation and set her workbasket on the table. "Should I fetch you a glass of sumthin', sir? It a tiresome trip, comin' by train. If you wants some spirits, I kin be down an' back in five minutes."

"That's fine," Cullen said. His eyes were bleary and his throat tight with exhaustion. "Just see to the clothes."

"Yassir." She curtseyed again, more briefly this time. She had the basket open already, and she removed two flatirons which she carried at once to the stove. Returning to the table, she took a whisk brush in one hand and his valise in the other before moving back to the space of bare floor in front of the door. She briskly dusted the case, sending flecks of soot and dust drifting for the floor. Then she returned to the table and set the valise down again before opening it. Her brows furrowed in almost imperceptible puzzlement as she drew out the bundle of _Harper's Weekly_ that Cullen could not quite recall stowing there this morning. Next came the folio of paperwork and shopping lists. Then the maid held her hands back, smiling.

"Why, sumone knowed what she 'bout!" she said in a tone of pleasant surprise. "You gots a cloth in here pertectin' the clothes so's they don' git grimy!"

A look of dismay came over her face as she realized that she had forgotten her dignified tone in front of a guest, but Cullen found a wilted smile to reassure her.

"My wife," he said. "Mary's what you might call familiar with rail travel."

The maid hummed pleasantly at this. She was carefully removing the towel, which now bore a dark stripe down its middle where the valise had indeed let the ash creep in. She folded the clean edges over the soiled space and then started unpacking in earnest.

The clothes-press had a wardrobe door on one side, and a stack of drawers on the other. Into the latter vanished neatly balled stockings, underclothes, handkerchiefs and his nightshirt. The box of collars found a home on the dressing table, where she also laid out the contents of his little sack of grooming implements: razor, comb, and shaving brush. She put the small piece of store soap in the silver clamshell on the washstand. Next came Mary's jewel-case, which the maid took out with almost reverently gentle hands.

"Is Madam comin' to join you, sir?" she asked politely. "Might be you'd like a room with a proper closet an' a dressin' space."

"No," Cullen croaked. He wafted the fingers of his left hand vaguely at her. "Just put it in the drawer with the underthings for now."

Too well-trained to question this, she obeyed. Then she returned to the valise and began to bring out his clothes. His evening coat and three good pairs of trousers each received a swift, efficient going-over with a clothes-brush before being draped on wooden hangers that she hooked over the cross-rail of the bed nearest the stove. She lifted out the silk waistcoat and its somewhat less impressive wool twill cousin with care, and laid them on the coverlet.

Cullen watched dimly as the girl moved the ungainly little pressing table beside the stove and fetched over his neatly rolled shirts and a bottle of starch from her basket. She picked up one of the irons, licked her fingertip, and touched it lightning-quick to the hot plate. There was a sizzle of steam, and she nodded in satisfaction. She unrolled the first shirt and smoothed the places where it had been folded before Mary's careful furling. She sprinkled a little starch on the collar and gave it a quick smoothing over a tailor's ham she must have brought out of the basket when Cullen was not paying close attention. The other shirts all received the same quick, simple treatment.

"Packed up right fo' a long journey," she remarked softly. "Cain't hardly tell they been in that bag t'all. You oughts to see some I ten's to: crumpled up like yest'day's newspapers, they is."

Cullen made a nebulous noise of agreement. There was no conversation left in him. The girl switched irons midway through the task, and then used the almost-cooled tool to brush over the silk evening shirt. She hung each of them in the closet, and then used the rounded end of the board to smooth the legs of the trousers and the sleeves and lapels of his evening coat. The waistcoats were last, requiring little more than a little finger-smoothing.

"You wan' I should see to them coats too, sir?" the maid asked, nodding at Cullen's body and the heavy melton crushed beneath it.

He wanted no such thing: all he desired at the moment was the privacy to strip down to his drawers so he could slither between the sheets of the big, inviting bed. But common sense prevailed. He needed the frock coat for his daytime dealings, and if the weather proved cold or damp he would want the greatcoat at its best as well. He hauled himself to his feet and handed it to her, then set about the unreasonably slow business of shucking his frock coat.

By the time he had finished removing the garment, the chambermaid had already brushed the overcoat and hung it on a hook by his hat. The heavier material refused to hold a crease even under greatest duress, and so did not need pressing at all. The same was true of the lighter but still substantial wool of his frock coat, but the girl still ran the iron lightly over the smooth silk lining before hanging it up in the cupboard. Then she gathered her tools into the basket, putting away the cooled flatirons last of all. She looked around the room with sharp eyes, and then fixed her gaze on Cullen.

"There anythin' else I kin he'p you with, sir?" she asked. "Hot water fo' washin', mebbe? Writin' paper? Evenin' news? Li'l taste of supper?"

"Thank you, no," muttered Cullen. He dug into his watch-pocket and found a slender, tarnished dime, which he handed to her. She took the gratuity with a sweet smile and another curtsey. "I appreciate you taking care of it so quickly, and I'll be sure to mention it to Mr… what'd you say his name is?"

"Mist' Gibbs, sir. An' if you would, tha'd be jus' wonderful." She slipped the coin into her pocket and curtseyed again. "Thankee, sir. There anythin' you's needin', jus' you ring. I's on shif' fo' this floor all night."

Cullen nodded, but said nothing more. His throat was beginning to stick closed, and he wound his watch as he shuffled sock-footed to the door. He held it for her as she retreated, hampered by the awkward piece of working furniture. When she was clear of the threshold, thanking him again, he slid the door closed and leaned heavily against it before drawing the bolt. Even then he remained, taking heavy, faintly wheezing breaths until they built up to one hard, wet cough. Not trusting himself to navigate smoothly back to the spittoon, he dug out the dirty, rumpled old handkerchief he had carried on the train and expectorated into it instead. He reached up for the knob on the lamp by the door, and turned the wick low enough to snuff the flame.

Then he stumbled across the room, shucking garments as he went: first his vest, over the back of the untouched dining chair, and then his shirt near the foot of the bed. He leaned against the carved post on the right side – Mary's side – of the footboard to unbutton his pants, the suspenders of which were already dangling. He peeled off his undershirt as he rounded to his own side, just as if his wife were in the room with him, slipping into her daintily-stitched nightdress and brushing out her auburn hair. Somehow Cullen managed to stoop to add another couple of logs to the lively fire in the stove, and while he was down there he slipped off his stockings. They needed a scrub and a rinse after two days' uninterrupted wear, but for now he just draped them over the braided brass handle of the fuel basket so the perspiration could dry from them.

Then he had to straighten up again, slowly and with all the decrepit awkwardness of an old man with rheumatism in his spine, in order to snuff the lamp by the bed. In the darkness he groped for the edge of the counterpane, and he tugged back the bedclothes far enough that he could crawl between them. The expensive muslin sheets were smooth and cool against the feverish skin of his bare back and shoulders, and when his head made contact with the plump feather pillow he seemed to dissolve into it. He could not have kept his eyes open for another moment with a prybar. A tremor ran up his backbone, but it was the last one he felt for a long time after that. Cullen slept.

_*discidium*_

Boyd was hovering in the doorway, unwilling to trespass the invisible barrier of Mammy's will even with Mary's express invitation and that of Doctor Whitehead. The physician had arrived just after midnight, careworn and obviously in need of a good night's sleep himself, and had been shown immediately up to the nursery. He had looked Daisy over before declaring that she had almost certainly come to her crisis now, and that the outcome of the disease would be determined for her in the next six to twelve hours. Now he had Lucy on the changing cabinet, her little gown and underclothes cast aside. She was clad only in her diaper – freshly changed after another dose of the purgative both girls were receiving regularly. Her bare little feet did not kick in the air with the lively will of a healthy baby. The heels rested instead in the nap of the towel, tiny toes curled upward like those of a much younger infant. Daisy was fussing softly while Ester dressed her again, but Lucy was quiet. Her eyes were glazed and disinterested, scarcely drawn by the movements of the man above her, and there were tear-tracks running from the corners, but the only sound she made was that of the rattling, labored breaths.

Mary stood near the baby's head, one hand cupping her round, hot little shoulder. Mammy was a pace behind, hands folded over her generous bosom and eyes upraised in silent prayer. And Boyd clung to the doorpost, staring with yearning at his youngest child where she lay in a puddle of lamplight. As for the doctor, he was moving the cup of his stethoscope in short, precise stages over the child's chest, listening now to the left of her breastbone, now to the right; now near the bottom of her ribs, now near the top; then on the left side, and last on the right.

"If you'd pick her up, Miss Mary," he said at last, keeping his voice low and soothing. He cast a swift, wary glance to the bed where Verbena lay deep in desperate slumber. "Put her on your shoulder so I can access her back.

Mary slid around the corner of the heavy bureau, brushing elbows with Doctor Whitehead as she positioned herself. "Here, Lucy dear," she said as she lifted the baby. At first her head dragged like that of a newborn, and then she seemed to realize what was happening. Mary felt the muscles beneath the dry, fever-parched skin tensing, and the round little belly grew firm with effort as Lucy lifted her own head and lent what aid she could to the effort of getting her upright. But as soon as she was secure against Mary's collarbone she went limp again, scarcely even nuzzling as she let her head rest in the crook of the woman's neck, face outturned.

"Good girl. Brave girl," soothed Mary, swaying from side to side as she turned to allow the doctor better access. He nodded and busied himself once more with the listening snake. His brows seemed to knit more closely as he did so, but his face remained gravely neutral. Still Mary could not help but study it, as if she might divine his prognosis before he formed it.

"All right," he said at last, the words a soft sigh. "You can dress her again, Mammy: bundle her warm." He looked from Mary to the watcher in the doorway, and then tilted his head towards the latter. Understanding, Mary handed the baby off to Mammy and followed the doctor to where Boyd was standing. "I don't believe it's pneumonia," he said.

Mary felt one of the choking coils around her heart loosen, and Boyd sagged against the doorpost. "Thank God," he gasped.

"Pneumonia has a wetter sound," Doc went on, his expression unchanged. Mary began to wonder whether this was good news after all. "I don't believe she's got a second infection. It's the first one doing the damage. She's producing more phlegm than she should: that's what's rattling when she tries to breathe. Does she spit up much when she coughs?"

"Sometimes," Mary said. She reached to beckon to Mammy before realizing that she would need more than half a minute to dress the child without distressing her. Instead she fed upon her own experiences these last few hours. "This evening she was sick after coughing, and that brought up a great quantity. But at other times it's as though she simply can't get it up – and of course when she does she's too little to understand she must get it out of her mouth. I… we… well, we try our best to help her with that."

Boyd colored in embarrassment at these details; not something he was used to hearing ladies mention. Doc, on the other hand, nodded knowingly, completely unaghast. "You must continue doing that," he said. "That's the chief danger: that a plug will get stuck, as it did with your little Gabe. And Lucy's throat is so small that I don't think we'd have much luck plucking it out if it did."

Boyd made a hoarse, strangled noise that was not quite a moan, and found his momentum at once. He pushed off of the doorframe and brushed past Doc, swooping up next to Mammy and snatching the baby off the towel.

"Here, Mist' Boyd!" Mammy exclaimed, indignant but carefully hushed. "That there chile half nekkid. You gots no business handlin' nekkid babies. Give her back an' let me git her all swaddled up. Then if'n you wants to hol' her…"

"I want to hold her," he said, his voice grating harshly. He spread his long fingers over the baby's bare back, his other hand almost hidden by the sag of the half-tied flannel clout Mammy had been affixing over her diaper. "I want to feel her. Just like she is. Just… just…"

Then suddenly he was not only holding the baby, but being held himself. How Mammy, who was not much over five feet, could contrive to engulf a man of Boyd's height in a standing embrace Mary did not know, but she was doing it. One dark hand was patting his back jus t where he held his own child, and the other was petting the back of his head. Mammy was murmuring something to him; something only he could hear. Though she could not make out the words, Mary recognized the love-language: it was the same one that Bethel used when comforting Gabe and, on those rare occasions when he was stricken enough to allow it, with Cullen. She cast her eyes away, affording them what privacy she could.

"What about Daisy?" she asked quietly.

Doc sighed. "If she don't have a seizure, and she don't choke in the midst of a fit herself, she might get well. She ain't got it as bad as Gabe did, but on the other hand she's littler, and the small bodies can't take such a beating." He moved down to the bed where Ester was sitting, Daisy cradled in her arms. "All we can give her is diligent nursing, and it looks like she has that in abundance."

Daisy blinked blearily up at him, seeming to struggle to place his face in her fog of semi-consciousness and fever-dreams. Then her eyes found Mary, and a tiny smile tugged at her pallid lips. "Pwetty lady," she mumbled, reaching out with the hand that was not clutching the bib of Ester's apron.

"Miss Mary," Mary reminded her.

"Mewwy li'l lamb," murmured Daisy. She shifted on the nursemaid's lap, and now held out both arms. "Miss Mewwy wock Daisy?"

It took a moment to translate her infant patois, but then Mary understood. She bent as gracefully as she could, although her corset was beginning to creep. She had been in it too long, and the laces were stretching with the warmth of her body. There was nothing to be done about it now. Daisy's arms closed around her neck, and a moment later her little legs were wrapping Mary's waist. She kept Daisy's nightdress down over her bottom, and reached for the blanket Ester offered. Daisy's cheek pressed Mary's jaw as they moved to the chair by the fire. "Daisy 'leepy," the child said as they sat down. "Wock Daisy."

Mary sat, settling the little girl comfortably in her lap. Doctor Whitehead had followed her, and he leaned one shoulder on the mantelpiece.

"You look exhausted," she told him softly, forgetting the niceties of society in favor of her affection for the kind-eyed and patient man who cared so tenderly for all his patients. "It's all around the county, now?"

"Forty cases," sighed Doc. "Not counting darkies whose owners don't see fit to inform me there's sickness in the quarters. It ain't an epidemic, exactly, in a county with three thousand children, but…" He shrugged wearily.

"But it's enough," whispered Mary. "I'm sorry. It must be so hard on you."

"I lost one Sunday night," he said. He was staring into the embers now, and hardly seemed to know he was speaking. "Little boy about Daisy's age, out in the swamps south of Sowashee. Parents don't likely see two dollars in a month, so they waited to send for me until… maybe if I'd been there sooner I could've done more, but the longer I practice the more I think it's all in the hands of God, decided long before the child even starts coughing." He raised his eyes to Mary, and they were raw and wounded in the orange light. "It's your boy's been keeping me going," he whispered. "He didn't ought to have survived, not sick like he was with the phlegm clotting in his throat, but he done it. Might just be that Cullen was too stubborn to let him go, but it's been keeping me going."

Mary felt the tears prickling high in the back of her throat. "Doc…" she gasped, her breath catching before she could start to weep.

He came towards her, stepping to the side out of the range of the rockers, and rested his hand upon her shoulder. "I thank God every night that he's getting well," he said. "And if He's willing, we'll bring these girls through it, too."

She nodded, not daring to speak. On the far side of the room, Boyd had yielded Lucy up to Mammy. Still he hovered as the practiced nurse dressed the baby, navigating the ties and pins and flaps that seemed such an impenetrable mystery to men. He was murmuring to Mammy as she worked, but in the hush of the nursery Mary could hear him.

"You'll take care of her: I know you'll take care of her;" he whispered. "I don't mean to suggest anything different. I just can't help but worry. They've been sick for weeks now, and I don't understand…"

"Sure, Massa, don' none of us unnerstan' it," Mammy sighed. "Ain' nobody unnerstan' why li'l childern gots to suffer. But she in the bes' of hands, an' you don' do no good flittin' an' fussin' 'round. You's jus' 'bout as impulsive as Mist' Leon when you gits scared, an' you's bigger so you kin make more trouble. Git 'long now an' sleep. Ain' a thing you kin do in here."

Boyd opened his mouth as if to protest, closed it again, and let his lean shoulders slump wearily. He nodded. "You'll come fetch me?" he asked, sounding as plaintive as a little boy begging favors. "If anything changes, you'll fetch me?"

"If'n there anythin' you kin do 'bout it, I'll fetch you," Mammy qualified.

Mary could not be silent at this. All that had made Gabe's illness bearable, both for the child and for his father, had been Cullen's constant presence. Mary knew the ordeal it had been for Cullen, but except for that one fatigued break in his courage when he had fled to the parlor for a few hours' sleep he had been a bastion of strength for their son. And if he had not been in the room at that terrible moment when Gabe had started to choke…

She shuddered, and spoke. "Boyd," she said. "Come and hold Daisy."

"Huh?" He looked up at her in utter confusion. Mammy's dark eyes widened, then shifted in understanding.

"You cannot do much: none of us can. But you can sit and hold Daisy. I'm sure she'd rather have her pappy rocking her than the neighbor-lady." Mary looked down at the drowsy child on her lap. "Daisy?" she called gently, smiling as the feverish eyes found her face. "Would you like Pappy to rock you?"

"Pappy?" Daisy croaked, hoarse but hopeful.

That was all it took. Boyd crossed the room in a series of long strides that even Cullen would have struggled to keep pace with. Mary was lifting herself and the little girl out of the rocker as smoothly and swiftly as she could, and Boyd put one hand on her elbow and the other in the small of her back to aid her. She looked at his arms, well-meaning but inexperienced despite his five children, and then nodded at the chair.

"Sit first, and I'll settle her," she said. Boyd dropped into the chair as if there was no strength left in his legs, and Mary lowered Daisy onto his long lap. Boyd did not know what to do, but Daisy did. She wriggled up against him, took hold of the front of his vest, and rested her cheek against his chest. He hesitated for a moment, uncertain, and then curled his arm around her back. Mary arranged the blanket, tucking it about the nightgown-clad body, and then took Boyd's other hand and placed it against Daisy's leg. "There," she murmured with quiet pride. "Now just rock her. I think she might sleep a little."

Boyd looked up at her with wonder and gratitude in his eyes, and then curled down over his daughter. "Hey there, Daisy girl," he murmured. "How my pretty lady?"

"Pappy…" she sighed, already drifting towards badly needed sleep.

Her tone was so blissful that if she had not looked so terribly ill Mary might have taken great hope from it. As it was she parted her lips to speak some small words of comfort, but she was stopped by a ratcheting hitch of breath from the nearest bed. As if to prove that there was to be no peace tonight, Charity was coughing.

_*discidium*_

The message that Missus Mary and Mister Gabe were staying the night at West Willows had come by way of Tom, the senior footman and the man poised to succeed Matthew when the time came. Bethel appreciated this sign of the regard with which her mistress was now held by the neighbor's slaves, for she knew it was well-earned and long overdue, but the news was less pleasant. During the long sleepless hours listening to the empty house around her, Bethel had finally come to the conclusion that she had been utterly unprepared for the day when the little boy might finally spend his first night away from home. He was years too young to go visiting on his own, and Missus Mary had never had much occasion to be away herself. And irrational though it was, Bethel was anxious for her dear little boy.

She slept very little, and in the gray predawn gloom she was already dressed, bundled for walking in the frosty weather, and standing at the door of the biggest of the Negro cabins. Meg answered her knock with anxious swiftness. "What wrong?" she breathed. "I's jus' about to bring Lottie up to the house…"

"Lottie kin take her breakfas' with the menfolk," Bethel said. "I lef' a hamper over with Elijah. You's comin' with me: fetch your shawl."

"Where we goin'?" Meg asked, glancing back over her shoulder towards the stove, where a shivering Lottie was buttoning up her dress. The girl felt her mother's eyes upon her, glanced over her shoulder and smiled wanly at Bethel.

Nodding briefly at Lottie's greeting, Bethel said; "We's goin' over to Wes' Willows to fetch home Mist' Gabe. Might be Missus Mary needed over there, but that boy goin' come back where he belong. His mama done right, not takin' him out aft' dark so's the night damp git in his chest, but it goin' be daylight in a hour, an' he comin' back home to his Bethel."

Meg reached for her big, faded shawl where it hung on a peg near the door, nodding. "Bes' none of us go off the place alone, even jus' to Wes' Willows: that what you thinkin'?"

Bethel very nearly snorted in derision of the very notion that the bullying sheriff, or lecherous Mister Sutcliffe, or anyone else might keep her from fetching that little boy, but she restrained herself to a terse shake of the head. Meg's own terror was very real, and very rational, and should not be ridiculed even by extension. "That a part of it, mebbe," she said instead. "But mos'ly it 'cause I don' inten' to have that chile out in the air no longer than he gots to be. Mist' Ainsley kin sen' Missus Mary home in his carriage again: we's takin' Mist' Gabe in our buggy. An' you's got to drive it."

"I ain't a real 'sperienced driver, Bethel," Meg demurred. "Mebbe you wants to have Mist' Boyd's coachman take you an' Mist' Gabe."

"I don'," Bethel said stoutly. "I wants my own folks doin' it, an' I wants them horses back where they b'longs, too. You knows the stock Mist' Cullen put by his Morgans. One night off the place is long 'nough fo' anyone cain't speak up for theyselves, be it chile or horse."

"Jus' give me a minute or two to git my girl over nex' door," said Meg obediently, her questions spent. "C'mon in an' stay warm."

So Bethel sat on the edge of the long bench, waiting patiently while Meg wrapped Lottie warmly, using one of the blankets from the bed to augment the small shawl the girl had outgrown last year. Meg put on her own bonnet over her snugly-knotted headrail, banked the stove, and then they slipped next door. Here Bethel allowed another brief halt, so that Meg could eat something herself, and then the two women were off.

They cut through the woods, shaving several minutes off the walk. Still the sun was rising when they emerged onto the strip of grass meadow north of the field that was currently under the tiller. Both of them wanted to hurry past it without a word, unwilling to think of the half-plowed cornfields lying idle back home. But of course that was not possible. The slaves in the fields recognized them at once, and cried out eager greetings. Bethel nodded politely in acknowledgement, while Meg waived gaily and called back to them by name. Her eyes glittered merrily and her steps were imbued with a sudden sprightliness that filled Bethel with sadness as she saw at once how lonely this hard year must have been for Meg. The Bohannon household had not always been so isolated: when there was leisure they were freer than most darkies to go visiting in the neighborhood. But leisure had been scarce and hardship plentiful, and unless Mister Cullen worked a wonder in New Orleans that was unlikely to change soon.

It was on the tip of Bethel's tongue to tell Meg to stay and visit with her friends for a half-hour, but she thought better of it. The Ainsley overseer was circling near on his horse, drawn to the upraised voices. He was more tolerant than many of his kind and might not object to Meg walking alongside the sowers if the work went on, but it was much safer not to chance it. So Bethel walked on, and Meg shouted the answers to a couple of questions from the others as she followed.

"We kin stop an' stay some other time," Bethel said as they moved out of earshot of the others. "If'n you asked Missus Mary, I b'lieve she'd give you a paper to come callin' on Sunday when them girls gots time for a proper visit. Mist' Ainsley ain't never tooked offence to us comin' an' goin', but it bes we don' take no chances."

"it ain' worth botherin' 'bout," said Meg. "I'll have me a nice li'l chat with Cookie an' the girls while you's speakin' with the missus. 'Sides, if'n I was goin' go callin' on neighbors I wouldn' be lookin' east."

Bethel could not quite help casting her a horrified look, though she schooled it quickly. "Chile," she said as gently as she was able; "you don' wants to be thinkin' like that. It ain' safe for you over there."

"I knows it," Meg sighed, shaking her head. "But I cain't help thinkin'. Missus Mary, she right. It ain' hardly bearable when you's 'way from your man, never knowin' when he hurtin' an' need you. I cain't jus' forget him. I loves him, an' he Lottie's pa. She ain' see'd him in a age, neither."

Bethel reached and grabbed Meg's wrist, reaching deftly around both their shawls to do it. Meg spun to look at her, wide-eyed. "Don' you do nuthin' foolish," Bethel said, her voice hoarse. "Don' do it. You cain't 'spect Mist' Cullen to pertect you from your own foolishness."

"I knows that, too," said Meg. The words wavered uncertainly between defiance and misery. Then she tore her eyes from Bethel's and hung her head. "I know it jus' foolishness, an' I wouldn' never act on it. Still an' all, Bethel, I's missing him sumthin' awful."

"Sure you is, honey," Bethel soothed. "An' we's all goin' look fo' a way to fix it, but now ain't the time."

They were on the edge of the kitchen garden now, and Meg looked up at the house. "Le's go," she sighed. "I surely would like a li'l chat with Cookie an' them others, if'n you ain't in too big a hurry to be gone."

"I ain't," said Bethel. "Wants to have me a word with Missus Mary, an' with Mammy, too." She strode up the path to the kitchen door, drawing Meg with her. "I reckon I kin give you half a hour at leas'."

Meg smiled gratefully, and Bethel knocked upon the door with the firm determination of a woman whose mission is both indelibly set and deeply personal.


	97. Slipping Away

**Chapter Ninety-Seven: Slipping Away**

It was very early in the morning: only just light. Through the tall windows with their many panes of glass, Gabe could see the rosy flush of the sky behind the clouds. He was sitting at the long table in Mr. Ainsley's great dining room, helping himself to the big breakfast that Hettie and another almost-grown girl – the one who had let him and Mama into the playroom yesterday – had brought in. There were grits and gravy, thick slices of ham cut into pieces just the right size for a little boy to chew, fried eggs and hotcakes and tall, fluffy biscuits. The biscuits weren't as nice as Bethel's, but they were plenty good anyhow and Gabe knew it wasn't polite to compare the food you got when you were company to the food you ate at home. Besides, Bethel hadn't made her biscuits for _such_ a long time: that made these ones taste delicious.

Charlie was sitting at the head of the table, in what he proudly declared was his pappy's usual place. Gabe was on one side of him, and Leon on the other. The whole great length of the table stretched away from them, for the three boys were the only ones who were eating. Hettie and Mama had fetched them out of Leon's bed only a little while ago, telling them to hush because Charity was sleeping. They hadn't even gotten dressed in the nursery, but out in the playroom where the fire was already blazing cheerfully. Gabe had asked Mama what all the hurry was about as she helped him into the same drawers and undershirt he had worn yesterday and then let him hold her shoulder while he stepped into his trousers.

"There's no hurry, dear," she had said, trying to be cheerful but not really managing it. "Only Cookie's put on a special breakfast for you three, and you mustn't let it get cold."

But Gabe wondered. Charlie and Leon hadn't even been allowed to say good morning to their mother and father, though Mr. and Mrs. Ainsley had been right there on the other side of the nursery. She had been sitting in the rocking chair by the fire, bowed down over the baby while Mr. Ainsley bent low over her shoulder. Esther had been sitting up in Daisy's bed, with Daisy lying on her chest like Gabe liked to lie on Pappy's to keep the cough away. And Mammy and Meelia had been hugging over at the far side of the fire, watching Mr. and Mrs. Ainsley. Gabe thought maybe Mammy had been crying.

Hettie looked like she wanted to cry, too. She stood off to one side, watching the boys eat their breakfast, and she kept dabbing at her eyes with a rumpled handkerchief. Every time she did, she made a little sigh and squared her shoulders. The other girl's eyes darted to her whenever this happened, and she would roll her lower lip between her teeth thoughtfully.

Gabe picked up his mug of milk and took a long drink from it. The milk was frothy and cold, and it tasted very good. Then he speared a piece of ham and munched it thoughtfully. Ham was mighty nice eating. Gabe liked venison, too, especially when it came from the deer he had helped Pappy to shoot, but he missed having ham at breakfast. He hoped Mama would get some, too. He guessed maybe all the ladies would eat upstairs, so they could stay close to the sick girls and care for them.

"Does you wan' more milk, Mist' Bohannon?" asked the other girl. She wasn't dressed like Hettie: her frock was brown, instead of blue, and her apron wasn't dainty and frilly. She had a headscarf like a grown lady, but she didn't look much taller than Lottie. She had a nice, friendly face, too.

"Yes, please," Gabe said. He watched as she filled his cup from the porcelain pitcher, and nodded in satisfaction. "T'ank you: dat mighty nice. But I ain' Mist' Bohannon: I's jus' Mist' Gabe."

The girl glanced at Hettie, who nodded. Her neck seemed very tight, and her eyes flicked down towards the big door at the far end of the room. "Jus' as you like, Mist' Gabe," she said. "I's Nell. Pleased to meet you."

"Please do meet you," Gabe agreed. He held out his hand to her, reaching across his chest to do it. Hesitantly, Nell placed her palm on top of his, and he bowed his head and made the small kissing sound, just like pretty Miss Felicity had taught him yesterday. "I t'ink I will eat some grits now," he confided. "Dey's good an' tasty."

Charlie giggled, and Leon looked at him questioningly before grinning himself. Gabe turned towards his friend with a puzzled frown. "What so funny?" he asked.

"You don't kiss Nell's hand!" Charlie laughed. "She's just a kitchen darkie. That's only for ladies."

"I's on'y tryin' to be nice!" Gabe said indignantly. "She still growin', but she goin' be a lady someday."

"No she won't," said Charlie. "Maybe someday she'll be a cook, but she can't never be a lady."

Gabe frowned. This didn't make sense. "Ladies can cook," he said. "My mama, she a good cook. Not so good as Bet'l, but she makes dem parsnips jus' how I likes 'em, an' she a lady awright."

"Sure," Charlie agreed. "But she's white. Only white people can be ladies."

Gabe looked at Nell, who was standing now with her hands folded and her eyes lowered. It didn't look like the graceful position that Bethel took when there were guests in the house: courteous but still full of quiet pride. It looked like the way a person stood when Bethel had caught them doing something they weren't supposed to: shrunken and ashamed. Gabe didn't understand. He didn't understand why Nell was ashamed, when she hadn't done anything wrong, and he didn't understand why Charlie would say something like that if it hurt her. He wanted to tell Charlie that he was wrong, but he couldn't do that. He thought maybe it wasn't good manners to contradict your friend at breakfast, and he _knew_ that Mama and Bethel wouldn't approve. More worrisome, he didn't know if Charlie really _was_ wrong. After all, Charlie was older than he was.

But Gabe didn't like the way that Nell looked so downcast and sad, and he wanted to make things better. He reached up to pat her arm. "Don' worry," he said. "I's jus' learnin' how to be a li'l gent'man. It hard work, sometimes."

Nell's eyes brightened as she looked up to smile at him. "I reckon it mus' be, Mist' Gabe," she said. "You's doin' jus' fine with it."

"Hard work," Leon agreed, helping himself to a big forkful of eggs. Around it, he said; "Mammy think I's hopeless."

Charlie grinned and cuffed his little brother's arm. "That's 'cause you talk with your mouth full of food," he said. He looked at his plate. "We need more syrup. Nell, fetch the syrup."

Gabe's brows knit together. He knew _that_ wasn't right. Bethel said a gentleman was always polite when he asked for things, and much more importantly Gabe had _never_ seen his pappy boss anyone around so brusquely: not Nate, not Lottie, not anybody. "Please," he said firmly.

Charlie looked at him questioningly.

"_Please_ fetch de syrup, Nell," Gabe repeated with a pointed look at his friend. "It awful tasty, an' we surely wants more of it."

"Yassir, Mist' Gabe. Mist' Charlie," said Nell, curtseying. There was a shine to her eyes as she did so, and she slipped from the room.

"You's 'pposed to say '_please'_," Gabe told Charlie when he was gone. "Bet'l say so."

"Sure: you gots to say 'please' to Bethel," agreed Charlie. "She looks after you all the time. But kitchen darkies is different. They ain't so much above yard darkies, and everybody knows a yard darky's just one step up from a field hand."

Gabe didn't think there were any yard darkies over at his place. Bethel worked in the house, and Meg and Elijah and Nate worked in the fields. Lottie took care of the chickens, but she also played with him in the nursery and helped Bethel with the meals, and slept on Mama's couch in the kitchen when the cough wore her out. But he thought about the way his pappy talked to Meg, who was a lady just the same as Bethel even if she _did_ work in the tobacco, and he shook his head.

"I t'ink I's 'pposed to say 'please' to ev'ybody," he said with more certainty than he felt. He fixed his attention on his plate, and on sopping his biscuit in the dark, savory ham gravy. Charlie and Leon were both eating contentedly, too, and Leon was swinging one foot against the front of his chair. The Ainsley children didn't sit on pear boxes to boost them up to the table, like Gabe did at home. Instead, they had little stools carved to match the chairs and shaped to fit perfectly on the seats. Charlie was tall enough that he didn't need one anymore, but his armpits only reached the tabletop and Gabe and Leon were higher up than he was. Leon had laughed because Gabe was sitting on Daisy's boosting stool, so Charlie had made him switch places. Gabe didn't really see the difference, so long as they could both reach their food and sit comfortably, but he guessed maybe these things were more important to boys with brothers and sisters.

The door that led to the kitchen swung open and Gabe turned eagerly towards it, anticipating Nell with the syrup and eager to thank her before Charlie had another chance to make him doubt what his mama and Bethel had taught him. Instead, he saw something much more wonderful.

Bethel was standing there, in her neat black dress with her hair covered by its clean white cloth. She wasn't wearing an apron like she usually did, but she was still his Bethel, and Gabe thought he had never been so happy to see her.

"Bet'l!" he cried, dropping his fork on his plate and slithering down from his perch. Forgetting that he had not been excused from the table, he ran to her, arms outstretched for a hug.

To his surprise, Bethel did not drop down into a crouch immediately to embrace him. She was staring at the table: at Charlie in his father's place, and Leon at his side, with Hettie standing behind them. Undaunted, Gabe hugged her around the legs instead, pressing his cheek against the front of her skirt and drinking in her familiar scent. But when she still did not bend to him he frowned, looked up at her far-off and troubled expression, and tugged on her skirt.

"Bet'l?" he said. "Bet'l, how 'bouts a hug fo' me? I ain't see'd you all night, you know."

"Yassir, honey, I know," Bethel said. She lowered herself slowly and wrapped one arm around him. Gabe could reach her neck now, and he hugged her tightly. At last she looked at him. "Jus' you boys down here for breakfas', huh?" she asked.

"Yass'm," Gabe said, nodding vigorously. "Charity, she ain't well 'nough to be up outta bed yet, de doct'r say. An' Daisy been coughin' all night. She woked us up one time, didn' she?"

He looked back at his friends for corroboration, and Charlie nodded. "She's always wakin' us up," he said. "I know she can't help being sick, but I wish she didn't have to be so loud 'bout it."

"You woked _me_ up when you was coughin'," Leon pointed out. "Woked me in the night."

"Well, I's better now," said Charlie stiffly. He cocked his head to one side, studying the newcomer. "Have you come visiting too, Bethel? Mammy'd like to see you. She says what you don't know 'bout bringin' up ornery boys ain't worth knowin'."

"Thankee, Mist' Charlie: that right nice to know," Bethel said, but she didn't sound like she was really talking to him – or listening. "Jus' the boys down here fo' breakfast," she repeated.

Gabe looked over his shoulder, following Bethel's eyes to Hettie. The nursemaid was nodding frantically, her lips pressed tightly together. Suddenly she gave a little sniffle, and whisked her handkerchief up towards her eyes again.

Bethel stood up smoothly, easing Gabe's grasp down from her neck and taking his hand. She led him back to the table. "You finish this nice breafas' Cookie done maked for you," she instructed as she picked him up and lifted him back onto the boosting stool. The heel of one shoe caught on it, and Gabe navigated it carefully between the chair and the table so that he did not tug the white, lace-trimmed linens. Bethel petted his hair with one hand, smoothing it down, while with the other she picked up his fork and held it out for him. "I's jus' goin' go up an' have me a word with your mama, an' when that done you an' me's goin' go home."

"Aw, no, Bethel, don't take him home so soon!" Charlie protested. "We was gonna play bear huntin' today. I bet Pappy'd even let us play in the liberry if _Gabe_ asked him. Comp'ny's s'posed to get what they want, after all."

"Pappy let me play in the liberry," said Leon. "On 'ccount ev'buddy sick an' ain't no one to play with me."

"Mist' Gabe can come back some other day," Bethel said firmly. "He gots things to 'ttend to at home an' he awready been here a whole night. You childern don' want to be gettin' tired of each other, now do you?"

"No, ma'am," all three boys chorused.

Gabe looked up at Bethel. "What 'bout Mama?" he asked. "She comin' home wid us, too?"

"I don' think so, Mist' Gabe: not jus' yet," Bethel said gently. She sounded just like her usual capable and diplomatic self, coaxing him out of minding something he didn't much like, but there was something in her eyes that made Gabe's stomach flutter. It took him a moment to realize why, and when he did, it was all he could do to maintain his dignity in front of his friends and pretend not to be afraid. It was the look Bethel had worn on that awful day when Meg had come home all hurt and bloody, and the bad men had taken Pappy away.

Bethel bent and kissed his brow, stroking his hair again. "Seems to me like maybe your mama goin' be needed here a while longer. Jus' you eat up, now, an' enjoy visitin' with your friends. Hettie, you come 'long with me. Li'l Nell can keep her eye on the young massas – cain't you, chile?"

Nell was back in the room now, carrying the cruet of maple syrup. She nodded and curtseyed at the same time, which looked very tricky to Gabe. "Yass'm, I surely kin do that," she said. "Why, I minds my brothers, an' Missus Bohannon, she say that make me 'sperienced."

"Sure it do," Bethel affirmed, straightening up and drawing away from Gabe. She was halfway down the table before she paused to look back, eyes once again traveling uneasily over the three boys. Gabe wondered why she found it so strange to see them having breakfast all by themselves. It was a special treat: Mama had said so. But it was nothing to be upset over. He didn't like it, knowing that Bethel was upset. It was frightening.

Bethel seemed to understand this, for she smiled at him. The corners of her eyes crinkled lovingly, and her teeth glinted white between her soft, dark lips. "You have youself a nice time, my lamb," she said. "An' eat up ev'y mouthful of that ham, now. It goin' put strength in your bones."

"Yass'm," Gabe assented. Then he frowned thoughtfully. "Bet'l? Bet'l, I's 'pposed to say 'please' to Nell when I wants her to bring de syrup, ain't I? Even dough she on'y work in de kitchen an' not de nus'ry?"

For a moment Bethel's expression was surprised and stern, affronted that he should even ask such a question. Then her eyes shifted to the other boys and she seemed to understand. "Why, yes, Mist' Gabe," she said gently. "I hope I's taught you to say 'please' to ev'ybody, don' matter the work they do or who they is. Your manners ain't 'bout their station in life: it 'bout yours, an' the sort of a gent'man you been raised up to be."

"Oh, dat good," Gabe sighed, tremendously relieved. He was secure in the soundness of Bethel's judgment, and he knew that even Charlie wouldn't question her. The matter was settled: Gabe had done the right thing. "T'ank you fo' 'splainin' it to me."

"Sure, honey," Bethel whispered. She smoothed his hair once again and leaned down to kiss his upturned cheek. "Jus' you enjoy that breakfas', now."

Then Bethel was gone, and Hettie was retreating through the door and drawing it closed as she went. Gabe stared after them, listening for the sound of their shoes moving across the polished floor of the vestibule towards the big, sweeping stairs.

"We need us some conversation," Charlie decided. "That's what the host is s'posed to do. Say, Gabe! Why'n't you tell us again 'bout how you helped your pappy catch that deer?"

Leon dropped his spoon and clapped his hands. "Tell it! Tell it! Gabe gone huntin'!"

Gabe turned back to them eagerly, already working up to this most thrilling of stories. He felt proud to have such a tale to share with his friends, and as he set down to telling it, he forgot his worries. Nothing could be really wrong in the world, so long as Bethel was here to look after him.

_*discidium*_

At first Cullen could not differentiate between the pounding in his head and the knock at the door. When the sound did penetrate his foggy mind, crystalizing as something from the external world, he tried to call out to the knocker to stop. He never should have been out late, overindulging, but Bethel didn't need to be quite so heartless about waking him.

The protest, however, caught in his throat with a phlegmy croak, and his rheum-coated eyes stung as he tried to open them. His face was pressed into a generously stuffed feather pillow, and he snorted as he pried his cheek up off the dampened slip that covered it. He tried to clear his throat and rasped out a thin, groggy; "Who'sere?"

"Bellman, Mist' Bohannon," came a deep, unfamiliar voice. "You requested a wake-up call, seven o'clock?"

A wakeup call. The bellman. The St. Charles Hotel. Now dimly cognizant of where he was and the fact that it was not, in fact, Bethel who was attempting to roust him out of his dehydrated stupor, Cullen nudged himself up with one elbow. Expecting his body to respond reluctantly, he exerted more force than was strictly needed and rolled right over onto his back, dragging the bedclothes with him. The sheet was tangled about his waist, and the blankets caught on his bare arms. He flinched as he landed, head now in the valley between his pillow and the one on the other side of the bed.

"Seven," he muttered thickly. Then his chest heaved with a shallow and disproportionately painful cough and he said with more volume if not more vigor; "Thank you. Got it."

"Yassir," said the man in the corridor. "Your bath be ready in half an hour, firs' bathin' chamber on the lef'."

Cullen made a noise that might have been assent, but his eyes had given up the battle to open through the crust upon his lashes and his body had settled limply back into the excellent mattress. He could smell furniture polish and unfamiliar soap, the faint scent of wood-smoke that came from a stove with a good draft, and more distant aromas of food being prepared. His stomach lurched tiredly, but his mouth was very dry. He could taste a film of salt upon his teeth, and vaguely recalled sitting bolt upright in bed, one hand plunging deep into the feather tick for support as he rocked with the cough and spat again and again as his mouth filled with phlegm.

The hand that had been up near his face travelled down to find the place where his ribs felt as if they had been battered with a hoe-handle, and he wondered how many fits he had had that night. Without the small hands, anxious but firm, pressing against his cheek or holding his arms, without the brave little voice coaxing him on, without the patter of feet as the worried women came running, there was little to break the fever of coughing from the fever of sleep.

And there was certainly fever. The damp pillowcase was one indication, as was his consuming thirst. When he disentangled his other hand from the blankets and brought it up to his brow, he could feel the heat burning through the back of his wrist. Sighing softly, Cullen let his arm slither back into the shelter of the bedclothes.

He was tired. He was unspeakably tired, and he could not quite muster the resolve required to move. If he tried, even a little, he would awake the ache in his spine and his limbs, the dull bruised pain in his tailbone, and worst of all the anguish in his chest. It was better to lie here, motionless, with the first light of day sending feeling fingers about the edges of the heavy drapes on the window overlooking St. Charles Avenue. He was paying for this bed, damn it. He might as well enjoy it for a few more minutes before he got up to transform himself into a dapper businessman.

Just a few more minutes…

_*discidium*_

On the first landing, one of the housemaids was working the little pulley that lowered the narrow cedar-slat blinds. If Bethel had needed any further confirmation of what awaited her in the nursery, this was it. The house was being put into mourning.

She did not press Hettie for the details, any more than she would have questioned the boys themselves. Mister Gabe, Mister Charlie and little Mister Leon had obviously been whisked out of the nursery unknowing, but if Hettie did not know the whole truth she guessed enough of it. As soon as they were clear of the dining room, tears had started to well up in the girl's large brown eyes. Instead of wasting time in needling at her, Bethel had merely hastened for the stairs and led the way, up past the windows now being shaded and into the dark corridor that led to the nursery.

The door to the playroom was ajar, and Bethel swept it open without pause. Another of the housemaids stood just over the threshold, fire tools in hand and a look of numb horror on her face. Hettie went to her, and the two began conferring in whispers, but Bethel did not stop. She crossed the homey room, so filled with childish delights, and opened the door to the nursery.

The first thing she saw was the empty bed furthest from the fire, blankets rumpled and flung carelessly over the footboard. There were two pillows bunched near the top of the tick, and across them lay the imprints of three small heads. It seemed the boys had bunked in together last night. That was good. Innocent or knowing, children needed comfort in a time of dying – even if they only offered it to each other.

Bethel turned in towards the rest of the room, but before she could take in any more of the scene her vision was filled by a pale, weary and beloved face. Missus Mary came hurrying towards her, feet scarcely seeming to touch the floor.

"Oh, Bethel, you've come!" she whispered, clutching the black woman's calloused hands with her own soft ones. "Did someone bring word? I hadn't thought to send it until… but perhaps Matthew…"

"No, Missus," Bethel said, breathing slowly to keep her voice smooth and calm. She took in her mistress's harried appearance: the dark shadows beneath blue eyes now dull with exhaustion and sorrow; the loose strands of hair that had been dampened with sweat and then dried to soft, cloudy waves; the damp place on her basque where a small head had rested, perspiring. "I come to take Mist' Gabe on home, on 'ccount you gots more'n enough to see to here. But I finds them boys eatin' all by they lonesome in the dining room, an' I knowed…" She closed her eyes and forced herself to breath again: slowly, steadily. Capably. "Missus Mary, it ain't Miss Charity?"

Missus Mary shook her head almost frantically. "No," she chirped, as if her voice might break over a longer syllable. The muscles of her jaw grew taut as she swallowed. "No," she breathed. Then she turned, freeing one of Bethel's hands to gesture towards the hearth.

There sat Mister Boyd, perched on the edge of the seat of Mammy's rocker with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Mammy stood over him with a possessive palm between his shoulders. There was the doctor, standing straight and silent with his back to the dying fire. And there sat Missus Verbena in her costly rocking chair, leaning back as if to nurse. In her arms, still bundled in a swaddling blanket to comfort her in the fever, was little Baby Lucy. Her eyelids were furled, downy lashes brushing her skin. The flush of the sickness was gone from her cheeks, leaving them waxen, and her little lips were already an unearthly blue. She was dead.

"We did all we could," Missus Mary was whispering as she led Bethel further into the room. Now she could see the tears rolling silently down Mammy's cheeks, and feel the chill of despair rising from the bereaved mother and father. The doctor's kind green eyes were deadened, shut off from the pain within as well as without. "Doctor Whitehead tried… we did all we could… but she just… she just stopped breathing and we couldn't make her start again."

"She wasn't coughing," Missus Verbena said hollowly. "Only lying so quietly, trying to sleep. She was trying to sleep…"

Her voice broke, the word rising to a wail that snagged high in her throat and broke into a shuddering sob. The arm that had been supporting the baby's bottom slipped free so that one pale hand could spread to cover her mouth. Missus Mary choked back a little moan, and she broke away from Bethel to put her arms around the white lady's shaking shoulders.

"There, darling: she was peaceful," she sighed, hugging Missus Ainsely around the back and pressing her left cheek to the other woman's right. Missus Verbena leaned in towards the embrace, her slender body quaking with grief.

Mister Ainsley stiffened, looking up at her with horrible, stricken eyes. He bolted to his feet, careless of Mammy's hold upon him. "Dear God—" he snapped. Then he flung his hands over his eyes again and turned away.

Bethel could not watch this: it was an intrusion upon what was surely the most terrible and most intimate moment of any marriage. Missus Mary was there to comfort Missus Verbena, and Mister Boyd had his mammy. She turned instead to find the other nursemaids, who had lost a beloved charge tonight, and her eyes fell almost at once on Ester.

The young woman was in a position that would have been inconceivable for any slave but a nursery attendant: she was tucked up in a white girl's bed. It belonged to little Miss Daisy, and its small owner was settled in Ester's lap. She was curled in the same position that Mister Gabe had taken up night after night through the worst of his illness, lying on Ester's chest as the little boy had lain on Mister Cullen's. Both slave and child were covered with the bedclothes, which were smoothed over Miss Daisy's shoulder and tucked under her chin. One of Ester's arms was under the covers, curled to support the child's back. The other hand had crept out and was cupped lightly against the side of her head. The position looked casual enough, but Bethel's long experience made its true motive plain: from that position, the heel of Ester's hand covered Daisy's ear and blocked out the sounds in the room.

Bethel took two steps nearer, stopping by the foot of the bed. At first she had thought Ester's eyes were closed, clutching at elusive slumber or concealing her grief. Now she realized that they were only lowered: focused in on the child's serene little face. There were fever spots on Miss Daisy's cheeks, and her lips were the dark color of late cherries: she was obviously still ill, but she was alive. And Ester, watching her, was thankful.

"I thought she'd slip 'way from us, too," the nursemaid whispered, her voice so low that no one but Bethel – and the sleeping child – could hear. "When she got to coughin', an' her whole li'l body jus' shaked… but she breathin' even still, an' she sweatin' now, too. _He_ says—" She looked up long enough to jut her chin towards the doctor. "—that mean the fever comin' down. Might be she goin' come through her jus' fine."

Bethel nodded, understanding. Ester might grieve for little Lucy, and doubtless would mourn her in her own quiet way, but this child was her special pet – the one she had feared most to lose. Now she was so far gone in exhaustion and relief that she could not even feel the sorrow of this terrible time. Bethel moved nearer: near enough that she could reach down to pet the cloud of golden curls bubbling out from the edges of the nightcap of French lace. She did not. Instead she cupped her hand over the bony shoulder that supported the little head, squeezing it consolingly.

Ester was only twenty, and had no young ones of her own. Word was that she was sparking with a boy down on the Trussel plantation, but they lived far enough from one another that visits were a rarity. It might be years before there came a little black baby to fill the place now reserved for Daisy Ainsley. Such a day might never come at all. Bethel felt a kinship with the young nursemaid that turned her thoughts unbidden over the long southwestward miles that lay between West Willows Plantation and the city of New Orleans.

"Jus' you look out fo' her, now," Bethel murmured. "Might be her mama ain' in no fit state to do it fo' some time yet."

Ester nodded hypnotically, her gaze once more fixed upon the slumbering child. Gently Bethel withdrew her hand.

Meelia was standing beyond Charity's bed, shrunken into a shadow in the far corner of the room. She was watching the tableau by the fireplace with a lost, vacant horror that told Bethel that she was far gone from the tragedy of the moment. She was remembering another awful dawn, years ago, when it had been she and not her mistress bowed low over a cold little body, sobbing as though the world had ceased to be. One shaking hand hovered near her throat, and the other clutched a fistful of apron.

There was nothing that Bethel could do for Missus Ainsley. Any effort would have been quite justly rebuffed as being not only above her station, but also the ministrations of a near-stranger. Surely Missus Mary's soft, sweet voice and loving arms were more welcome, and when Mister Boyd came back to himself he would be able to offer still more comfort. But there was one thing that Bethel could do here, and she did it now. Firmly and swiftly, with the air of command belonging only to those who, without any legal or tangible power, stood up quietly for the rights of their downtrodden people, Bethel rounded the foot of the bed in which Miss Charity languished in enervated convalescing slumber. She took hold of Meelia's elbow with one hand, and slipped the other around her waist.

"Come 'long," she said, her voice low but determined. "I done brung Hettie up from the dinin' room, an' your Nell down there mindin' them boys all by herself. You come an' help her, now, an' I'll see 'bout someone fetchin' your little 'uns to you. Sumbody gots to keep Mist' Charlie an' Mist' Leon busy 'til their pappy fit to 'splain to them, an' there ain't no better distraction fo' li'l boys than more li'l boys."

Meelia looked up at her, stunned as a sleepwalker who suddenly awakens in a neighbor's parlor. "My li'l boys," she said hoarsely.

"Yes, honey: them li'l rapscallions, 'live an' healthy an' fit to keep comp'ny with Mist' Charlie an' Mist' Leon," said Bethel. "I gots to get my own boy on home an' 'way from the commotion, but 'Zekiel an' Tommy an' li'l Jim kin take his place. An' you kin watch 'em play an' think on that."

"But Miss Verbena…" Meelia mumbled, her gaze trailing after her mistress as the two black women moved towards the door.

"You kin be a rock of hope fo' Miss Verbena when you's got youself straightened," Bethel said. From the corner of her eye, she could see Missus Mary watching them, though she was still bent over the grieving mother and murmuring to her. There was a knowledge in her eyes: an understanding of what Bethel was doing. "Ain' goin' help her, you standin' here heartsick an' haunted."

"Poor li'l chile," murmured Meelia, shaking her head like one in a trance. "Why them angels have to come an' fetch off the babies?"

"They don' fetch 'em all, honey," Bethel whispered. They were near the door now, and Hettie had caught sight of them. She hurried forward, and Bethel handed off Meelia's arm to her. The girl looked worriedly at her superior, but petted her arm fondly. "Take her down to see her girl," Bethel instructed. "An' you tell Eulalie that Missus Bohannon say Meelia's boys is to come an' keep Mist' Charlie an' Mist' Leon comp'ny. Mist' Boyd goin' talk to them jus' as soon as he fit to, but in the meanwhile they's to stay down in the dinin' room an' not ask no questions. You tell her I'll be down direc'ly fo' Mist' Gabe, an' I's goin' want to see Missus Bohannon's instructions carried out."

"Yass'm," said Hettie, nodding her fervent obedience. "Meelia's boys to come an' keep the young massas comp'ny. C'mon Meelia," she coaxed. "C'mon, an' we'll fin' your boys."

Meelia went meekly, shaken to the core and likely understanding nothing more than the promise that she was to see her children. Bethel watched them only as far as the playroom door, for she was drawn back into the room by the sense that she was needed. Sure enough, even as she came Doctor Whitehead was crouching before Missus Verbena, drawing her focus so that Missus Mary could slip away for a moment. She hurried towards Bethel, eyes wide and anxious.

"Do they know?" she asked. "The boys. We tried to get them out before they noticed, and… oh, I don't know how to tell them! How will we explain?"

"That fo' Mist' Boyd to do," Bethel soothed, catching Missus Mary's fluttering hand and holding it close. "Doct' Whitehead goin' know how to help him do it. But I's takin' Mist' Gabe on home right 'way. He don' gots to be here, not with them two girls still needin' your care, an' Missus Verbena in the state she be in."

"Oh, Bethel, I never would have brought him if I'd thought this might… did I do wrong?"

Her eyes were so vast with pain and worry that Bethel very nearly enfolded her in an embrace as she would have a little girl. Instead she cupped her hand over one cold, velvet-soft cheek as she shook her head. "You done rightly," she said. "Mist' Gabe down there now, havin' hisself a happy visit with his friends. He ain't goin' know no diff'rent. An' you's gived them two boys a happy visit, too, when there ain't goin' be too much happiness in this house fo' a while. Don' fret 'bout our li'l man, Missus Mary. You gived him a treat, an' now I's goin' git him on home an' back to his reg'lar business. He goin' be jus' fine."

"Just fine," Missus Mary said, veiling her eyes and nodding slowly to brace herself. "Just fine. I should come down and see you off: explain to him that I'm staying a little longer. I don't want him to think that I've…"

She gestured helplessly, her hand fluttering again. She saw it go, and forced it to travel down to the front of her basque, pressing over her corseted stomach.

"I think it bes' I jus' take 'im, Missus," said Bethel. "He goin' feel them trials you been through, an' it boun' to worry him. Jus' you stay on up here, an' don' forget to be takin' care of youself in b'tween takin' care of Missus Verbena an' them girls. You gots to take care of youself."

Missus Mary closed her eyes, faltering for a moment before she resolved herself and nodded affirmatively. "Thank you, Bethel," she whispered. "What would I do without you?"

"Aw, honey, I cain't go answerin' that. I don' hardly know what I'd do 'thout _you_, an' I's lived more'n fifty years that way," said Bethel, patting the back of her hand once more. "When you comes home, see they gives you a ride in that carriage. I's got Meg here to drive back Pike an' Bonnie."

Missus Mary looked at her in mild surprise. "I'd forgotten!" she said, looking suddenly younger and not so careworn. "Cullen wouldn't want them off the place for longer than a night, would he?"

"Not if it ain't necessary," Bethel agreed. "Elijah know bes' how to care for 'em, better'n Mist' Ainsley's men. Same as I know how to care for Mist' Gabe, better'n Meelia an' Hettie."

"About Meelia…" Missus Mary whispered, dropping her voice and glancing warily back over her shoulder. "Thank you."

"I tooked the lib'ty of speakin' in your name 'bout that," Bethel rejoined softly. "I thought mebbe you woudn' mind it."

Missus Mary's small, wavering smile was more than ample confirmation of that.

_*discidium*_

There was the cough, and the awful, inhuman struggle to whoop in a thin breath barely sufficient to stave off unconsciousness. There was the blinding pain of strained ribs and an overworked diaphragm; deep and malicious pain that was almost more than a man could bear with any dignity. And there was the sucking void of weariness that dragged at him through the fits and yanked him back into thick, heavy slumber as soon as they passed. Once he tried to get up to fetch himself a glass of water from the tray set so temptingly on the other side of the room, and he managed two unsteady steps before his knees gave out. He landed hard upon the rich carpet, fingers digging deep into the nap with its pomegranate motif, and he stayed there panting shallowly while the sweat burned in his eyes.

He thought of ringing for help: for someone to straighten the tangled and clammy sheets, to bring him water, to dose him from Bethel's bottles. But even in the dim and indistinct world of breathlessness, sudden chills, and bone-deep aches Cullen knew he must not do that. This would pass, and when it did he had business to see to. If it was known that he was ill…

And so he dragged himself up so that his hip was braced against the mattress, and he clung to the bedpost to steady himself as he stood again. He gripped it like a crutch and he shuffled around to the foot of the bed, until he could reach out and grab hold of the table. Then it was two shuffling steps to a handsomely carved dining chair with strong, smooth armrests to lean against. The basket was on the table, and the medicines were in the basket: bitter soothing syrup for his chest, and the sickly-sweet, faintly lemony elderflower cordial for the fever. He swigged from each, not troubling to struggle with a spoon to measure the doses. A short swallow of the first, a long draught of the second. And though his mouth was dry and the tinctures foul upon his tongue he forced them down and kept them there. He reached with shaking hands for the pitcher and tumbler and poured himself a cupful of water, spilling as much as he caught. He gulped it greedily, and his stomach churned in empty protestation. Then for a long time he simply sat, head hanging over his lap, and coughed shallowly at intervals, praying each time that one rattle of his lungs would not blossom into a storm.

It was his first full day in New Orleans, and he should have been making arrangements. He had missed his bathing call, and would have to go through the trouble of ordering up another. Doubtless his bill would be adjusted accordingly, but that seemed like a very distant concern at the moment. More agitating was the knowledge that he should have been downstairs in the large and well-appointed general drawing room, penning notes of greeting to his various buyers and making arrangements to meet. Every year the ritual was the same, and that ritual had to be observed with diligence. It was best if they heard of his arrival first from his own hands. If they did not, they might take offence – some more quickly than others. He could not afford to offend anyone this year.

But neither could he conceive of dressing himself, of combing his unruly hair and tying his cravat and strolling down to find a vacant writing-table. His hands shook just lifting a cup of water: how could he hold a pen and put it through the smooth, fluid motions required of formal handwriting? And as the cough burbled up again, not alone this time but marching at the head of a battalion, he knew he could not go down among the great men of the city in this condition.

When at last the fit passed, leaving him weak and dizzy and clutching the tabletop, Cullen could feel nothing but the inexorable pull of the bed. He was tired. He was so terribly tired, and he wanted to lie down. Distantly he wondered if this was it at last: the crisis he had watched his son suffer through, the point at which the sickness would turn for good or for ill. Doc Whitehead had said he might not even have one, but what else could this be? And there was no Bethel to nurse, coax and bully him through it. No Mary to bathe his head and neck with a cool cloth. No brave little Gabe to remind him why he had to come through this. There was only the empty hotel room, the cast-iron heating stove long gone cold, and the specter of the next coughing jag lurking in his chest like a beast.

Weary but determined, Cullen hauled himself onto his faltering feet. He did not stumble this time so much as simply fall forward, right leg thrusting out instinctively so that his knee barked against the heavy footboard. He hissed in surprise and irritation, the sudden pain in his leg a welcome distraction from the throbbing in his temples and the fire in his ribs. And then he planted both hands on the bed, feeling them sink deep in the plump feather mattress. He climbed up over the footboard, shoving the hangings aside, and crawled up the length of the bed to where the indentation of his body was still apparent in the nest of tangled blankets. He flopped down onto his right flank, curling in towards the middle of the bed. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, trying to hold in muscles too overworked to support themselves, and he screwed his eyes closed. Angry irritation at the absurd pathos of his position flared briefly, but he lacked the energy to sustain it. He was slipping away into an almost drunken oblivion again, and he welcomed it.

The hours stretched on.


	98. Simple Comforts

_Note: It's beyond time to thank my anonymous reviewers. I can't reply to you through the message server, of course, but I want each of you to know how very much I treasure and appreciate your feedback. Thank you! On rough days, when I'm tired and frustrated and hurting, it means so much to know that my work is read and appreciated. The greatest gift you can give an author is your feedback: positive, constructive, critical, however lengthy or brief, complex or simple. Never doubt that your comments make a difference: they fuel my passion to create, and my drive to keep posting. Thank you, thank you, thank you._

**Chapter Ninety-Eight: Simple Comforts**

With a final shuddering sob as soft as a sigh, Verbena Ainsley slept. It happened as swiftly and cleanly as if she had swooned. Her shoulders deflated, sinking deep into the feather bed, and the lines of torment about her lips and eyes grew softer. Still she had the haggard look of a woman who has known the greatest torment any mother could face. In the dusky dark of the great bedroom, its drapes drawn in custom hours before, her face and hands were a waxy gray and her ordinarily lustrous hair lank and disarrayed. The tear-tracks glistened on her strained cheeks, and her lips were parted to draw breath that could not pass through her stuffed nose. She looked nothing like her usual ornamental, almost porcelain-perfect self, and when she awoke and realized it she would doubtless be mortified.

Mary's breathing eased a little as the crushing grip upon her hand grew loose. It had taken the combined efforts of Boyd, Doctor Whitehead and herself to coax Verbena to relinquish Lucy's cold little body so that Mammy could begin the delicate work of bathing her for the laying-out. When at last Verbena let her baby go, she kept her tearful dignity only long enough to be shepherded out of the nursery where Charity slept and Daisy lay wakeful. Once clear of the playroom, Verbena's knees had given way entirely. Had she not been flanked by Mary and Boyd, each of whom had seized an elbow to buoy her up, she would have crumpled to her knees.

She had sobbed then, loud and visceral sobs that tore from her lips and rang up and down the hallway. It was all they could do to herd her into the bedroom, where she had flung herself face-first upon the bed and wept so long and so hard that Mary had feared she would snap a whalebone. Boyd had stood over her, watching in helpless horror with his own grief beleaguered by his bewilderment at this wild, wailing creature that had replaced his serene wife. It had been a mercy when Cora, the ladies' maid, had emerged from some inner alcove to take up his place. Then Boyd had been free to flee the room, mumbling clumsy apologies to everyone as he skirted around the doctor in the doorway.

Doctor Whitehead had prepared a tincture of sleeping powders while Mary set about undressing Verbena. Cora, who was tall and elegant and possessed an exquisite tawny complexion, had been almost as much at a loss as her master. She was, however, far more skilled than he would have been in navigating the intricate layers of buttons, hooks, cords, laces and plackets that fastened Verbena's garments. Together, she and Mary managed to remove Verbena's dress, petticoats and corset-cover. They loosened the corset-strings, too, but when Mary reached to unlatch the busk Cora reached to stop her.

"Miss Verbena don' never sleep without her stays, ma'am," she said in a hushed voice. She glanced warily at the doctor, turned away from the hasty toilette as he prepared the medicine, then added; "How you think she keeped such a fine figure aft' all them babies?"

Mary could have cursed her for using that word, for it made Verbena moan and claw at her hair again, tears springing fresh. But of course the maid meant no harm, and she merely shook her head instead. "She can sleep without it now," she said firmly. "She'll hurt herself otherwise. Verbena. _Verbena._" When the anguished eyes fixed upon her face, she went on. "We're going to take off your corset, and Doctor Whitehead has something for you to take."

"Just a little something to help you calm yourself, my dear," Doctor Whitehead said, approaching the bed at last. "Drink it down quick, and I'll leave you to your rest."

And so he had dosed her, Verbena taking it meekly enough between gasping sobs, and Mary had at last managed to get her out of her corset. She had sat beside her for a long while, letting Verbena cling to her hand while the other stroked her hair and Cora looked on from the far side of the broad bed, eyes mournful and anxious. Now at last she was sleeping: the only kindness the world could offer her at such a dreadful time.

"I must go and speak to Mr. Ainsley," Mary said softly, slipping her fingers free from Verbena's and flexing them with some relief. "Someone will have to explain to the children."

Cora lowered her eyes uneasily, letting them travel over her prostrate mistress. "She sets such store by them childern," she whispered.

Mary nodded and rose to her feet, reaching to smooth the coverlet where she had been sitting. "Please do fetch me if I'm needed," she said, slipping quietly away.

Doctor Whitehead was waiting in the corridor, scrubbing his stubbled jaw with his palm. There had been no question of him shaving, of course, and Mary wondered how many hours had passed since last he had slept. "She's peaceful; for now," she said softly as she drew the door closed. "In her place I'm not at all certain I could manage the same."

The doctor looked at her thoughtfully. "Miss Mary, I don't doubt that you would bear up under any tragedy with grace and courage, just as you're doing now," he said. "I was going to see if I could find Boyd. I don't quite know how he's coping, but the children ought to hear this from their father instead of one of the slaves."

"You might try the library," Mary suggested; "but I would start with the back parlor. Mr. Ainsley sits there in the mornings, and it may be that Boyd would want to speak to his father first."

"That's just what I'll do; thank you," said Doc. He regarded her once more, wordlessly, and then cupped a hand briefly and tenderly against her elbow. Squaring his shoulders and blinking exhaustion-blurred eyes, he started off towards the great staircase.

Mary watched him go, and then tugged at her dress to straighten rumpled skirts and a basque crawling inexorably askew. A fluttering hand told her that her hair was not too badly disarrayed, particularly considering the sleepless night and its attendant labors. At least she was confident that her face, though pale, was composed. Her own tears were balled in a hot nest between her breasts, kept down by grim determination and the knowledge that she could not afford to weep. She was needed, so desperately needed, and of all the players in this drama her grief was the smallest. She had adored little Lucy, but she had scarcely known her. The pain of Verbena, of Boyd, of Mammy and the nursemaids and even the doctor, was so much greater than her own.

The nursery looked strangely deserted, with only Charity in her bed at the far end, and Ester standing by the changing cabinet as she rucked up Daisy's nightgown and set about unpinning her diapers. The little girl heard the soft rasp of the door, and raised her head. She did so by tucking her chin, obediently keeping her shoulders and torso upon the towel. The motion was adorable, perhaps even comic, and yet it only made that writhing mass in Mary's chest burn all the hotter.

"Miss Mewwy," the little girl said. Her poor voice was hoarse, her throat rasped raw by ceaseless coughing, but her tone was matter-of-fact and pleasant. "Mudder go to bed?"

"Yes, dear. Mother's gone to bed," Mary said, approaching the child and feeling secret relief when Ester merely continued with her work instead of trying to shy away, curtsey and mumble obeisances. Mary slipped around her to stand near Daisy's head, so that the little girl could lay it down again. That particular contracture of the neck looked all too likely to bring on another fit. "She will sleep for a while, I think, but I'm here to help Ester look after you."

"Ess," said Daisy solemnly, reaching across her plump little body to pat her nurse's arm. "Daisy 'leepy."

Mary cupped the crown of her bonneted head. "I know you are, sweet one," she murmured. "Just as soon as you're clean and dressed again, we can get you back to bed."

"Baby gone 'way," Daisy observed mildly, looking up at the ceiling with great interest. "Mammy take Baby."

Mary had to swallow fiercely to keep the glob of grief where it belonged. She turned up the corners of her lips into a tiny smile, even though the motion seemed likely to split her face in two. The doctor was right: the children should hear this news from their father. But Daisy had been awake and listening through the entire commotion of convincing Verbena to yield up her youngest child's stiffening body. She had obviously heard and understood at least some of what had been said.

"Yes, Daisy," she murmured, by some miracle managing to keep her voice level and serene. "Baby has gone away to Heaven. Lucy's with Jesus now in Paradise, and she will never be sad or sick or hurting again."

Daisy's eyes moved to Mary's face, and she studied it. It was clear that she did not understand the permanence of this, for there was no distress in her sweet blue eyes. She puckered her lips together pensively, and nodded. "Baby not cough no more?" she asked.

"No," said Mary. "There's no coughing in heaven."

"Hebben," Daisy echoed happily. She clapped her hands. "On Earff, in Hebben. Daisy bwed."

"Would you like a piece of bread, lamb?" Ester asked, somewhat surprised. "I kin have it fetched in jus' a minute, if'n you gots a appetite."

But Mary understood. "That's right," she said. "_Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses…_"

She could not continue the prayer, fighting for composure as she was, but Daisy grinned with the satisfied triumph of a small child whose earnest attempts at communication, so often precarious, have been perfectly understood. "Pass 'gainst us," she agreed. She clapped her hands proudly. "A-_men_. Daisy pway!"

"Yes, darling. Daisy prays," Mary agreed gently. Ester was folding up the soiled diaper with one hand while she reached for a damp rag with the other. Daisy obligingly hoisted her bottom a little higher, inadvertently pressing her crown more firmly against Mary's palm. Suddenly a dampness seemed to be seeping through the fine muslin, and before she knew what she was doing Mary had untied the chin-ribbons and whisked the cap off of Daisy's head.

"Oh, Daisy, your hair is wet!" she cried, all of the pent-up emotions of the day breaking from her lips at once. A tear blossomed in the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek as she felt Daisy's head, her plump little neck, her cheeks now pale and sticky with perspiration.

"Not wash it," Daisy said worriedly. "Daisy not wash hair."

But Mary was looking back and forth between the little girl and the bright-eyed young woman beside her, whose realization had just begun to dawn. "It's broken," Mary whispered. "Her fever. It's coming down."

Ester nodded fervently, and Daisy frowned it puzzlement. "Daisy not bweak nuffin'…" she said, defensive but adorably uncertain.

Mary laughed unsteadily, a little histerically, and bent to kiss the damp little brow. "It's all right, Daisy. It's all right," she murmured. Then she forced her voice to steady again. "Your fever is coming down, darling: that's all. Don't you feel a little better?"

"Feel 'leepy," Daisy said with firm finality. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her cheek against the back of Mary's hand. "Miss Mewwy wock Daisy?"

_*discidium*_

Though distant and muffled, the noises were unfamiliar to Cullen's ears and unsettling. Lying motionless, he listened. The rattle of carriage-wheels on a cobbled street finally jarred his memory and he moaned softly to himself. He was in New Orleans, buried deep in a luxuriant feather tick in a bed at the St. Charles Hotel, and he was meant to be selling his damned tobacco.

He tried to open his eyes, but they were crusted shut. A hasty scrubbing with the back of one thumb resolved that, and he blinked blearily into the gloom. His throat was dry and burning and his lips rasped painfully over one another as he tried to move them. There was a knot of strain at the base of his neck, and he kneaded it with the hand that had moved so obediently to his eyes. The bedclothes were tangled about his waist, leaving his back bared to the air. A chill coursed up it, and he had to fight the urge to whimper in plaintive misery. He could not just lie here. He had to get up. He knew that. And yet…

Cullen rolled slowly onto his back, feeling the ravaged muscles that wrapped his ribs twinge and tighten with the effort. He lay there, panting shallowly and squinting up at the tester above him. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, and he was not entirely certain where he had put his watch. He vaguely remembered removing his coat so the chambermaid could brush it – but that had been last night, hadn't it? He had slept a long time: that much was certain. His mouth had the parched, cottony feel he ordinarily associated with imbibing to excess, but he knew he had not been drinking. It was the fever that had wrung him dry and left him in this sorry state.

A thin, painful cough bubbled from his lips, stirring the phlegm that had pooled in the back of his throat. His handkerchief had gone the way of his pocket-watch: hopelessly lost in the haze of indistinct and semi-delirious recollections. So he spat into his palm and wiped it on a corner of the bedsheet. The gesture was uncouth but strangely satisfying, and he drew his other hand across his eyes again.

He had to get a sense of the time. That was the first order of business, and then he could determine just how much of the day he had wasted and what he might do to salvage the rest. Pushing into the knotted sinews, he turned his head towards the heavily shrouded window. Only a little light filtered up from behind the curtain-rail and around the left-hand edge where the drapes had been pulled a little too far to center, but it was not the unsteady yellow glow of streetlamps far below. Instead it had the greenish tint of a partly overcast subtropical sky. It was still daylight, and that was something.

Sitting up proved a torturous and difficult proposition. The muscles of his abdomen had the same dull, bruised feeling of those around his chest, and Cullen wondered just how hard and how frequently he had coughed as he drifted in and out of febrile slumber. He spread a cautious hand over his stomach, fingers splayed and thumb resting over the point of his breastbone, and braced himself as he fought the tangle of bedding to push himself upright. He could not help flinching as he did so, but what might have been a grim hiss of pain caught in his dry throat and lodged there. Once upright, he slumped back with his shoulder blades hooked against the carved top of the headboard, and the awful sickening dizziness swelled again.

He did not know whether to laugh or to fume with fury, and decided he lacked the strength to do either. Who would have thought that a child's disease could wring him out so utterly? He never would have expected it; Doc Whitehead had given no intimation of it; and certainly Bethel had not imagined this, or she would have locked him up in the springhouse rather than let him go off to another state. Cullen adjusted his palm gingerly, moving it to press on a more painful span of his chest. The skin beneath it was hot and dry, and he was assailed by a troublingly vivid memory of holding Gabe while he sweltered through his crisis. In the end they had managed to keep the little boy breathing long enough for the fever to break and the convalescence to begin, but the nearness of the pass with death still haunted him. What would he have done if his son had died? The very thought was unbearable.

His watch, he thought, and then dismissed it. He could worry about the exact hour later: it was enough to know that it was still Wednesday. At least he hoped it was still Wednesday. Surely he could not have slept through another entire night without relieving his bladder again, and that was something he would definitely remember. He knew he had done it twice, each time struggling just to totter to the other side of the room and having to catch himself repeatedly so that he did not knock over the screen. He had fetched himself a much-needed drink of water on each occasion, too, and it was there his mind turned now. He was wretchedly thirsty, and the throbbing of his head might abate a little if he drank. But the salver with its pitcher and glasses was so far away, and the effort needed to reach it seemed monumental. He closed his eyes and tried to marshal what little strength he had.

The next order of business after the glass of water would be to dress himself decently. It might still be daylight, but Cullen was not under any illusion that he might be fit enough to leave the hotel. Nevertheless, if he could get himself into something more dignified than a rumpled pair of drawers, he could wring for an attendant. Going down to the drawing room was unwise, but he could have pen and paper brought here and set about the task of writing his letters of introduction. He thought he was just about lucid enough to manage that. How he would effect the actual meetings he did not know, but that was a problem to be deferred at least a little while. Much as he might wish to curl back into the indentation his body had left in the mattress, he had a mission to carry out.

First he hoisted himself off of the headboard, leaning forward over his lap and wheezing thinly as his clogged chest adjusted to the new angle. Freeing his feet from the tightly-twined blankets was his next concern. It seemed that he had thrashed like a landed trout, for the sheet and blankets were twisted this way and that and felt almost as tight as a tourniquet when he tried to pull his feet loose. Eventually he raised his knees, dragging the whole wooly mess up the bed until he could attack the thick ropes of cloth with his hands. He made no attempt to straighten the covers, and simply left them in a mound in the middle of the bed as he lowered his legs over the side.

The rug beside the bed was lush and deep, its nap tickling the soles of his bare feet. He wriggled his toes reflexively as he shifted his weight forward, all the time keeping one hand firmly on his chest. He had bruised his ribs more than once, falling from an unbroken young horse or failing to take an overly-ambitious jump, and though the distance of years might have caused his recollections of that pain to fade Cullen thought this was every bit as bad. The trauma to his muscles and cartilage had come from within this time, instead of without, but the effect was the same. He thought of Gabe clutching his big hand with both small ones, pressing it to his chest and saying; "When you hol' me like dat, de coughin' don' hurt so bad." He shuddered. He had not needed to understand any more deeply than he already had just what his son had suffered.

Actually standing was a difficult proposition that might have been impossible without the carved bedpost to cling to. Cullen's legs trembled unsteadily and his head reeled. But he was determined, and in the end he was standing – swaying and nauseous, but standing.

He took his first step warily, uncertain whether it would hold. But it did, and he shuffled without further ceremony to the cupboard on which the tray sat. He had used one of the tumblers already, and it was sitting on the table just out of arm's reach. Rather than exert himself to grab it, Cullen picked up another in a hand that shook on a deep but narrow wavelength. Carefully he closed his fingers on the cut-glass handle of the pitcher, and tensed his arm to lift it.

It rose too swiftly, and his heart sank. In a gesture that was driven more by desperation than by optimism, he tilted it over the cup anyhow. A tiny puddle of fluid rolled to the spout and hung upon its lip for a moment before falling into the glass. The pitcher was empty.

Cullen set it down, his head curling forward as he did so. A low, rattling noise of frustration passed his parched lips, and his grip on the cup grew so tight that it rocked from side to side as the tremor in his hand broadened. A flare of fury at this irrational injustice had to be quenched before he could fling the tumbler against the wall, and he loosened his fingers with a tremendous force of will. Although he knew the gesture was all but pointless, he raised the cup to his mouth and tipped it. The squat globe of water rolled again, touching his lower lip and just barely splashing his front teeth before it dissipated entirely. Cullen felt a shudder of despair run up his back.

It was logical, of course. He didn't remember how much he had drunk, but the dainty little vessel only held about three pints. It was just a small convenience to tide guests over until the bellhops could fetch whatever refreshments they requested. It would have been refilled for him by the chambermaid who came to make the bed and do up the room, but with the door latched firmly from within that element of the hotel's routine would have been quietly suspended. He could ring, of course, if he could only totter back to the head of the bed where the bellpull hung, but he did not want to be seen like this even by one of the St Charles slaves. Hotels were hotbeds of gossip.

Cullen was not sure whether he had the clarity of mind, much less the actual strength, to dress himself properly without first dulling his thirst a little. He looked toward the clothespress, looming vaguely in the shadows on the far side of the room. He could manage his nightshirt, but if the light was right and it was still the middle of the afternoon that would raise even more questions than his present state of dishabille. His knees quaked ominously, and he clutched the back of the nearest chair as he fought off the disproportionate swell of bitter despair that rose up within him. It seemed as though every cell in his body shriveled for want of water, and his mouth no longer felt packed with cotton, but with sand.

He set down the glass with a dull _thump_, and backed away from the cabinet with a long, convulsive step. He was irrationally angry and he knew it, but that knowledge only fed his blinding wrath. Was it too much to ask, after everything that had happened this year, for his selling trip to go smoothly? Of all the times of the year to be laid low by whooping cough, this was positively the most disastrous – and he had just about resigned himself to that, but why did every little thing that could possibly go wrong have to _do_ it? If he rang for water now, as he desperately needed to, by the end of the day it would be all 'round the hotel that the man staying in Number 17 on the fifth floor was sickening for something. From the whispers of the slaves the information would pass to the white employees, and from them to any businessmen who were known to offer generous gratuities for such potentially profitable tips. As paranoid and ludicrous as the notion might seem to one unfamiliar with the intricacies of Southern business practices, the truth was that this empty water pitcher might undermine the entire transaction.

But he had to have water, and in his moment of desperation Cullen could do nothing but rage against the injustice of his situation. He whirled and stumbled, intending to cross the room to the bellpull, but as he did so his hip barked one of the folds of the screen that shielded the chamber pot and washstand. It shuddered, and the noise jolted him out of his blind anger with a start.

Because of course, there was another place in any well-appointed hotel room where the guests were furnished with water.

He rounded the edge of the screen so quickly that he almost felt as if he had not moved at all. In his haste he had forgotten to double back for a glass, but he did not care. The big, four-quart porcelain pitcher sat neatly in the center of the washbasin, waiting for the road-weary traveler to pour out a measure with which to bathe his face and hands. In his exhaustion the night before, Cullen had not even considered attempting such ablutions – and he had made an earnest enough effort at the depot anyhow. The pitcher was still full, the water untouched. He dipped his hand into its wide mouth and drew up a cupped palmful of water.

It was gloriously wet, cool from standing in a room with the stove burned out, and Cullen slurped it greedily. He bowed low over the pitcher to shorten the distance his hand had to travel, and when the second mouthful seemed too meager he poured half the water into the basin so that he could cup both hands together. He drank until his stomach lurched uneasily, and then clutched the decorative rails on either side of the washstand and panted shallowly over his private little pond until he felt able to drink again. This time he did so more slowly, and after a few more sips he splashed his face with the cool fluid, taking up handfuls to pat against the sides of his neck.

This seemed not only to soothe the fever, but to restore to him some sense of his own humanity. When at last Cullen straightened again, ribs protesting piteously, he felt more like himself than he had in days. He dipped his hand once more and raked it through his wild hair, fingers snagging on the places where the curls had matted. Then he emerged from the screened-in corner and went to the window.

It was late afternoon, he saw at once as he tugged aside one edge of the curtain. The sun was hanging low behind misty wisps of cloud, and the street below was bustling with activity. Looking down on the world from such a lofty height was dizzying, and Cullen turned away, but he tugged one half of the drapes open to admit the light. Now he could see clearly what a mess he had made of the bed. There were dark splotches where perspiration was drying on the sheets. The pillows on his side of the bed were mashed and misshapen, and those on the other side had somehow been pushed almost to the edge of the mattress. The blankets could not have been more chaotically knotted had a horde of imps set out to do it intentionally, and the silk coverlet had slithered down onto the floor. Whatever demons had hounded him in the fever-dreams he could not now remember, they must have known their business.

Cullen shuffled across the room, coughing shallowly as the fluids in his lungs began to migrate again. He was due for another fit, not only because he thought the last had been at least an hour ago but because he was now up and moving. He hoped to get himself dressed before it caught up with him, because he was not certain he would feel up to the task after. He leaned against the door on the left side of the clothespress, and opened the first drawer on the right.

Then began the painstaking process of climbing into a suit of clothes while his head reeled with every off-keel motion. Shucking the drawers he was wearing was easy enough, but he tottered perilously when stepping into fresh ones. His left arm slipped smoothly into the sleeve of his undershirt, but his right shoulder was still stiff from the blow it had taken on Friday. Suddenly curious, Cullen contorted his neck painfully in order to examine the bruise left by Brannan's prybar. It was yellow about the edges, and a sickly purple-green at the center. By the time he got home, it would be gone. That was good. He didn't much like that Mary had seen it at all, and he didn't want to tarnish their reunion with a reminder of that incident.

His mind wandered to Nate as he leaned heavily against the sturdy piece of furniture to pull on his stockings. He would be going through his own sort of hell this week, lying idle when there was work to be done and stewing in rage and humiliation. Cullen knew that his opinions on the matter would not have been appreciated in any case, but he still wished that this, too, had not had to coincide so perfectly with his absence from the plantation. What had once been an unbreakable friendship was now a tenuous truce, and Nate would never want to talk to him about his troubles, but at least with another ablebodied man on the place the Negro might not feel his uselessness so keenly. Cullen had wanted to tell him that it didn't matter, and that they would get by somehow even with the plows standing idle and the wheat unplanted, but somehow he just hadn't found the time. He regretted that.

The pants he had worn on the journey were crumpled on the floor where he had been standing when he stripped the night before, and every ounce of energy was precious. So Cullen took a fresh pair from the clothespress, making sure it was not his best. He realized only after he had buttoned them that he had to get over to the other pair anyway, to recover his braces. He grunted softly and scrubbed his brow as if under a tremendous mental strain. All his trousers fit too loosely now, after a hard summer that had pared away every scrap of padding from his body. He did need the damned braces, for comfort as much as propriety. But he wasn't going to drag himself all the way over there just to double back here again. He would get the rest of his clothing first.

He chose his shirt carefully, looking for the oldest one. They were all good shirts, but some were undeniably better than others and he intended to reserve his best clothes for his meetings. He wondered whether Pepé Dautreuil had happened across any of his usual buyers today, and if he might have mentioned Cullen's arrival if he had. He tried to decide how serious the breech of etiquette would be if this had happened, and decided that as long as he got the letters out before the supper hour was over it would not be significant. The men he traded with were not all easily offended, and even those who were had enough imagination to comprehend that there were other things a man might want to do on his first full day in the city besides writing letters.

With his shirt buttoned and tucked, Cullen had only to take down his second-best waistcoat. There was no point in putting it on until he had his suspenders in place, and so he closed up the clothespress and trudged over to the table. Bending from the waist seemed likely to bring on blinding dizziness, in addition to straining his ribs, and so he held the edge of the table and squatted. Once he was firmly down on his haunches he felt confident enough to loose his hold so that he could unbutton the braces two-handed. But even as he reached for the last tab he felt his diaphragm tighten and his whole body tense with dread.

The first cough was not so awful, but the second sent him rocking back over his heels. He sat with a _thud_ that had to have been heard on the floor below, and the jar of impact set off a new spate of swift, shallow, smothering coughs. Cullen pushed back with one sock-clad heel, and his backside slid smoothly over the polished wood floor so that his shoulder blades were thrust firmly against the footboard of the bed. With this solid mass to lean against, he hugged both arms across a chest now exploding in concussive waves of overwrought agony and rode out the fit as best he could.

When at last it passed, he was quaking and exhausted. His throat and soft palate were raw with whooping; a bright pain that played a shrill harmony to the deep throbbing in his ribs. His stomach was churning fretfully, having only narrowly escaped expelling its scanty contents when the cough had triggered his gag reflex. His fresh undergarments were sticky with cold sweat.

Cullen sat for a while, clinging to each small, pained breath with the reverence of one who has seen all too clearly what it is to do without air. Then slowly his sense of purpose returned to him, and he remembered what he had been doing before the fit had consumed him so utterly. Tiredly but with the same grim obstinacy that had carried him through the hard harvest, he sat forward again and reached for the discarded pants. He freed the suspenders at last, and folded the wool garment as neatly as he was able. He flopped it up onto the seat of one of the chairs, where it was followed by the rest of the clothes he had shucked so unceremoniously before crawling into the bed. Only when this was done did he pick himself up, slowly and not without pain.

His pants had indeed begun to slide down his hips, and he affixed the braces to them before tugging his waistband back into place. Then he put on his vest, wound the watch he had found in the pocket of the other one, and slipped it into the appropriate pocket. Only then, at long last, did he drag himself back to the head of the bed to tug insistently on the bellpull.

_*discidium*_

Gabe had been telling Bethel all about his adventures at Charlie's house when the cough had taken him, but now that it was over he didn't much want to resume his tale. He didn't think Bethel had really been listening anyhow, only nodding absently and saying "Yes, Mist' Gabe" and "Oh, my, that nice!" at appropriate intervals. Bethel had fixed him a nice supper, which now sat heavily in his stomach after the all the coughing, but she hadn't eaten any of her own. Gabe guessed that maybe Bethel was waiting to eat when Mama came in, and he ventured this opinion.

"What, now?" Bethel asked, looking up from the place on the floor at which she had been staring ever since Gabe had slumped back against her, breathless and gasping. "No, honey, I don' know that your mama goin' be home tonight. There a whole parcel of worries over to Wes' Willows, an' she tryin' her bes' to help."

"Mama a good he'per," Gabe agreed. Then he frowned, twisting to look up at Bethel's careworn face. "What you mean, Mama not comin' home? She gots to. Pappy ain't here an' we needs her."

Bethel smoothed his hair lovingly. "I know we does, my lamb, but it might be Missus Ainsley an' li'l Daisy needs her more tonight."

Gabe considered this, and an unpleasant thought came to him. "Is Missus Ainsley sick now, too?" he asked. "Do she gots de cough?" That bad old cough: it was getting everybody. On the drive home, while Gabe and Bethel sat in the back of the buggy all bundled up under the lap-robes and blanket, Meg had told how there were four more people in the quarters who had the cough. Two of them were Lottie's friends, and they didn't have it so bad, but a little darky boy was pretty sick with it and one of the old men, too. Gabe hated that bad old cough.

"She don't got the cough," sighed Bethel; "but she jus' as sick as a lady kin be right now, an' she need your mama to keep the house runnin' like it ought. Somebody gots to look aft' Miss Charity an' li'l Miss Daisy, an' their mama cain't."

"An' de baby," said Gabe, swinging one foot. His little boot felt heavy on his ankle, and he knew that meant it was almost time for bed – but he didn't want to sleep while Mama was gone from the house. He had done it before. On the night that Doc had come to stay it hadn't been so bad, but the next night he had been sad and frightened. He might not have been able to sleep at all, except that Pappy had been there to hold him while he did. Now Pappy was far away, living in a hotel so he could sell the tobacco. Mama couldn't be gone while Pappy was: it just wasn't right.

Bethel was squeezing him close all of a sudden. Gabe wondered if she felt how wrong this was, too. "Mebbe we kin tell Meg to go'n git her," he suggested. "Meg kin take de buggy an' drive up dere. Pike an' Bonnie don' mind: dey likes drivin', even in de dark, an' Charlie's house ain't far. They kin fetch Mama back in no time. Mebbe twelve minutes."

Bethel made a funny, trilling sound deep in her throat and hugged him. "I think it'd take more'n twelve minutes," she said. "You's on'y sayin' that 'cause it your new favorite number. But no, honey. We cain't fetch your mama 'way from there. She needed. You 'n me goin' git 'long awright on our own. Don' you fret."

Gabe felt his lower lip quiver. Surely Bethel didn't really mean to let Mama spend the whole night away from home! "I don' t'ink dat such a good idea," he ventured unsteadily.

He felt very small and vulnerable all of a sudden, and he looked around for his popgun. He had forgotten all about it in the excitement of visiting Charlie, and staying the night over at his big house, and eating breakfast with his friends in the long dining room just like a grown person. Now he wanted it badly. He saw it on the floor by Bethel's chair and he reached.

"Lemme down, Bet'l," he said, wriggling to the edge of her lap and trying to make her hugging arms break their circle. "I needs my popgun! I needs it."

"Awright, my lamb. Go an' fetch it," Bethel said, letting him shimmy down onto the floor. She got up and straightened the bolster on the récamier before plumping the seat-cushion.

Gabe had struggled to be out of Bethel's lap, but now that he was he felt suddenly cold and very exposed. He scuttled across the room and snatched up his gun, clutching it firmly with one hand on the butt and the other on the barrel, ready to fire. Then he hurried back to Bethel. She was bending to add another piece of wood to the stove and he pressed his shoulder against her leg, taking comfort from the contact and from the homey waves of heat radiating from the open door.

"Bet'l, we needs Mama home," he said, still hoping to convince her. "We _needs_ her."

"It ain't 'bout what we needs, honey. It 'bout what right," said Bethel. "You 'member I tol' you that lookin' aft' the sick be the Christian thing? Your mama, she bein' a good Christian tonight, an' we gots to be good Christians too, an' not be selfish."

Gabe didn't want to be selfish. He wanted to be a good Christian, too, because he could see how important Bethel thought that was and he wanted to please her. But he also wanted his mama. Suddenly he was conscious of the hugeness of the little yellow house, and of the fact that he and Bethel were all alone in it. Lottie had come up to the kitchen at dinnertime, after spending the morning in the cabin with Nate, but she had gone back to her own place now. It was just Gabe and Bethel, all alone in the empty house. He shrank in closer to Bethel, and relinquished his firing hold upon the popgun to grab a handful of her skirt.

"I don' wants to be selfish," he said. His voice sounded very small and frightened. All of a sudden, his house felt _much_ bigger than Charlie's because it was so empty. Charlie's house was full of people: a mama and a pappy and sisters and a brother, a grandpappy and a mammy and all those nursemaids, and Matthew and Cookie and Nell, and all the upstairs maids and the kitchen darkies and the footmen and the valet that looked after old Mister Ainsley. And here? Here it was only Gabe and Bethel…

"That my good boy," Bethel soothed, petting his cheek with one hand while she closed the stove with the other. Then while the cloth was still draped over her hand she shut the dampers. "D'you wants a cup of hot milk b'fore bed?"

"No," Gabe said. What he wanted was for his mama to come home. Pappy, too, although he guessed they couldn't send Meg and Pike and Bonnie to fetch him back tonight. He tugged worriedly at the dark cotton skirt. "Bet'l, Bet'l, lets go an' tell Meg," he said. "Mama, she kin go back in de mornin'. Firs' t'ing it gits light, she kin go back an' he'p dem girls."

Bethel was moving now, heading for the pantry. Gabe scurried with her, stretching his neck to look up at her. She chuckled softly. "Aw, honey, you oughts to know that the cough allus worse in the night. That jus' when they's goin' need her most."

"But what if _I_ cough?" Gabe protested. "I's still sick. Not _so _sick, but a li'l bit sick. I still cough in de night, an' it wake me up."

"I know, honey, but you's got me here to tend you," Bethel said. They were in the pantry now, standing just at the edge of the square of light that came through the door from the kitchen lamp. The sun had gone down sometime between when Gabe had sat down to supper and when he had finished coughing. "We on'y gots one sick chile in this house, an' over to Wes' Willows they's got two."

"T'ree," Gabe conceded reluctantly. "But she _my_ mama…"

Bethel set down the pitcher of milk and covered it with the cloth again. "Here, Mist' Gabe. Gimme that there gun a minute, an' you kin give your kitten his milk. Look: he waitin' for it."

Indeed he was. Gabe followed the nod of Bethel's chin back over his shoulder to see Stewpot standing just outside the pantry door. He knew he wasn't allowed inside, or Bethel would swat at him with a dishtowel, but he was as close as he could be without violating the ban. He was sitting up with his plump forepaws close together, ears eagerly alert and tail flicking in anticipation. He was getting tall, and he looked so proud and expectant that Gabe grinned.

"Hey dere, Stewpot!" he said. "Bet'l gots some milk for you." He passed his gun up to his nurse, and held out both hands for the bowl. He held it carefully level, determined not to spill, and turned around with meticulous attention to how his feet moved. It wouldn't do to catch one copper toe against the side of the other shoe and trip.

Stewpot retreated as Gabe advanced, running three steps back and then curling around to face him again. Gabe went to the corner of the dish dresser, where its side came six inches further into the room than that of the washstand beside it. Stewpot's water dish was there, where it wouldn't be in the way of busy feet or swirling hems, and Gabe crouched cautiously down before setting the bowl of milk next to it. All of a sudden Stewpot was there, his head darting right over Gabe's hand so that his rough pink tongue could lap at the milk. It was a sight that never ceased to delight Gabe, and he laughed, sitting back on his heels and clapping his hands.

"Drink it up," he advised. "It goin' make you grow up big 'n strong. Den you's goin' be a tomcat! Ain't dat right, Bet'l? Stewpot goin' be a tomcat!"

Bethel had come out of the pantry and was closing the door. She stopped and leaned on the jamb, head cocked to one side in amused surprise. "Now where you hear that, Mist' Gabe?" she asked. "Your mama don' call him no tomcat, an' I knows that."

Gabe shook his head. "Charlie say it," he explained. "I was tellin' him 'n Leon 'bout how Stewpot gittin' to be a big kitten now, an' he goin' be a gent'man cat soon like 'Ottie say, an' Charlie, he say dat gent'man cats is called tomcats, an' dey go on de prowl. What a prowl, Bet'l? Stewpot knows he ain't 'llowed on no tables, but chairs is awright."

"Prowl means he marchin' 'round lookin' fo' trouble," said Bethel. "He bes' not do none of that, if'n he know what good for him." She shook her finger at Stewpot. "You hear me, cat? No prowlin' 'round here."

"Dat awright," Gabe assured her. "Mos'ly he jus' walk 'round. Or he march, if we's playin' soljur-cat." Stewpot looked up at him, licked his lip, and mewed softly as if to agree. "See? He ain't goin' make no trouble."

"Good." Bethel nodded her head firmly and pulled the pantry door all the way closed. She checked the lid on the butter dish, and went to wipe the table.

Stewpot was almost finished his milk, and Gabe counted the last few laps of his tongue. One, two, three, four: then the dish was empty and Stewpot stepped away. He went to the place by the door where the cool air came in through a little crack in the corner, and he began grooming his paws. Stewpot was a very clean cat, and he didn't even complain when Bethel gave him his bath on Saturdays. Bethel said that was because he knew what was good for him, but Gabe thought it was because Stewpot had been getting baths since he was a little baby kitten and he was used to it. The barn cats didn't ever get a bath at all, unless they were standing in the wrong place when Lottie emptied the dishpan.

Gabe picked up the empty milk bowl and carried it to the counter. He was tall enough that if he stood on the tips of his toes he could reach over the edge of the dishpan. He couldn't reach the bottom, so Bethel didn't let him put away the good dishes, but Stewpot's bowl was old and chipped and so it didn't matter. Gabe let its rim slip to the edge of his fingers, then made it dangle there for a moment to slow its momentum. Then he let go, and heard it land with a _plink_ on the tin bottom of the dishpan. Satisfied, he dusted his hands together and turned around.

Bethel was all finished putting the kitchen to rights, and she was looking at him with an expectant smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. "One more thing b'fore we goes up to bed," she said. "You gots to take out a bean from the dish."

Gabe grinned. If he took a bean out of the saucer, it meant one more day was gone: they were one day closer to the day when Pappy came home. Hurriedly he rounded the table and climbed up onto the bench, kneeling instead of sitting so that he could reach the dish with ease. He looked at the little black beans, and counted them aloud. There were nine of them. He slid one carefully away from the crowd and plucked it up, then counted again. Eight beans.

"You gots to take another!" Bethel said. "You didn' get the chance las' night, on 'ccount you was stayin' over at Mist' Charlie's. That one you took for las' night: take one more fo' tonight."

Gleefully, Gabe obeyed. Now there were two beans in his hand, and only seven in the dish. "Seven days, an' Pappy comin' home!" he announced.

"Seven days," Bethel said firmly, and Gabe thought she looked almost as eager as he was for those days to be gone. "That jus' 'sactly a week, Mist' Gabe. In _one week_ your pappy goin' be back where he b'longs."

"One week," Gabe repeated. He looked at the beans again. "Seven days." It was like twelve and a dozen: two words for the same thing. He held out the two culled beans to Bethel. "Put dem in de cup," he advised. "When Pappy come home, you's goin' fix us a mess of beans 'n molasses!"

"That right, I surely is!" said Bethel. She went to the dish dresser, and put the beans in the cup. Then she held out her hand and clapped the fingers against the palm. Recognizing the signal, Gabe slipped down from the bench and ran to her. He put one hand in hers, and she gave him the popgun to hold in the other. "Les' go upstairs, now," she said. "You kin play a bit in the nurs'ry while I gets my nightdress on."

She took the lamp from the table instead of lighting a candle: they had no candles left right now. They had to let go of each other at the door, and Gabe watched the light spread into the empty dining room. It made a circle on the floor and the walls and the ceiling, brightest right where they stood and fading out around them. The circle moved with them, and that was good, but the dark places where it didn't quite reach seemed hollow and very empty. Gabe's lip quivered again and he grabbed Bethel's skirt as she moved to close the door.

"May Stewpot come?" he asked tremulously. "I don' want him all 'lone down here, widout Mama an' Pappy at home."

He thought Bethel would say no. She didn't like Stewpot upstairs, and suffered it only when he was playing with Gabe. He certainly wasn't allowed to sleep up there all night long. But she smiled gently down at him instead and nodded. "Go on, then. See if he goin' come when you call."

"Stewpot!" Gabe called, clapping his hands on his knees the way that Pappy did when he called Jeb. "C'mere, Stewpot! You's goin' sleep in my nus'ry tonight!"

For a moment he feared the cat would not come. Then there came a soft mewing sound, and a glint of eyes in the darkness, and the kitten came prancing into the glow of the lamp and over the threshold. He rubbed his flank against Gabe's leg as Bethel closed the door. Gabe stuck his popgun in his suspenders and bent to pick up the cat. Stewpot rested his forepaws on Gabe's shoulder, and he felt warm and heavy and very comforting. Gabe cuddled his skinny rump with one hand, and took hold of Bethel's fingers with the other.

"Good boy," he said, and Stewpot licked his ear.

Now that the three of them were together, it wasn't so frightening to move into the corridor and around to the stairs. Even there, where the ceiling stretched all the way up to the second story and the lamplight couldn't touch it, Gabe was brave. He didn't whimper or shrink against Bethel, and he didn't ask her to pick him up. He knew she couldn't carry him and the lamp together: not anymore. Like Stewpot, he was getting bigger and heavier, and it took Bethel both hands to lift him. Mama, too, though Pappy could still hold him with one arm. Pappy was very strong. Gabe wished he were here now.

Up in the hallway, the lamplight spread over both walls. Soon they were at the nursery door, and then inside. Bethel lit the lamp by the bed. The room was chilly, and so she took the quilt from the bed and wrapped Gabe up in it before putting him in the armchair. Stewpot hopped down out of Gabe's arms when Bethel did this, and set about exploring the corners of the room. He didn't go near the open door, and Gabe was glad. He didn't want Stewpot out there in the dark and empty house.

Bethel laid the fire in the stove, and then smiled at Gabe. "Now, you an' that cat behave youselves," she said. "I's goin' be back in two shakes of a lambs tail." Then before Gabe could protest, she was out the door and gone, taking the kitchen lamp with her.

For a long time he could only sit there, wide-eyed and paralysed in the folds of the quilt. Bethel had left him. She had left him! He was all alone upstairs, with only Stewpot to keep him company, and the house was empty and Pappy was gone and Mama was gone, and the door was open and the light didn't reach all the way from his bedside table to the hall and the house was empty and he was alone and it was so big and cold and scary all around him and—

And all at once Gabe was off the chair and out of the quilt, across the room and down on his knees and – _whisk! – _under the bed. Stewpot purred in interest and peeked after him, lowering his head between his forepaws with his bottom in the air. Gabe was pushing himself backward into the corner where the two walls met, shoving himself back with his hands until his legs were crammed into the small space. He beckoned to the cat.

"C'mere, Stewpot!" he whispered hoarsely. His heart was hammering and he thought he had never been so frightened in all his life. His head hit the ropes that held his feather tick, and he crouched down lower. He didn't know what might be out there, _on the prowl_ in the dark and empty house, looking for trouble. But he was quite certain that whatever it was it liked to eat small boys who were at home without their mama and pappy, and it probably liked half-grown kittens, too. "Stewpot! Stewpot, come!"

But Stewpot didn't come. He watched curiously for a minute, and then when he decided Gabe wasn't doing anything interesting he lifted his head and sat down and went back to licking his paws. Gabe could see him so clearly in the lamplight, with his white coat with the coppery splotches that reminded him of Bethel's big stewpot, and his one raggedy ear and his soft little nose. And he was so afraid that he would see the whatever-it-was that was hiding in the house come in and grab Stewpot away.

That was when Gabe knew he had to be brave. He had to crawl back towards the edge of the bed, and reach out and get Stewpot and make him come under here where they could hide. They would be safe if they could hide. Stewpot was _his_ cat, and it was _his_ responsibility to protect him, even if he had dropped his popgun in his haste to dive under the bed in the first place. He wouldn't get the gun: that was too great a risk. But he _had_ to get Stewpot.

So although he had not been so frightened since the day he had wandered off in the corn and found his way into the tobacco, Gabe planted his palm firmly on the floor and pulled himself forward on his belly. He used the other hand, too, and very quickly he was right at the edge of the shadow cast by the bed. He reached out and took hold of Stewpot's middle, and he pulled the kitten gently towards him, under the bed and into safety. Stewpot mewed in mild indignation, and he wriggled a little, but he knew that Gabe was doing the right thing and he didn't try to get away. Together they retreated back into the corner, and they were safe!

Gabe pressed his cheek against Stewpot's gently heaving side, holding the cat with one hand while the other one petted him under the chin and up onto his fluffy cheeks just like he always liked to be stroked. Now he was afraid for Bethel, downstairs in her little room beyond the parlor. It was the very farthest room from the stairs, which meant it was the very farthest room from the nursery. The whole vast, empty house lay between. Pappy had said that the whatever-it-was wouldn't eat Bethel, 'cause she was too tough. Gabe hoped that Pappy was right.

When he heard the first footfall on the stairs, he almost screamed in fright – but of course, if he screamed then the thing would know where he was hiding. Then he heard another step, and another, and his hammering heart beat a little slower. He knew the sound of those footsteps: it was Bethel.

"Mist' Gabe?" she said as she came into the room. He could see her feet in their worn-out bedshoes, peeking out from under the hem of her cotton nightdress. He wondered why she wasn't wearing the flannel one, since the night was cold. "Mist' Gabe, honey? Where you at?"

"I's here!" he yipped. His voice was very high and nervous, and he tried to fix that. Charlie would have made fun of him for sounding like that. "I's right here," he said more firmly; "an' I gots Stewpot wid me, an' we's goin' stay unner here."

The door closed and Bethel got down on her hands and knees. She did this slowly, almost stiffly, and then she was leaning forward with her chin on her arms, just as Stewpot had done. Only Bethel's bottom didn't stick up in the air: it was low down over her heels. Her face was kind and gentle in the lamplight, and her braid was curling out from under her nightcap. Gabe wanted to slip right into her lap and hug her, but that would mean coming out from under the bed.

"Now honey, what you doin' unner there?" she asked lovingly. "Ain' it cold an' dusty?"

It _was_ cold, with his knee pressed to the outside wall and the small stove still gathering heat to warm the room, but Gabe wasn't about to admit it. "Ain't dusty," he argued. "You was sweepin' unner here jus' de udder day."

Bethel chuckled softly. "So I did. Honey, why don' you come on out an' let me get you dressed for bed?"

Gabe shook his head. "I's stayin' right here," he said firmly. "It too big out dere, an' Mama gone."

"Too big?" Bethel said. She looked thoughtful for a moment. Then she sat up and her face disappeared. "I know you's sad 'cause your mama gone from home, honey," she said as she climbed to her feet. "If'n you's stayin' right there, you's stayin' right there, an' there ain't no two ways 'bout it."

Her feet moved off to where Gabe could not see them any longer, but he could still hear her. She was humming softly to herself while she opened a drawer and then the blanket chest.

"Bet'l?" he called. "_Bet'l?_"

"I's right here, honey lamb," said Bethel in her sweet, reassuring voice. "I hope you don' 'spects my ol' bones to shimmy down unner that bed?"

"Nooo…" Gabe said uncertainly. Now she was coming back towards the bed: he could see her feet close by. Stewpot was purring deeply, and the vibrations against Gabe's cheek were soothing. He didn't feel quite so frightened anymore. He heard Bethel shaking out a sheet, and then the bedframe shuddered as she stepped up onto its side.

"Bet'l? What you doin' out dere?" he asked.

"Jus' gettin' me ready fo' bed," she said. "Ain't ev'y night I gets me a feather tick all to my lonesome. I's aimin' to do it up proper."

Gabe frowned. "What dat mean?" he asked. His bed was already done up proper: Bethel did that every morning after he woke up. He could hear the curtain rod rattling now. "What you _doin'_ out dere?"

"If'n you wants to know, come an' see," said Bethel. She stepped down off the bedframe and started moving around to the foot. When she spoke again, it sounded like there was something in her mouth. "I don' know quite how I's goin' describe it."

Now Gabe was curious. What was Bethel doing out there, that she couldn't even describe it? He frowned. He wanted to know the answer, but he was afraid to leave his shelter. "Bet'l, mebbe you kin jus' try 'n tell me," he suggested.

"Nawsir," Bethel said happily. She retreated again, and again he heard her opening a drawer. "Unless'n you come out an' see, I guess you's jus' goin' have to keep wond'rin'."

Gabe didn't like this at all. He was _very _curious, and getting curiouser all the time. Why wouldn't she just tell him what she was doing? "Bet'l, I t'inks you gots to 'splain it to me," he argued, shimmying closer to the edge of the bed. "I's down here tryin' to be safe while Mama gone 'way."

"I knows that honey, an' it awright," said Bethel. "It goin' get warm unner there direc'ly, an' I guess that ol' bare floor ain't _so _hard. Ain't like it goin' hurt you none."

Now that she mentioned it, the floor _was_ hard, and the heat from the stove hadn't reached under here yet. Gabe shifted his hips, trying to get comfortable. He couldn't. No matter how he twisted, the hard floor was pressing on him. And he _had_ to know what Bethel had been doing out there. She hardly ever stood on furniture, and why was she fiddling with the curtains? And _what_ was she doing now?

He could peek out, he decided, and have a little look. He could always dive right back under the bed again. He crept forward on his belly, slithering like a grass-snake, and he stuck his head out.

The nursery looked just how he had left it. The blanket chest and all the drawers were closed. Bethel was sitting in the old armchair in the corner, one of his nightshirts in her lap. It looked so soft and cozy, and all at once Gabe's day clothes felt itchy and dirty. He had worn the same pair of drawers two days in a row, because Mama hadn't expected them to sleep over at West Willows last night. He wanted to take them off and put on his nice, clean nightshirt.

"Bet'l, what you been doin'?" he asked. "I don' see nut'in' diff'rent."

She smiled playfully. "You cain't see it from unner there, my lamb. C'mon out, an' take a look at your bed."

This was too much. Before he knew what he was doing, Gabe had propelled himself the rest of the way up and scrambled to his feet. He turned around, and then took two astonished steps backward as he stared in wonder at what Bethel had done.

She had built a tent right over his bed. It was just like the ones she sometimes made with a dining room chair, only it was made with two bedsheets instead of one. They were pinned together with pins from the cushion that had been part of his newborn layette, and one corner of each was tied around the curtain rod: _that_ was why it had been rattling! The other corners were tied to the bedposts, so that the whole bed was under the tent. It was tall by the head, and low by the foot, and it was wonderful.

"Ooh, Bet'l!" Gabe gasped in awed delight. "Is I goin' sleep in dat tent wid you?"

"Well, now I thought you was goin' sleep unner the bed," Bethel said regretfully. "I guess I's goin' have to sleep in that tent all 'lone."

"No!" Gabe declared. He turned and shook his finger at her. "No, ma'am! If anyone goin' sleep in de tent, it goin' me you an' me togedder. An' Stewpot," he added belatedly, as the kitten came out into the room, stretching languorously.

Bethel smiled broadly and opened her arms. "C'mon an' climb up, then," she said. "Jus' as soon as you's in your nightshirt, we can get in the tent."

Gabe went, fear forgotten. The bigness and the emptiness of the house wouldn't matter once he was in that wonderful tent with Bethel to cuddle against. And Mama would come back, just as soon as she could. And Pappy would be home in just one week.


	99. Comeuppance

_Note: My birthday gift to myself: finally posting this chapter. My birthday wish? "Some-lotsa" reviews!_

**Chapter Ninety-Nine: Comeuppance**

As the door closed behind the departing bellhop, Cullen let the air out of his bruised lungs in a slow, hot column. He slumped, leaning against the bedpost, and sighed. He had lost a whole day, accomplishing only what should have taken half the morning, but the letters were sent.

With his hands made unsteady by sickness, he had found writing an onerous task. Unlike many men he did not have difficulty composing his thoughts into words or translating those words from the easy dialect in which he had been raised into the more regimented formal style he had learned at university. The difficulty had been in making the pen and his fingers obey his will. He would manage a few words smoothly enough, and then his "p" would slant or his "t" would wobble. Tightening his grip only made the tremors worse, and if he held the pen too loosely he lost all control of it. The only thing he could do was put it down for a minute, stretch his shaky digits, and then resume where he had left off. Dipping the nib was a perilous proposition, for if his hand faltered at the wrong moment he would ink it too deeply, and if the tremor struck as he lowered the pen to the page he was liable to leave a dark splatter across it. All the while he had vacillated between waves of unbearable heat and rounds of bone-deep chills as his fever seared on.

The slave who had taken the letters – to be sent out immediately and delivered by hand – had also brought a fresh jug of water. Cullen dragged himself to the table and poured a glassful. There were small chips of ice floating in it; another luxury of a fine hotel. Its frigid freshness soothed Cullen's raw throat and seemed to dampen the fumes of fever rising off of him. With one thigh braced against the table, he swirled the glass so that the ice tinkled against its side. Sparkles of refracted lamplight danced over the floor and the footboard of the bed, and he found his gaze following them with a stuporous fascination. His irritation plucked at him. When most he needed to be at his best, sharp-witted, alert, charming and cunning, he was taken by the torpor of the disease, and the temptation to give into it again was tremendous.

He supposed there was not much use in holding on any longer. The letters were off, and though there might be prompt replies sent back by way of the hotel's errand-boy he could certainly be pardoned for failing to answer them tonight. The Malbernaque brothers would doubtless rib him about his lackadaisical start to the visit, but Cullen could bear that with good grace. He had asked the bellhop to send a chambermaid to bring more fuel for the stove and straighten out the ruin he had made of the bed. Once she had come and gone, he could go straight back to sleep. He might have squandered most of the day in bed, but he felt no more rested than he had disembarking from the train. He rubbed at his right temple, squinting against the flare of bright pain that rose out of the slowly smoldering pool of his headache.

He could feel a chill coming on, and he rounded the bed to draw near to the stove. There were still a couple of pieces of wood in the basket, and he crouched to grab them. The hams of his legs were still tight from the uncomfortable rail journey, and the position was not comfortable to maintain. With a low grunt, Cullen slid back over his heels and sat down heavily on the floor with one knee bent up and the other on the ground. He flicked the door of the stove open swiftly, shaking his bare hand in the air to cool his fingertips before they could burn. He stirred up the embers and laid the quartered logs, but instead of closing the door again he leaned into its glow. The heat bathed his face, his arms and all of his chest but that strip blocked by his bent leg. He closed his eyes and let it wash over him, a febrile shiver running up his backbone.

The sickly lethargy had him in its clutches at last, so it seemed. He sat there for a vague span of time, soaking in the heat like a turtle in sunlight. His fears for the negotiations were muted, his longing for the familiar comfort of home almost forgotten. He needed only to sit and bask, and to hold back the cough.

Reflexively he responded to the quiet knock on the door, but he did not trouble to turn around or even open his eyes. There was the click of the latch, and then a moment of silence. Then an uncertain voice ventured; "Sir? Sir, is you in here?"

Cullen snorted softly and involuntarily, his response catching painfully in his throat. Swallowing laboriously, he said; "Back here."

Soft footfalls rounded the bed, and although he looked up out of courtesy he did not need to. He knew from the voice that she was the chambermaid from the night before: the pleasant young lady who had thought so highly of Mary's packing. Now she was carrying a heavy rack of firewood before her, elbows pulled taut by its weight, and she was looking with mild appraisal at the tousled bed. The dim thought that she could not set down her burden while he was planted so firmly between her and the stove rose in Cullen's sluggish mind. When it finally crystalized into comprehension, he clambered to his feet as quickly as he could and slid out of her way. His hip barked one of the chairs as he retreated against the windowsill.

"Thankee, sir," the maid murmured, keeping her eyes lowered respectfully as she knelt. With the poker, she raked the embers so that the excess ash fell into the pan below. Then she repositioned the logs he had laid, bolstering them with a third from her load.

Cullen started to answer that it was nothing, sucking in a little jolt of air through his nostrils and parting his lips slightly. As soon as he did it he saw the error in his courteous instinct. The muscles of his abdomen bucked and rippled, and he clamped his mouth closed against the cough. Instead of a rattling series of hacks, he made a small crackling noise almost like the croak of a cicada. The next cough was silent, but exquisitely painful. Cullen's vision filled with fractals of brilliant color and his hands balled into fists of defiant anger.

The chambermaid was paying him no mind, still occupied with the stove. Cullen slipped around the table and ducked behind the screen, stealing a furtive, wheezing half-breath. Another concussive cough clattered through him, brining with it fresh anguish from his battered flanks. He hugged his ribs with one arm and used the opposite hand to muffle his mouth as a thin sampling of the noise in his lungs escaped. His eyes were watering with the strain of rigid control. Even the high, feeble whoop that followed was almost – almost – inaudible despite the torment exacted in hushing it.

In this way he labored through the fit, each paroxysm made deeper and more dreadful by the need to smother it. Hunched behind the screen as he was, Cullen was hidden from the chambermaid's view, but he wondered how much she could hear and what she might make of it.

When at last he was breathing steadily again, albeit not without a certain weighted misery, he emerged from his hiding place. The girl was whisking a broom over the floor, shepherding dust and lint out towards the doorway. Her back was turned, and Cullen scuttled across the room to the armchair by the dressing table. He sank into it too swiftly, almost as if his knees had given out beneath him, and he braced an elbow on the armrest so that its hand could cover his mouth. He thought the fit was past, but he was not certain and he was in no frame of mind to take chances.

The girl had a brush and dustpan under her arm, and when she reached the entryway she crouched to use them. Only when she rose did she look at Cullen, at first only stealing a surreptitious, savvy half-glance and then staring frankly at him. She was on her feet taking two swift steps towards him before she remembered her place and stopped herself. Only now that her eyes had softened did Cullen realize how hard they had been earlier, when she had come into the room and beheld the disheveled bed.

"You's sick," she said softly. "You's well an' truly sick, sir, ain't you? Wasn' jus' a nip of whiskey gone down the wrong way." She looked at the bed again, now smooth and freshly made. Then she strode across the room to the stove, tipped the contents of the pan into the fire, and went to pour a glass of water. She brought it to him and held it out with one hand. The other one twitched as if she had meant to put it on his brow but thought better of it. "You's got you a fever, don't you?"

"Maybe a little one," Cullen said huskily, the words grating raw in his gullet. He took the water and drank as greedily as he dared, knowing that it might bring on the cough but no longer quite caring. The glass was half empty when he lowered it from his lips and sighed. "Listen…" he began, and then fell silent. He would only do more harm by drawing attention to his need for privacy.

The girl was watching him with wary worry. "Does you want me to fetch you a doctor?" she asked. "I kin send one of the errand boys an' have him here in a hour. The hotel keeps one ready for guests…"

"No." Cullen shook his head vehemently. "I don't need a doctor. It's just a cough and it'll pass. Ain't catching, neither," he added. Doc Whitehead had said that whooping cough was most contagious in the early stages: by the crisis there wasn't much chance of a patient passing it to anyone. And if this wasn't the crisis, he was in dire straits indeed.

The chambermaid's lips pursed ever so slightly and she shook her head. Again she looked back to the bed. "You was sleepin'," she murmured. "This aft'noon: that why the bed in such a state."

He looked up at her sharply, somewhat surprised by her forward remark. Then he saw the pensive expression she was wearing as she rethought an earlier assumption. Coming in to find the bedclothes tousled and untouched by taming hand so late in the day, she had naturally supposed the room had been the site of some tryst – and of a betrayal of the lady whose careful packing had won her approval. Cullen dared to chuckle a little, ruefully, though it sent his palm splaying over his sore ribs again.

"Yup," he huffed softly. "Slept away most of the day, and I'd better see results from it. I got men invited to call here tomorrow; business."

She nodded knowingly at this. "Bes' place in town fo' business talks, the St. Charles," she said. "Is you a railroad man?"

Another natural conclusion to draw, given Mary's obvious experience in preparing for that mode of travel. Cullen shook his head. "Tobacco," he said. "Best in Mississippi."

He had been using this particular boast almost instinctively since arriving in town: it was one of the things that any seller was expected to say, and part of the intricate dance of trade negotiations. Now his heart felt heavy as he said it. His crop was much better than last year's, both in quality and quantity, but it was far from extraordinary. Only the very best of it was excellent: the middle leaves from the bottom field that had been spared the hailstorm. There was an uncertain flutter in his stomach that he recognized uncomfortably as stage fright. It had sometimes overtaken him at university, usually before an adjudicated debate against a particularly skilled opponent. Just now, Cullen did not remember that his record in such orations had been flawless.

"I hear tell there been a blight of beetles on the tobacco," the maid said quietly.

"Not 'round my place," Cullen said hastily, a chill running up his spine at the thought.

At the same moment, the girl was murmuring; "Down 'round the Savannah Valley."

Cullen looked at her in astonishment for a moment, lips slightly parted. This was the sort of information that was ordinarily bought – and so also ordinarily sold, not merely given away. The chambermaid's eyes were cast respectfully down upon the frill of her apron, and her expression was one of perfect innocence. After a moment's long silence, she spoke.

"Is you quite certain I cain't fetch you the doctor?" she asked. "What 'bout a li'l taste of supper?"

At that word Cullen's stomach lurched nauseously, churning in bilious emptiness. He had eaten nothing since yesterday, and little enough even then. His mouth was dry and tasted of paste, and he had no appetite to speak of, but he knew he would be a fool not to eat.

"I got provisions in that basket on the table," he said. "If you'd fetch it over here, I'd be much obliged."

She nodded and brought it, drawing up a little side table to serve as a dining surface. Then she fetched the big pitcher of water. "I'll bring another of these, sir," she said. "My mama always said you gots to drown out a fever."

He had said nothing of a fever, Cullen realized suspiciously. Then he reflected that he had not really had to. No doubt the hectic flush was back in his wan cheeks, and he could feel the trickle of cold perspiration behind his ears. "More water would be fine," he said.

The chambermaid was gathering her tools now, and she ducked behind the screen. There was a soft slosh of water, and she emerged with a covered slop pail. She had already knotted the soiled towels into a bundle, and she tucked it under the same arm. She moved to the door, opening it artfully even with both hands full, and turned back to curtsey. Cullen opened his mouth to thank her, but a question came out instead.

"I reckon it's too late to get a bath?" he said.

"Oh, nawsir," the girl said hurriedly. "At the St. Charles, the guest's comfort's our firs' concern. I kin have Davey draw one for you in twenty minutes, if you like."

"I would like it: thank you," he said softly. "Good and hot, so's I can steam out this chest of mine." He thumped it with his thumb and grinned, as if to say that it was nothing at all to be concerned about – or interested in. From the soft concern in her eyes, the message was not received. "You take care tonight: try not to work too hard."

She smiled, a sweet and genuine smile. "Yassir," she said softly. "G'night, sir. Davey'll come an' fetch you when your bath is ready."

Then Cullen was left alone to force down an unwanted but sorely needed supper.

_*discidium*_

The master's journey to sell the tobacco had always given Bethel the perfect opportunity to commence the autumn housecleaning, and the year's difficult circumstances did not change that. She was up in the company bedroom, warmly wrapped against the draft from the hail-damaged window. Lottie could hear her moving around up there: shifting furniture and rattling curtain rails as she performed the arcane tasks of her office. Mister Gabe had wanted to tag along after her, uneasy in his parents' absence, but it was out of the question to have the convalescing child in the chilly room. Instead he was under the kitchen table with Stewpot on his lap, munching out of a dish of chopped hickory nuts. The kitten kept butting his hand, begging for a share, and Mister Gabe obliged him about every third or fourth piece.

Lottie was guiltily grateful that the little boy was in a quite mood, for her head ached terribly and her chest was very tight. She had enjoyed the novelty of spending yesterday morning down the cabins with Nate, but she thought maybe the fireplace in Elijah's cabin had been too smoky for her strained lungs. She was weary of coughing, and of feeling so run-down and ill. Nate was equally fed up with lying abed, though he had tried to be cheerful with her. They had sat at the table, playing draughts – acorn buttons against smooth pebbles on the board Elijah had made. At dinnertime Ma had come to fetch Lottie up to the big house, back into the steady warmth of the stove and under Bethel's watchful eye. Lottie had been bewildered by her mother's quiet, tired affect and Bethel's haunted eyes. Only later that night, when the two of them were snug in bed, had Ma explained that the littlest Ainsley baby had died.

To Lottie death was still something of an abstraction, and these sad tidings did not change that. She had never so much as seen Lucy Ainsley, not even at a distance. It was a sorrowful thing, of course, and she pondered it in respectful solemnity; but she did not feel the loss. She was secretly and again almost guiltily glad that Mister Gabe had escaped the same fate. She knew it had been a near thing.

The cat mewed insistently and Mister Gabe sighed. "Dey's all gone, Stewpot," he apologized. "We et dem all up. I guess I et more'n you, awright, but you know I's bigger."

There was a rasp of cloth on wood as he scooted on his bottom to the near edge of the table. Great gray eyes peered at Lottie from between the table leg and the bench.

"Why'n't you come down unner here, 'Ottie?" Mister Gabe asked. "It gots to be lonesome out dere. Mama still at Charlie's house, an' Pappy gone 'way."

"I ain't lonesome, Mist' Gabe," Lottie said gently. The truth was that she felt too tired and sore to crawl around on the floor. "Don' you be, neither. I's here with you, an' Stewpot, an' Bethel be jus' up the stairs. Don' worry."

"Ain't worryin'," the boy declaired, stoutly indignant at this intimation. "I's jus' tellin' how it is. Las' night de house too big widout my mama an' Pappy. Dey didn' oughts to be gone at de same time, 'cept if'n dere a party."

He scowled his judgment down upon this affront to his orderly world, and hefted the bored and wriggling kitten out of his lap.

"Go on, den: git," he huffed. Stewpot got, cutting a beeline for his sanctuary under the washstand. Again he mewed, this time almost triumphantly. Mister Gabe glanced after the sound, and his frown deepened. He was in a cross frame of mind, and no mistake, but Lottie did not know how to help. She lacked the energy to jolly him out of it, and the usual distractions seemed inadequate.

"Wasn' it a treat, havin' Bethel all to youself?" she asked, seizing the first thing that came to mind. "I bet she fixed you up a nice supper."

"Yams an' venny-son," Mister Gabe said noncommittally. "I likes dem yams, but I wish Bet'l could make her biscuits _now_, 'stead of waitin' 'til Pappy come home. We et some biscuits at Charlie's house, an' dey was nice."

Lottie grinned, and her mouth began to water. For her part, she was hankering for a good hot pone of Ma's cornbread. The month after the tobacco-selling was always a time of plenty, when they could once again enjoy all of the things they had been doing without. This year they had done without so many little comforts, and for so much longer than usual. Lottie fervently believed all that was almost at an end, and she was eager.

"She gived me some peaches an' fluffy cream," Mister Gabe reminisced, smacking his lips contentedly. Then he sat bolt upright under the table. "An' 'Ottie! She maked a tent fo' us to sleep in! Maked it right over de bed, an' we climbded right in, an' it was warm 'n cozy. Bet'l, she put out de lamp an' she close it right up, an' we's in dere all safe togedder. An' Stewpot, too. He wouldn' let me cuddle him, but he sleeped down by my feet an' I could feel him bree'din', _huff-puff_." He smiled and clapped his hands gleefully. "We was jus' like soljurs in de camp, sleepin' in a tent-bed! Bet'l, she pretty clever," he concluded contentedly.

"That sounds like lots of fun," Lottie said, approving and perhaps a little envious. She would have liked to have seen the tented bed, and it sounded like great fun to sleep in. Bethel _was_ clever, to have turned a lonely night without his mama into a treat for Mister Gabe.

"Lotsa fun," the boy agreed. He looked up warily when Lottie cleared her throat, waiting – as they all did now – for the cough. It did not come this time, and Lottie hitched her bottom further onto the récamier cushion before taking a sip of water from her tin cup. Her head had a heavy, cottony feel that she had learned to associate with the fever.

Upstairs Bethel was moving furniture again: Lottie could hear the scrape of wood on wood. Mister Gabe was listening too, eyes following the ceiling where it met the dining room wall. Then he crawled out from under the table and clambered to his feet, dragging his popgun with him. He stomped one small, booted foot as he hefted the barrel into combat position.

"I's goin' patrollin', I t'ink," he announced. He looked around and began to march down the length of the room towards the back door.

"Awright," Lottie said softly. Her eyes were feeling heavy again. "Jus' so long as you stays in the kitchen."

"Oh, yes: in de kitchen," Mister Gabe agreed. "It de back way, an' Pappy say you allus gots to keep your eye on de back way."

Lottie found it both amusing and endearing how earnestly he took to heart all that Mister Cullen said during their games with the toy soldiers. She wasn't sure how much the master really knew about military maneuvers, and how much he invented in the context of play, but it certainly all sounded very convincing and Mister Gabe positively drank it in. Now he was doubling back with his popgun over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping diligently from side to side as he kept the watch. Lottie observed him drowsily, only half attentive but ready to spring back into full alertness if she was needed. Now that Mister Gabe was a little older, he did not need to be watched quite as constantly. He had good sense enough to keep himself safe in most situations, and he was not by nature a disobedient child.

Mister Gabe was just turning to make his third round of the room when there came a knock on the back door. He stiffened, seizing the barrel of his popgun and whipping it into a firing position, trained on the door. "Hot!" he shouted, then shook his head like a puppy shaking off water, and amended; "_Halt_! Halt, who goin' dere?"

The knocking hesitated, and Lottie began to get up off the couch. If it had been Ma or Elijah, surely they would have answered – however uncertainly – to Mister Gabe's challenge. Lottie could not think who might be coming to the back door, but neither did she hesitate uncertainly as she had the other day when the Ives men had come calling. White folks did not come to the back door, not unless it was some poor swamp-bottom farmer come begging for work or bread. Keeping an eye out for the back way notwithstanding, Lottie knew that she did not need to fear the sheriff or Mister Sutcliffe coming from that direction.

She lifted the latch and opened the door a couple of inches, keeping her shoulder braced against it just in case. If it _was_ a poor white come begging, she would close the door quickly and tell him to wait a minute while she fetched the head woman. But of course it was not: peering through the gap in the door, she found herself looking up into a broad, somewhat bemused dark face with eyes crinkled by years of patient smiles.

"Good mornin'!" Lottie said, stepping back and letting the door open more generously. The black lady on the stoop, head and shoulders covered by a thick brown shawl, had a covered basket over one arm and a faintly furtive look to her. She was vaguely familiar, but Lottie could not place her. "How may I help you?" she asked, as politely as she knew how.

"Who dat, 'Ottie? Who dere?" Mister Gabe asked, nudging between her skirt and the edge of the door –popgun first, naturally. He looked up at the caller with wide eyes. "'Ottie, it a lady!" he whispered loudly. "Ain't a Redcoat _or_ a robber."

"Nawsir, li'l massa, I ain' no robber," the woman said. She had a deep, somewhat roughened voice, and although her shoulders were still hunched almost warily she was now smiling. She looked Lottie over. "You's Meg's girl, ain' you? Goin' be tall like your pa."

"I'm Lottie," she said, squaring her shoulders. "You know my ma?"

The woman chuckled. "Don' tell me you don' recognize me without a dish of chitt'ins in my hand!" she said. "I's Milly, from over to Sunset Fallows Plantation: Mist' Graham's undercook. I's come to have me a word with Bethel, if'n she about."

"She upstairs, tidyin' up de front bedroom," Mister Gabe said frankly. He pointed. "What you gots in dat basket?"

"Some things I's bringin' over to Wes' Willows, massa," Milly said. Lottie remembered her now: she was kindly but sometimes stern, and at the barbecue the Bohannons had attended at the Graham place she had spent almost as much time wrangling the visiting pickaninnies as she had serving up the meals to both the white and black tables.

"Is you goin' keep me waitin' out here, chile?" she asked, more playful than indignant but with a share of both. "It a nippy day to be standin' in the wind."

"Yass'm, c'mon in," Lottie said. She stepped back, drawing Mister Gabe gently with her, and let the door open the rest of the way. Milly came briskly into the room, brining a rush of cold air with her. Lottie hurriedly shut the door and shepherded the little boy back into the warmth of the room. The woman had already set her basket on the table, and she was whisking off her shawl.

Lottie hesitated then. She ought to go and fetch Bethel, but she felt she might be in dereliction of duty if she left Mister Gabe down here. She did not want to be rude, or to suggest that Milly was not fit to watch him, but after all he had been left in _her_ care. She did not know quite how to take him with her politely. She might have asked if he wanted to come with her, but in his present frame of mind Mister Gabe was just as likely to declare that he was going to guard the visitor while Lottie was gone. That would be frightfully embarrassing, especially as Lottie could not possibly let him.

But she was spared the dilemma by the sound of feet on the stairs. Bethel must have heard the knock at the door: with the master away, they were all more vigilant than was usual. Lottie went to open the door from the dining room just as the woman came around the corner into view. She was tying the tapes of her sturdy work apron, having no doubt whisked it off a moment before in anticipation of a front-door caller. She frowned questioningly at Lottie.

"Milly come callin'," Lottie tried to explain. She stepped out of the way and gestured inward. To her surprise, she saw that the cook had already deposited herself right down on the récamier from the parlor without waiting for an invitation. Mister Gabe was standing a good distance away, watching her warily with his popgun in his hands. It was not quite pointed at her, but he was certainly at the ready.

A fine furrow appeared between Bethel's brows, smoothing almost immediately as she schooled herself. "Why, Milly," she said sweetly, closing the dining room door. "What bringed you all this way on a col' mornin'?"

"Cookie done sent me with sweetmeats fo' them folks at Wes' Willows," Milly said. "The food-bringin' done started. Terr'ble thing, such a li'l baby. But I had to stop on by here to see if'n you's heared the news."

Bethel nodded somberly. "Course," she said. "Mist' Ainsley an' Mist' Bohannon been like brothers all their lives. Missus Bohannon, she been helpin' over there this whole time. I 'spect we was the firs' to git word."

"Not that news," Milly said, almost chuckling. "I done figured you'd know all 'bout _that_: pro'ly more than you'd tell me. But I says to myself, 'Milly!' I says; 'What with that sorrowful business nex' door, an' the troubles been visited on them folks all this year—'"

"You min' that mouth, Mildred," Bethel warned. "I reckon we ain't hand no more troubles 'n mos'."

"Aw, honey, don' you go puttin' on a brave face on my 'ccount," Milly scolded fondly. Lottie gaped. She could not have imagined anyone, much less an undercook twenty years her junior, addressing Bethel as "honey". And on she went! "Ev'ybody knows you been jus' a step short of starvation, an' your massa a half-step short of bankrupt all this year. Ain' no reflection on you, not really. Nuthin' a black woman kin do when her white man run to excesses."

At this Lottie very nearly cried out. Mister Cullen, run to excesses? It was almost unthinkable. Well, Elijah liked to joke and Nate to grumble about the old days, when as a young man he had been something of a drinker, but he didn't even do that anymore. It was all she could do to keep quiet, and although Bethel's serene expression did not change the sudden tension in her backbone told Lottie she was under similar constraint.

"Now, it ain' like that," she said quietly. "Don' go talkin' 'bout things you ain't informed 'bout, Milly. Why'n't you jus' tell me what news it is gots you so eager to see me?"

Milly laughed. "Tha's jus' the thing!" she chortled. "It 'bout them misfortunes been visitin' on you! That bad business with the sheriff and your field hand."

All at once Bethel was no longer bristling with indignation. Her eyes had narrowed and she was raptly attentive. "What 'bout it?" she puffed. "What you know 'bout the sheriff?"

Milly looked affronted. "Sumbody awready tol' you, didn' they?" she said suspiciously. "Sumbody done beat me to it."

"Them Ives men was over here t'other day, lookin' to roust Mist' Bohannon for a posse," Bethel said curtly. "That there's all I know. If'n you know more, Milly, you tell me quick!"

Mister Gabe looked at her with wide, chary eyes, ready to do whatever she asked of him. Lottie felt herself under a similar spell. When Bethel used _that_ tone of voice, you simply had to do just as she said, and as quickly as possible. But Milly, astonishingly immune to the unspoken warning, luxuriated in a pause, draping one arm over the back of the récamier as she settled more comfortably.

"Well, now," she said. "I reckon that mus'a been how it got started," she said. "Blame fool didn' never ought to have put his hands on a white girl in the firs' place, much less one of F'licity Ives's standin'. Much _less_ one as gots her a army of ornery brothers 'n cousins."

Lottie almost giggled. Mister Gabe had mistaken the Ives men for an army, riding up as they had in loose formation with their firearms so prominently displayed. She quite liked the idea of those same men descending on the wicked sheriff who had broken Nate's shoulder blade and so cruelly hurt her ma. She wondered if that made _her_ wicked, too, and the thought made her uneasy. She drew closer to Mister Gabe, comforted by the way he moved to press his back against her legs as she did so. He looked up at her and offered a little, uncertain smile. She returned it with a small one of her own, wary of expressing her amusement lest it should garner Bethel's disapproval.

Bethel was indeed frowning in a most disapproving way, but at Milly. "Jus' tell me what you know," she said. "Unless'n you's jus' wastin' my time?"

Milly laughed. "Oh, I ain't wastin' it, I promise!" she crowed. "Well. Them boys rided on over there, all 'leven of 'em, countin' the two old'uns in the lead. Seems mebbe sumone tol' the sheriff they was comin', 'cause he was gone from the jail when they got up there. But they caught up to him awright, out on Loose Pine Road jus' where the lane from his place meets it. Mist' Trussell's Johnny an' Eight-Finger George was out near the road cuttin' brush, an' they see'd the whole thing."

She squirmed a little in glee, relishing the story and her position as the center of attention. "Well, that fool of a man didn't hardly seem to know what was happenin' 'til they was all 'round him. He was ridin' that dark geldin' he favors, an' he tooked in it a tight circle, with all them gentlemen in a ring. He stoops so's he facin' Mist' Elmer, an' he says, 'G'day to you, Ives. Fine mornin' fo' a ride, ain't it?'."

Bethel's frown was deepening. She swept her arm behind her in a long reach that caught hold of her chair and dragged it forward. She sat down, smoothing her apron before patting her lap. Mister Gabe relinquished his place against Lottie and climbed wordlessly into it, laying his popgun across his knee before snuggling against Bethel. Milly went on talking blithely, as if she had not even noticed them move.

"Well, you kin imagine the laugh went up at that! Mist' Thad, he crows out; 'Ain't you got the nerve, talkin' like we's come to a garden-party! Ain't it a _fine_ day, Sheriff!'. An' Mist' Albert, _he _say—"

"Chile, sit down an' rest them legs," Bethel interrupted, cutting the other woman off as she turned to Lottie. "You ain't meant to be wearin' youself out. Milly, move on down an' let her sit. We's got that thing in her on 'ccount of the convalescin' childern, not visitin' Negroes."

She did not say it rudely, but still Lottie was taken aback at Bethel's forthrightness. She always advocated the use of one's very best manners before any guest, black or white. But perhaps there were things that transcended even politeness, and if that was true then the wellbeing of those Bethel loved surely qualified. Lottie knew that Bethel did love her, in her commanding and sometimes stern way.

Certainly Milly appeared unaffected. She shifted her rump down towards the foot of the récamier, opening a generous space for Lottie. She sat down hurriedly, her right hip up on the curve of the arm, and folded her hands neatly in her lap. Now that she was sitting she could feel the hot, swirling dizziness gathered like a stormcloud at the top of her head. Bethel was right: she really wasn't well enough to be standing around like that.

"There," the old woman said, nodding in curt satisfaction. She sat back with more ease, and in her lap Mister Gabe settled comfortably, looking up at her with pleasant expectation. He knew it was storytime, all right. "Go on then, Milly," said Bethel; "and tell it."

Milly told.

_*discidium*_

Surrounded as he had been and having undoubtedly suspected some such backlash, Brannan had nonetheless made an attempt to pretend nothing was amiss. To the Negro witnesses the effort looked ludicrous, but the posse of white men had played along at the start.

"I don't know as I'd call it a _fine_ day," said Albert, father of the injured party. "Seems to me it's been unseasonably cold all this week. Might be we's due for a real freeze."

Brannan had tried to chuckle amiably, but had succeeded only in producing a nervous titter. Around him, the younger Ives men were shifting, horses stepping restlessly as they fed on their riders' eager latent energy.

"There was ice on the duck pond this morning," the Sheriff had remarked inanely. "In the reeds 'round the north edge."

"Fascinating, Harvey. That's fascinating," said Albert Ives. He sighed wearily and adjusted his seat in the saddle from languid and leaning to upright and watchful. "I guess you know I ain't _really _here to inquire 'bout the state of your duck pond."

Now Brannan could not hide his fear. Even at a distance it was obvious as he glanced back over either shoulder in search of escape, only to find broad grins and spry young bodies – both human and equine – blocking his path. Johnny and Eight-Finger George were still making an effort to appear to be working, but their motions had slowed to the broad, exaggerated gestures of pantomime performers, and their eyes were fixed on the white men instead of the hatchets.

Every darky in Lauderdale County knew what had happened between the sheriff and Nate Bohannon, and how the combined efforts of Nate's master and young Miss Ives had put an end to a beating that might have otherwise proved fatal. Feeling ran high on the matter. Nate was liked or at least respected by most folks 'round the neighborhood, and there was no slave in the county who had any grievance with his master. They had all been bridling against the injustice the field hand had suffered while on plantation business, and the inability of Mister Bohannon (who was, after all, known to be a good man despite his ornery disposistion) to avenge him. Now it seemed there might be some justice in the matter after all, and the two slaves intended to bear witness.

"I don't – I mean – i-if this is 'bout Miss Felicity and that skinny beau of hers—" the sheriff had stammered.

Young Mister Thomas, who had his lively little stallion abreast of Brannan's gelding, had leaned hard into his left stirrup so that he could swat at the sheriff's sleeve. He did not strike with much force: scarcely hard enough to make the wool ripple. But Brannan flinched as if threatened by a whip. Several of the boys chuckled.

"Miss Ives," said Thomas, and Brannan's eyes grew wide and stupid.

"What?" he blurted blankly.

"You ain't an intimate family acquaintance, and you _ain't_ what I'd call a social equal," Thomas said happily. "You call her _Miss Ives_."

The sheriff looked completely dumbfounded at this undeniably impolite forthrightness, but there was a general snigger of approval from the young men. It was impossible to say what the two Ives patriarchs made of it, for they neither smiled nor admonished their boys. Mister Elmer, the eldest, snugged up his reins so his mount pranced once in place.

"The fact of the matter, Sheriff, is that your constituents don't think too highly of you layin' hands on their young ladies," he said wearily. "Come to that, speaking as a gentleman and a slaveholder myself, I don't much like you thrashing a darky abroad on his master's business."

At this, Brannan's expression blackened into a holy rage. "If you're taking that nigger's word over mine—"

"I'm taking my daughter's word over yours," said Mister Albert brusquely, cutting smoothly in before his brother could respond. "Them young folks was coming along at quite a clip, and they popped out into the road without warning. If you hadn't meddled, they would have settled the matter peaceably."

"I was looking to protect her from a mean nigger!" blustered Brannan. "I'd have thought you'd be thankful."

Now a chorus of indignant protest swelled.

"Thankful?"

"Protect her!"

"You bruised her wrist—"

"—wouldn't stop talking 'bout how you—"

"—such a gentle li'l heart, bless her, and—"

"_And_ broke her best parasol!"

"—when she told you to _stop it_—"

"—Bohannon's darky, and his—"

"Her li'l white _wrist_!"

"Mighta broke her arm, damn you!"

Two of the boys had leapt out of their saddles during this fracas, tossing their reins to their nearest fellows. One seized the bridle of the sheriff's gelding, while the other rattled one of his stirrups. Brannan tried to shy away, but this only brought him closer to Mister Thomas – who bared his teeth in a predatory grin.

Then Mister Albert had raised his hand and cleared his throat. All the blue eyes had riveted upon him instantly, Brannan's dull and beady ones flitting around in confusion before settling on the head of the family that had him surrounded.

"Now, boys," Mister Albert said in a voice that was mildly chiding and yet fondly indulgent; "we agreed at the outset that a dozen on one ain't honorable."

There were only eleven of them, of course, but all the same the remark was witty enough to make Johnny and George chuckle. They had given up all pretense of working now: the white folks weren't watching, and if their own master or his overseer came up behind them the spectacle ahead would surely be explanation enough of their idleness. On the other side of the ditch, a couple of the young men were exchanging guilty looks and nudging their horses back to loosen the circle a little. The one holding the bridle, however, stood fast and scowled up at the sheriff.

"Surely you see you got something coming, Harvey," Albert Ives said, his tone now almost tiredly reasonable. "Sheriff or not, you can't go 'round damaging valuable property or manhandlin' young girls. Now, I expect you also know how hard it is to keep a passel of angry boys from pouncing, and if Elm and I just ride off now—"

"Y-you can't! _Can't _just threaten a lawman like that!" blustered Brannan. Nearly apoplectic, his voice rose over an octave and cracked like that of a pubescent boy. Hearing it and knowing the blow the sound dealt to his dignity, he cringed and slumped forward over the saddlehorn. "What'd'ya want by way of compensation?" he muttered.

"If Cullen Bohannon was here, you could talk to _him _about compensation," Mister Albert corrected. "Us, we're more interested in retribution. Now, you didn't hurt our Felicity too badly, but you did shake her up over that business with the darky. A girl brung up gentle like she been ain't used to seeing that kind of thing, and she _did_ tell you to stop it."

"Yeah," Brannan grunted, eyes still fixed on his steed's broad withers. "But I ain't never taken orders from a woman…"

"That there's your first mistake," said Elmer dryly. Thad and the other two elder Ives youths snorted as they tried to conceal their laughter, while the others seemed alternately disinterested or confused. Most of them had been small boys when Elmer's first wife had died, and were apparently unaware of how she had led him around by his shirt-ruffles.

"Here's what I'd suggest," Mister Albert said. "Why don't you get down off that nag, take off the gun, and take your medicine like a man?"

The sheriff had looked at him in stuporous astonishment. Then his eyes slid around the circle to the ring of young men, all bristling for a fight. He stood no chance against a mob, if they were allowed to do as they pleased. With his jaw so tight that the two Negroes had been able to see it bulging from sixty yards away, he looped his reins on his pommel and slung his off-leg over to the other side of the saddle.

"You do any permanent harm, or anything that impedes my ability to do my duty by the county, and I'll come back with a posse to round up the lot of you," he grumbled as he stepped down to earth, finding himself eye to eye with the boy who had been rattling his stirrup. The young Ives grinned, and Brannan scowled.

"Back out a bit, boys," Mister Thad said brightly, dismounting himself and giving his lines to another rider. He patted Brannan's gelding firmly on the rump, and the horse moved out to join the circle, led by the young man holding his bridle. Then Thaddeus looked up at Mister Elmer with an artful little bow. "Uncle?" he said. "You're entitled to draw first blood. Hell: I wasn't even there."

"I was," the other eldest, Mister Tony, groused as he dropped lithely from his own mount. He was flexing the fingers of his right hand ominously. "Shoulda gave him his medicine then."

Languidly, Mister Elmer Ives handed his lines off to his brother. He took off his fine felt hat and hooked it on the horn of his saddle. He alighted, then slowly unbuttoned his frock coat, folding it into long quarters before draping it over the vacant leather perch. Then he entered the ring made by the horses. Between the skinny hips of two of the youngest boys, George and Johnny could see perfectly as the planter approached the sheriff. He looked at Brannan for a long moment, sober in silent reflection. Then he closed his hand into a hard fist, drew back, and socked him firmly in the stomach.

There was an explosion of air and the Sheriff crumpled forward, wheezing. Mister Elmer looked at him soberly, almost sadly. "Don't you ever lay hands on my daughter again," he said, quiet but deadly.

Brannan looked up at him through watering eyes, mute. Thaddeus had stepped in to grab one shoulder before he could fall, and now gripped it firmly. "Go on, Tony," he said.

With the same athletic grace as his father, but none of the measured dignity that came from patience, Tony lunged in and took his blow. It caught Brannan to the side, up under the ribs. Brannan grunted, and then to the astonishment of all – not least the watching slaves – he bolted. He wrenched away from Thaddeus and sprang past Tony, slipped between the heads of two horses and would have made a successful escape onto the open road had Daniel Ives not slithered down out of his saddle just in time to step into his path.

Brannan took a swing at the youth, but Mister Daniel was eighteen and light on his feet. He bobbed to the side, and the blow whistled past his ear. Then he danced to the right, blocking Brannan's escape almost comically: just long enough for the two older boys to come up behind and grab him.

Thad caught a firm hold of one arm, but Tony's grip was not so sure. The sheriff's elbow jerked back and blasted into the young man's nose. There was a bright spray of blood and a loud oath from Tony, and three of the horses reared back as their riders tugged them swiftly out of the circle to regroup in a crescent that blocked Brannan's avenue of escape. They blocked the slaves' view of the scuffle, but when the knot loosened a little Tony was cupping a hand under his profusely bleeding nose, and Daniel had hold of Brannan's right arm instead.

After that, they marched him up the road and over the property line to fling him into his own duck pond.

_*discidium*_

Mister Gabe frowned in exasperation, looking up from the wooden bowls he had been trying to nest inside one another. "Bet'l, you's tellin' it wrong!" he protested. "An' _splash, ker-PLOP!_ Dey chuck't him in dat pond. An' he come up spittin' an' wet right t'rough!"

Nate, whose eyes had been fixed on Bethel all the while she relayed the story, now looked to the little boy. The spell of breathless vindication was broken, and he felt the corner of his mouth crack up into a smile. "You's right, Mist' Gabe: that surely is a better way to tell it," he said, venturing to sound playful.

The child grinned and nodded. He was kneeling up on the bench with his elbows propped on Elijah's rickety little table. "You gots to make de sounds wid de words: den it funny! Bet'l didn' say it funny."

Bethel cast him a fond, loving look from her seat on the chair with its back to the fire. Lottie was sitting crosslegged on the floor beside her. The three of them had come down from the house as soon as Milly left, bearing the news. Now the old woman smiled patiently and explained; "It ain't _really_ funny, Mist' Gabe. Think how you'd feel, if a crowd of men tried to throw _you_ in some icy-cold pond."

"They should have thrown him down a well," Meg said savagely. She was leaning on the doorjamb with her arms crossed. Her apron was smeared with whitewash, and there was a fleck of it on one inviting cheek. Her brows were knit into a wrathful scowl that astonished Nate. He was torn between dismay at her rage and private delight that she felt it – at least in part – on his behalf.

"Leastways they done sumthin'," reasoned Elijah. He too had been fetched from his work on the smokehouse to hear the news. "Sheriff ain't likely to come after the whole bunch of 'em like he could do the massa. Mist' Cullen best off well out of it."

Bethel nodded firmly at this. "Ain' that the truth!" she agreed fervently. Then she fixed her knowing gaze on Nate. "This don' make it right," she said gently; "but at leas' it sumthin'. He ain' goin' be able to go nowheres without folks whisp'rin' behin' their hands now."

Nate exhaled heavily and hitched the knot of his sling away from his neck. The motion sent a knife of quick, bright pain out of his cracked shoulder, but it was almost a pleasurable sensation. His hurts would heal, and after all _his_ dignity was only a private matter. Brannan's was a public one, and the harm done to it now would be permanent. Even if he went on to serve another twenty years as sheriff, everyone would remember the day the Ives brood flung him in the duck pond. Surprising himself, he grinned.

"No, he ain't," he said gleefully. He nodded to Mister Gabe. "_Splash, ker-plop_," he said smugly.

Mister Gabe bobbed his head eagerly. "Chuck him in dat pond," he agreed, finishing what was sure to become a phrase often heard around the county once the word spread from mouth to mouth. Nate could already imagine pickaninnies throughout the area giggling it to one another when the sheriff chanced to pass.

"Don' you go encouragin' him," Bethel said, obligatorily. She was smiling, but she looked very weary. "Well, I gots to git back to my work," she sighed, planting a hand on each knee as she stood slowly. She looked at the little boy. "Mist' Gabe, you put them bowls back like you foun' 'em, now. Elijah don' want to be pickup up aft' you when he done his day's work."

"How you makin' out with it?" Nate asked, for the first time actually wondering about the fall scrubbing. It had seemed such a distant chore only a few days ago. That thought brought him back to the half-plowed fields, and he set his teeth.

Meg shrugged. "Comin' 'long like you'd 'spect it," she said. "Reckon we'll be finished tonight. Don' know what we's goin' do then."

"Muck-in the tobacco fields," Elijah supplied dourly. The annual mulching with the year's amassed dung-heap was an unpleasant but grimly necessary part of growing the cash crop. Tobacco wore out the soil, and letting it sit through the winter with the noxious-smelling waste mixed in was the only thing they could do to delay that inevitability. Rotating the crops each year was not really enough: last year's bad yield had been a grim reminder of that.

Nate wrinkled his nose, for the first time almost guiltily glad to be laid up. He quashed that thought as unworthy. Nasty though the work was, it was essential – and it would be all the harder on Meg and Elijah without him to help. "Might be that could wait," he suggested. "We's got to clear the privy when the weather turns cold, an'—"

"An' you think mebbe it'd be bes' to do both at _once_?" Meg asked incredulously. "No thank you, sir! I say we oughts to git it over with, an' the sooner the better; 'fore it gits too wet."

Lottie giggled, and Mister Gabe – who had dutifully replaced the bowls on their simple wooden shelf – looked questioningly at her. "Why dat funny, 'Ottie?" he asked.

"It ain't," Bethel said stoutly, bending to deal Lottie a little swat to the back of the head. "An' if'n she don' stop laughin' I's goin' sen' her out to help."

Meg opened her mouth as if to protest, no doubt wanting to say that she intended her girl to grow up to be a house slave, not a field hand. But Bethel shot her a look that stopped her. "Ain' no laughin' matter, Lottie," she agreed instead. "It a right stinkin' job, an' you oughts to know that."

"But what job _is_ it? What you-all _talkin_' 'bout?" Mister Gabe demanded, clearly bewildered.

Lottie had to bite back another giggle, and Meg looked chagrined. Bethel was clearly scrambling to think of a genteel way to explain the matter to the small boy, without infusing it with the barnyard humor Lottie naturally saw in it. So Nate stepped in.

"They gots to take all the dirty straw an' the cow pies an' things we clean out the stalls ev'y day an' spread it on the fields," he said. "Jus' like Meg an' Bethel mulch the garden b'fore the spring rains. 'Ceptin' the muck pile gots it a bad smell."

"Oh," Mister Gabe said shortly, with a little jerk of his chin. He looked pleased to understand at last, and seemed perfectly satisfied. He looked up at Bethel. "We goin' back up to de house?" he asked. "We lef' Stewpot all 'lone."

"Yes, we's goin' back," said Bethel. She picked up the hat and muffler the child had been bundled into for the short walk to the cabins and bent to put them on. She had not trouble to remove the boy's blue wool coat with the smart brass buttons.

Lottie was already on her feet, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders. Mister Gabe scrunched his face in distaste as he jammed his hands down into his mittens. Then Bethel draped her own shawl around her shoulders, hoisted the boy onto her hip, and wrapped one corner snugly around him, too.

"When you's feelin' up to the walk, Nate, you go on an' come up to the house," she invited. "Ain' no sense in you gittin' sour an' lonesome."

"Yeah, come to de house, Nate!" Mister Gabe said eagerly, peeking out of the shelter of Bethel's shawl. "Stewpot goin' like to see you." As Bethel moved to the door that Lottie held ajar, his eyes caught Elijah's. "You gots a nice li'l house, 'Lijah," he said politely. "Even if it don' got no rooms."

Then he was gone, and Bethel and Lottie with him. Meg fed the fire, and Elijah exchanged a few brief words with Nate. Then they, too, went back to their work and he was left alone. Leaning back against the wall of the bunk, Nate stared deep into the leaping flames on the hearth. And now, instead of seeing his own helpless useless infirmity, he saw that son-of-a-bitch Brannan sailing through the air into the freezing duck pond: _splash, ker-PLOP_!


	100. Social Preambles

**Chapter One Hundred: Social Preambles**

Cullen raised his eyes to stare at the fashionable wallpaper, hands clutching the handsome side rails of the washstand to shore him up. The water that he had just splashed across his face was trickling into beard and brows, and he pried free his right hand to reach for the towel. It was crisply clean and luxuriantly thick, but it had the faintly spiced and lifeless smell that came from being dried in an airing cupboard. At home Bethel's towels were thinner, worn by long use, but they were always perfumed by the scent of open air and sunshine. Cullen scrubbed his brow and blotted his whiskers, and gave each ear a quick pass with a corner of the cloth. Then he had to fling it down beside the porcelain ewer and resume his grip on the dainty piece of furniture.

He let his head hang between upthrust shoulders, panting shallowly as his lungs crackled, gurgling ominously. He could feel the fever, arid and heavy, throbbing across the broad muscles of his back and smoldering darkly behind his eyes. He rode its lurching waves for a little more than a minute, counting his breaths until he was certain that he would not cough. Then, unsteadily but with hard-eyed resolve, he washed under his arms, rinsing away sweat already gone stale despite last night's bath in one of the hotel's enormous tubs. They were long enough that a man could sit comfortably in them, and so deep that he could submerge himself almost entirely, with only his head and two small discs of kneecap out in the steamy air. It was a prodigal waste of energy, heating and hauling all that water, but that was not a guest's worry and it made for a delicious experience. It had soaked out a good many of his aches as well, and afterward he had slept deeply and without dreams.

When at last he was finished washing, Cullen shuffled around the screen and moved to the wardrobe as quickly as he could, trying not to look at the bed as he passed it. He had exerted an enormous effort to peel himself out of the depths of the warm feather mattress. Now the temptation to fling himself back into its embrace was tremendous. Determination and careful aversion won out, and he was soon digging out fresh underclothes. Putting on the shirt was easier than expected: though tender and luridly varicolored, his shoulder had lost much of its stiffness. In changing his drawers, however, Cullen had to lean heavily against the wardrobe as he warred with waves of hot dizziness for his balance. The same struggle ensued over his trousers, and his fingers fumbled with the buttons on garment after garment. In the end, dressed to vest and shirtsleeves, he found himself in front of the dressing table, gawking into the mirror with the same blank, unseeing eyes that had made such a study of the elegantly flowered wall.

He fished out a stiff, starched collar from the box, perfectly pressed and pristinely white. Mary fixed his collars with a care and skill that the finest haberdasher would envy. Cullen managed to get it into place without much difficulty, slipping in the collar studs and smoothing the yoke of his shirt with fingers that still remembered the far higher collars and stiffer starches of bygone years. He would never be quite comfortable in formal attire, but it helped to remind himself how much worse it once had been.

He chose his thinnest stock: really just a plush velvet ribbon in a deep shade of red. The full silk cravat could wait for eveningwear: he was not going to bind up his fever-sweated throat any tighter than necessary. In went the cufflinks, shutting in his wrists and hiding the lean ropes of muscle that striated his forearms. It was impossible to tell that under the generous, gentlemanly gathers of the fine linen sleeves lay the arms of a laboring man. His palms were another matter. The torn blisters of plowing had healed and the tobacco stains were only a memory. The ridges of callouses, however, were hard and thick and far coarser than even a country gentleman could justify. There were certain tasks that might roughen a planter's hands: breaking a colt, for instance, or racing a trap without gloves. No doubt Abel Sutcliffe had a callous or two from the handle of his bluebird whip. But none of these socially acceptable labors toughened palms like a plow did, or an axe or a hoe or a scythe. Cullen chaffed his fingertips against the heel of his hand, hearing the dry rasp of his work-tanned hide. He had best be wise and wear his gloves.

He set them aside after beating them against one another to dust off any residual railway soot. Then he picked up his comb and forced his eyes to focus on the reflection before them.

Cullen sighed. His hands might brand him a man who labored like a Negro, but at least they could be hidden. There was nothing he could do about his face. His eyes were deeply shadowed and far too glassy, fine red veins blatant against the whites. His lips were cracked and visibly sore, with a small black scab occluding one especially deep fissure. The bones of his face stood out more starkly than usual, hollowing his cheeks and temples. The overall impression was one of half-starved desperation, rather than that of a man just shaking off a childhood sickness. He looked like a wild dog ready to snap at any scrap thrown before him.

Well, Cullen thought with a grimace, at least he could tame the wild dog a little, even if he couldn't make it look any less cadaverous. Working quickly with fingertips and comb, he smoothed his eyebrows and mustache, settling his neatly trimmed beard so that the whiskers all went in approximately the same direction. Then he started raking through the dark, shaggy mass on his head. It was tangled from tossing in the night, and frizzle from last night's washing. He raked out the worst of the knots, and then reached for the small jar of quince seed oil that he always used to subdue his hair for formal occasions.

It was not there.

He checked the bag that had held his few toiletries, and then the drawers in the wardrobe. With an energy he could not have imagined scant minutes before, he rifled through the neatly rolled underclothes and folded stockings. He grabbed his valise from the floor by the door and groped through its empty compartment. Then he strode across the room to be certain the chambermaid had not put it on the washstand. She had not.

Cullen made it halfway back towards the dressing table before his knees gave a portentous, boneless quiver. Hastily he sat down on the edge of the bed, left arm hooked around the high post, while his head pulsed ferociously and loose, wet coughs burbled up into his throat. It was not a full-fledged fit complete with the whooping and the black, blinding want of air, but it was enough to bring Cullen back to cold and wearisome sobriety. When he was finally able to stand again, he walked heavily back to the dressing table and pulled out its cushioned stool to sit.

He looked over the items laid out before him once more, but he hair oil was still conspicuously absent. Between them, Mary and Bethel had provided for every need they could have foreseen, except this last. In all the chaos of these last difficult weeks, such a small oversight was certainly understandable. Cullen had not thought of it himself until just now. Nevertheless its absence was both an irritant and a considerable inconvenience.

It would have bene a small thing, logistically, to send a porter out to buy a canister of hair oil for him, but there was the matter of money. The notion of spending fifty cents on something he already had at home – and only used about a dozen times a year – irked Cullen. His budget for this trip was tight, and his financial gains were uncertain. He supposed he could ask his friend the chambermaid to purloin a couple of drams of bacon grease for him, but the smell would be a dead giveaway of a poor man's economy. There was nothing for it but to slick his hair down with water and hope that it stayed where he put it.

Cullen's hair was think and waving: the heavy Pictish mane that had once terrified the Romans. It behaved far better when wet, and after a few minutes over the washbasin he had it racked neatly down across his crown, curling into a neat ducktail over the back of his collar. It looked fine: tidy and gentlemanly. And it made the harsh shadows on his face seem less frantic and more coolly ascetic.

The frock coat with its narrow lapels and handsome jet buttons completed that effect. It had lost some of the benefit of what had been, three years ago, excellent tailoring. The fit of the shoulders was still good, where hard muscle had built up as idle softness melted away, but the coat was loose now about waist and hips. Examining his reflection as he tugged out a reserved inch of shirt cuff, Cullen reflected with mild amusement that he looked like a man who was accustomed to carrying a revolver – so much so that he had to have his best clothes tailored to accommodate a gunbelt. That, at least, would not harm his image in the eyes of his buyers: not in these secession-happy times when every man in the South was bristling to flex his Second Amendment rights and form himself a well-regulated militia.

Belatedly Cullen put his watch in his waistcoat, draping the chain elegantly across his midsection and fastening just one coat button so that the silver links would show when his spread the frock tails to sit. One of the beautiful new handkerchiefs went into the breast pocket, and he drove his rough hands into the black kidskin gloves. Then he was ready.

The smoking room carried on the sumptuous motifs of the rest of the St. Charles Hotel. There were card tables of dark wood where groups of four could gather for a game of whist or faro (or, daringly, parlor poker) or a companionable drink. Horsehair couches and high-backed armchairs curled into clusters in the corners and before the two hearths. Along one interior wall was a small bar stocked with high-quality potables, and leaning against its rail was one of the men Cullen had arranged to meet.

"Morning, Mr. Shafter," he said as he strode leisurely up to the bar and held out his gloved hand. The other man set down his wide port snifter and shook it vigorously.

"Mr. Bohannon!" he said. "Always a pleasure to see you! When we got into the third week in November and I still hadn't heard from you, I got to worryin' you might have given someone else first pick."

"Now, you know I'd never do that." Cullen put on a bright, artificial grin that he hoped did not appear too ghastly. "We've done good business in the past, you 'n me. Why'd I put myself out starting elsewhere?"

Shafter chuckled and picked up his glass. "I 'ppreciate the early meeting, too," he said. "Any excuse to start imbibing before noon." He took a generous swallow of port.

"Glad you don't mind it," said Cullen. "The railroad arrangements got me on a firm schedule."

"I heard you rolled in the night before last," said Shafter, aiming for nonchalance but not quite achieving it. He was a middle-aged junior partner in a long-established firm that produced middling chewing tobacco. Whether because of this general mediocrity or some other, more personal reason, his vanity was best pleased when he was given the courtesy of precedence. And when his vanity was best pleased, he was inclined to be a little freer with his company's funds. That was why Cullen had taken care to give him the first appointment, and how he had known its mid-morning slot would prove acceptable. Now he had to reassure Shafter hat he was indeed his first caller, without drawing attention to the man's obvious insecurity over it.

"Sure," Cullen said, shrugging his shoulders and offering a sly half-smile. "But yesterday's activities weren't exactly what you'd call business-related."

Shafter chuckled appreciatively and clapped Cullen on the shoulder. "Not the sort of story you'll bright back to the lady wife, I'll bet!" he ribbed.

"Nooo, sir," Cullen drawled, all too earnestly. He intended that those at home, even and perhaps especially Mary, would hear of only the best, pleasantest, and most interesting aspects of his trip. Perhaps if he fell into some humorous but quickly-resolved scrape he would share that, too. But the day lost to delirium and whooping cough would remain his guilty secret.

Shafter, of course, was imagining something far more salacious, and evidently enjoying it enormously. "A drink for my friend!" he called to the impeccably dressed barman. "Visitin' the big city's thirsty work when you don't get down but once a year!"

"Whiskey," Cullen said to the ginger-haired attendant's questioning glance. "You got ice? I'll take it with ice."

He silently cursed his addled brain as the man turned to the tin tub holding a block of ice and began chipping off chunks with a dainty mallet and pick. Of course they had ice. This was the St. Charles Hotel. They bought their ice by the ton; probably in five-foot cubes. Even now, when private stores were all but depleted and waited anxiously for the first boatload from New England, the hotel's icehouse was surely well-supplied. It had to be. A luxury hotel in the South would not maintain its reputation long without being able to provide this most universally sought indulgence. It had been a stupid question, and it made him sound much more provincial than it was wise to sound.

Cullen took his glass and swirled it, listening to the enticing tinkling. The ice would thin down the liquor, but with the fever still high and parching in his blood the allure of a cold drink was great.

"Shall we have a seat?" he asked, nodding towards an unoccupied nook. "I got Mr. Legendre joining us at eleven o'clock: didn't figure the two of you was exactly competition, and you wouldn't mind each other's company."

Shafter shrugged affably. "Sure," he said. "We don't generally move in the same circles, but so long as he ain't teetotal he's fine by me."

It was the second half-humored remark about alcohol he had made, and Cullen stole a sidelong look at the man as they sat down. His color was high for this time of the morning, and his nose was webbed with small broken vessels Cullen did not remember seeing last year.

"I'm in a little late this season," he said, taking a deliciously cool swallow of his whiskey. "Why don't you tell me what you're looking for, and go from there?"

"Whyn'y you tell _me_ what you got?" countered Shafter.

Cullen helped himself to another mouthful of whiskey, and bared his teeth in a knowing grin. He reached into his breast pocket and leaned forward to offer his cigar case.

"Them on the left was air cured," he said. "On the right's fire-cured. I recommend the left myself. My best ain't never been better."

Shafter took the cigar and sniffed it. "Nice," he said thoughtfully, reaching for the piercer that lay on the side table by the ash-dish. He lit the cigar with a match from the hotel-branded box provided, and puffed on the tip. "Mighty nice indeed."

"Course you'll be interested in the fire-cured stuff for chewing," said Cullen, shambling back to his sales pitch. Selling tobacco by the hogshead was not like hawking peppermints on a street-corner. It required delicate maneuvering and a certain subtle touch – at least if one intended to do it well. "I tried a little myself. Ain't chewed much since I married, as my wife don't much hold with it, but I did give her a try with this batch. Either I've lost my sense of discrimination, or I grew a golden crop this year."

"Been a good year of quality," Shafter agreed distantly, rolling the cigar between finger and thumb as he drank deeply of the port. "Good quality running cheap."

Cullen knew better than to feel any apprehension at these words: it was the buyer's part in their natural drama. Still he felt his innards flutter anxiously, and had to quiet them with the whiskey. This was not good. The stakes were too high this year, and it was jangling his nerves.

"What's your production been like this year?" he asked levelly. Then, so as not to sound too interrogative, threw in a false but reasonably believable remark. "Seems to me I saw your packets on the train."

To his surprise, Shafter grinned broadly at this. "Distinctive, ain't they?" he asked animatedly. "New this year: it was my idea! Partners didn't think it'd be worth the expense, but hell! Ten gross of them tins only costs twenty dollars from the factory in Philadelphia, and we can get the labels printed by the man who used to do our wrappers. Charge an extra four cents an ounce 'cause of the premium packaging, and it's a clear profit of two and a half cents _above_ what we was makin' before! Folks seem to like 'em, too: handier for travel, the tobacco don't get gummy in a working man's pocket, and when the tin's empty you can give it to the wife for holding pins, or to the kids to play with."

Or, Cullen thought cynically, you could just fill it up again with some other company's chewing tobacco. But he nodded wonderingly. "Mighty clever," he lauded. "Takes a touch of vision to see that kind of an opportunity."

"Got the idea while I was up North," Shafter eulogized proudly, hitching himself up in the slickly upholstered armchair. "Seen them businessmen and clerks with their tins of tobacco, and I thought – why not! You sell a half-pound of pipe tobacco in a tin; why not a pocket ounce of chew?"

They went on for a while, idly discussing Shafter's business innovation, his travels up north, and general New Orleans gossip. Cullen was not earnestly interested in the conversation, but it was an investment in the negotiations to come. When it was time to hammer out the hard details of the sales, Shafter would look at Cullen as a friend, as an equal and as a worthwhile business associate. And as an equal, Cullen would naturally be entitled to a better price than some poor tobacco farmer who could not or would not drink, smoke and make small talk like a gentleman.

Shafter beckoned the barman over twice to refresh his port, but Cullen was pacing himself. His mind was too dulled by fever to be much improved by liquor, and in any case he was watching his pocketbook. He nursed the whiskey sparingly, watching as the ice shrank to slivers and finally vanished altogether. He was mid-sip when, peering over the rim of the glass, he spied his next caller.

Édouard Legendre was a tall and slender man with the unconscious grace of a dancer. He must have been into his fifth decade, for he had been well established in trade by the time Cullen took an active role in the business of selling his father's crops, but he did not look it. He had dark hair and keen dark eyes, and dark whiskers that he wore in a European fashion: thick on the jaw and upper lip with the chin shaved clean. He swept artfully into the room with his tall hat in his hand, passing it off to the young black man whose duty it was to manage the guests outerwear.

Hurriedly, not taking his eyes from his target lest he should miss the moment when he was seen, Cullen lowered the glass and swallowed. His vocal cords tightened as the whiskey burned its delicious way past them. When he muttered " 'Scuse me…" to Shafter as he rose, the words rattled croakily. The glass clattered as he set it on the table, limbs unfolding into a smooth stride that outstripped his rising dizziness by two full steps.

"Mr. Legendre," he said, not quite so roughly. He offered his gloved hand. "It's a pleasure to see you again."

"Monsieur Bo'annon," Legendre reciprocated, warmly but with quiet reserve. He had a thick Louisiana French accent that might have been an impediment to success if not for its ancient refinement: when Édouard Legendre spoke, it was instantly apparent that he came from old and very wealthy stock. His business was cigars: dark, costly, high-quality cigars that were solid competition for the best out of Cuba and Haiti.

"Always a _plaisír_ to see you," said Legendre. "Do you bring us Mississippi's best zis year? I 'ope. Last year, eit was not so good."

Cullen could not contain a grimace. Last year he had not even completed a sale to Legendre: the quality of the tobacco had been wholly inadequate.

"This year's tobacco puts last's to shame," he reassured his buyer. He would have said it whether or not it was true, but thankfully it was not merely a sales tactic. When the aphids had appeared in the bottom field, Cullen had told Mary that the crop promised the highest quality. In those leaves that had not been touched by the hail, he thought he might still have that. He hoped to God he did.

"Would you like some refreshment?" Cullen asked. With Legendre he never used the clipped part-sentences and shortcuts of Southern speech that fit with men like Shafter. It just wasn't quite right. "As I'm the host, you only have to ask."

The older man shook his head, slipping into step beside Cullen as the latter led the way towards the chairs where Shafter still sat. "It muddies ze palatte," he said. "You 'ave samples, I zink?"

"Absolutely," Cullen almost chuckled. Out came the old leather case again: not as harmful to his illusion of prosperity as it might have been, since a gentleman of means might still choose familiarity over pretense. Certainly no one who knew him would think him over-fond of pretense. "Air-cured is on the left. Try one of each if you like."

"I weell, _merci bien_," said Legendre, pocketing the fire-cured cigar and listening to the rustle of the other. "You roll zese yourself, _non_? Monsieur Bo'annon, man of many skills."

"That's kind of you, particularly as I know I ain't more than an amateur," said Cullen. He came around the armchair and Shafter stood. "Mr. Legendre, you know Art Shafter from Greenfielder's?"

"Indeed, yes," Legendre said, switching the cigar to his other finger and thumb so he could shake hadns. "Eit is of course my _plaisír_."

"Likewise," drawled Shafter, flopping back into his seat and beckoning for the barman with his empty glass. "Ain't you drinking?" he asked with a dangerous half-glance at Cullen. The only person he couldn't sit with civilly was a teetotaler.

"Ah, _non_," said Legendre, sitting lithely and piercing the cigar. "First we smoke. Zen we talk. _Zen _we drink."

Shafter chuckled. "I'm a red-blooded Louisiana man. I drink when I please."

"As do I, Monsieur. As do I." Legendre closed his eyes serenely as he drew a long draft up the cigar and held it. A tendril of smoke curled daintily from one nostril, hovering for a moment like a silk ribbon in the wind before he parted his lips and released the whole long column of smoke.

Cullen was sitting again, but not comfortably He knew that he was perched almost on the edge of the horsehair cushion, but he did not realize how tightly he was clutching the left armrest, nor that his right hand, dangling from a braced forearm, had balled into an apprehensive fist.

Édouard Legendre held up the cigar, studying its ashen tip that glowed faintly with fire. "Ahh," he sighed. "Ah, yes. Yes, zis is what I 'oped you would 'ave for me. Yes, I will take all you 'ave of zis."

Cullen had to clamp his jaw shut to keep from gawking like an idiot. He had not expected any real haggling today, much less such a straightforward opening to negotiation. Today was for social preambles, not firm offers.

"Will you?" he said, unable to help the hoarseness of his voice but at least managing to get the words out in the right order. "Will you, now?" he said again, this time more urbanely.

"Yes," said Legendre decisively, taking another, briefer pull of smoke. "Yes, I weell. You 'ave ozzer engagements tonight, do you not? Well, zey may 'ave your lugs, but zey shall not 'ave zis. I weell give you nine and one-'alf."

Nine and a half cents a pound was the highest offer Cullen had heard in all his years of trading. Among tobacco planters, ten cents a pound was spoken of as the Holy Grail: that glorious dream they all aspired to achieve but never quite seemed to reach. Cullen had had hopes of top dollar, and this was it.

Carefully he sat back, reaching to pick up his drink without lifting his elbow from the armrest. He let the golden fluid swirl, and he tilted his head reluctantly.

"Ah… now, I'm asking eleven," he said with just a hint of rueful regret.

Legendre regarded him thoughtfully, shaping a smoke ring with his tongue and sending it into the space between them. Only when it began to dissipate did he shrug his slim shoulders.

"Ze most I am at leeberty to offer, Monsieur Bo'annon, is ten and one-'alf."

"Done," Cullen declared, firmly and not too swiftly. He set down the glass again, this time with confident finality, and scooted forward on his seat to extend his hand. His dark glove and Legendre's dove gray one met, gripping firmly as their eyes locked in the mutual respect that came of cutting a clean deal. Only Cullen's reputation had enabled it: buying sight unseen was rare in the tobacco business.

"Indeed, eet is done," agreed the Frenchman. "We can see about your ozzer stock later, so long as zis is mine. Now tell me," he added with a grin; "just 'ow much I 'ave bought."

Cullen had to envy the affluence that allowed such breezy freedom with money. Or perhaps, he reflected, it was only that Legendre did not fear consequences as he reached for what he wanted. With that freedom, at least, Cullen had a passing familiarity.

"Twenty-three hundred pounds in hundred-pound crates," he replied, whipping through the calculation and restraining himself from laughing aloud. It was the least part of his crop, and it was the very best, but it was sold – and for more than he had hoped.

Legendre clicked his tongue humorously. "An' 'eere I was, zinking per'aps one 'ogshead at most!" he teased. "Well, eit is wort' ze money."

"I hope you feel the same about the fire-cured stuff," Cullen said genially. He sat back again and grinned. "It's always a pleasure to do business with you, sir."

Shafter laughed. "I ain't never seen such a quick bargain!" he said, brandishing his cigar. "Just how good _is_ this thing?"

"Too good for chewing, certainly," said Legendre dryly, taking another drag upon his own.

_*discidium*_

Mary did not know who had thought to send for the undertaker, or when they had gone, but he had turned up late in the afternoon on Tuesday. The heavy black hearse with its huge, somber team had cast a long shadow on the drive as the thin and stately Negro assistant climbed down from the box to help his master alight. They had come prepared, with grave expressions and low, solicitous voices, and a beautifully crafted pine coffin scarcely bigger than a boot-box.

By sundown Lucy's body was laid out in the front parlor, dressed in a charming gown of white tarlatan and French lace. Some of the women from the slave quarters had brought up evergreen boughs and the few late blossoms left in the flowerbeds. The housemaids arranged them into fresh-smelling garlands that eased the oppressive stillness of the room and the unearthly silence of the tiny body pillowed in the narrow casket.

Occupied with tending to the two convalescing girls and supervising the haunted nursemaids, Mary did not bear witness to Boyd's painful revelation to his sons. He had staged it in his library, no doubt trying to imbue it with a certain man-to-man gravity that would be a comfort to all parties. All that Mary had heard of the conversation was the aftermath: distant angry shouting from Charlie, who came tearing up the stairs and crashing through the playroom, slamming doors as he went. Hettie tried to speak to him as he thundered into the nursery, but he ignored her. He barrelled past Mary as she tried to coax him to slow down and speak to her, and he disappeared into Mammy's little room beyond the fireplace. He had refused to emerge to join Leon for the tempting supper Cookie sent up for the children. Mammy took a plate in to him when it became apparent that there was no other way to coax him to eat. They sat in there together for a long time, old woman and small boy, and when Mammy emerged again Mary could see that Charlie, ruddy cheeks tearstained, was fast asleep in her bed.

The night had been restless but largely uneventful, apart from the heart-wrenching coughing that long familiarity had made no less painful to witness. Verbena came in at half past ten, floating across the floor like a ghost in her white silk dressing gown. She had kissed each child's slumber-smoothed head, even ducking into Mammy's room to visit her silent blessing on Charlie. Then her soft footsteps and the whisper of her hems had carried down the stairs to the parlor. If she came up again before daylight, Mary did not hear her.

Wednesday morning brought the first of the condolence calls shortly after the children's quiet breakfast: Justice Graham, with his wife and eldest daughter. Mary was pulled away from the nursery by an anxious Matthew, who begged her to help Boyd receive the guests and move them as quickly as possible to the back parlor. Verbena, meanwhile, was whisked up the stairs to dress.

When she came down, relieving Mary of her awkward position as hostess, she was dignified and pristine in deep mourning that she must have worn for her father. The gown was splendid in its austere blackness, with a high collar and jet bead embroidery on the sleeves, basque and peplum. The row of onyx buttons were carved into roses of remembrance, and the skirt's narrow flounces were trimmed in feather-fine silk fringe. She wore an obsidian cameo and her wedding ring, but no other jewellery, and her hair was hidden beneath a black mourning bonnet hung with a long crape veil. She was the portrait of perfect propriety in this ensemble that would have been almost gaudily gay in its embellishment if not for the perfect blackness of every ruche, ribbon and tuck. But though she greeted the guests graciously and with her prettiest manners, she was as pale as an unpainted waxwork and her face had a peculiar, set look to it as she uttered the obligatory phrases.

No sooner had the Grahams been offered refreshment and ushered in to pay their respects before Lucy's white-draped coffin than the Trussell women arrived. They brought with them embraces and fretful condolences and much blotting of the eyes. Mary was halfway up the front steps when they came in, and she scarcely paused in her retreat. She was embarrassed to face the county ladies as she was, and the ordeal of helping Boyd to distract the Grahams had been quite enough for her. She felt dowdy in her rumpled dress and narrow hoop, hair hastily smoothed into place, and in yesterday's chemise. And of course she was not herself in mourning, which the callers had all donned out of respect for the bereaved. Good sense reminded Mary that she had come to a home with five living children not two days before, and her small acts of care and kindness meant more than the gesture of wearing the right clothes, but that did not quite override a lifetime of social indoctrination. The rituals of mourning were sacred, and high among them was the custom of dressing in black at a time of death.

It was almost noon when a boy came from the telegraph office in Meridian, bearing a missive from Verbena's brother who lived near Waynesboro. He was coming north on the next train, along with his wife and Verbena's mother. They would arrive by sunset.

By this time it seemed that half of Lauderdale County was at West Willows, filling the vestibule and the back parlor, milling about the dining table where the kitchen slaves had laid out a vast array of victuals, and each making his or her brief, sobering pilgrimage into the room where the baby lay lifeless. Verbena was surrounded by consoling friends and well-meaning but somewhat irritating matrons, and Boyd went from man to man accepting condolences and nursing a glass of whiskey slowly. Some of the visitors had brought food, others flowers, and still others little trifles for the children. Sarah White and her mother were there, and they had brought with them Sarah's head woman and Mrs. White's cook. There were slaves from other plantations, too: some congregated in the kitchen and those of sufficient rank and experience beginning to trickle into the nursery. There was a surfeit of hands, white and black, to comfort the family and the servants and to bear up beneath the unbearable, and at last Mary was no longer needed.

She slipped down the stairs quietly and managed to have a small word with Matthew as he moved between the dining room and the back parlor. He promised to have the carriage made ready for her, and thanked her once again in a choked voice so unlike his usual valet's dignity. Then he squared his shoulders and hurried off, leaving Mary to wait among the guests. She looked around awkwardly, knowing she was out of place and far too weary after two almost sleepless nights to exert the effort to make herself fit. Instead she maneuvered quietly around the foot of the stairs and towards the shelter and relative quiet of the library corridor.

Like a wallflower she inched into the shelter of the shadowed passage. It was a relief to withdraw from the glances of the callers, no doubt curious about her presence, her appearance, and Cullen's latest altercation with the sheriff. She found herself actually withdrawing up towards the library door, and she felt a giddy urge to laugh. What had come over her, that she should suddenly shy from a crowd – she, who had grown up on the arts of polite conversation and charming a crowd, now shying away from a simple gathering? She could only assume it was because of her exhaustion and the brew of painful emotion she had been tamping down so fiercely these last thirty hours. All she longed for was the warm familiarity of her own home, the haven of her own bed, and the reassuring weight of her own child in her arms.

It was a relief when one of the housemaids came to help her into her wrap and escort her to the waiting carriage. Another was just pulling up the drive, and as the Ainsley coachman helped Mary up, Pip leapt from his crouch by the steps to assist the elder Mrs. Ives down. She was clad in crisp black taffeta with a modest little veil on her bonnet. Mary did not meet her eyes, wanting only to be carried home. Hidden by the hood of the buggy, she was able to curl her back into the contour of the seat and let the nervous tension drain from her body. The gentle rhythm of the horses and the dance of speckled sunlight across the driver's back were soothing, and she was lulled into a calm almost on the cusp of sleep long before they turned onto the Bohannon land.

As the wheels rattled softly to a halt, Mary roused herself reluctantly. She could have ridden happily for an hour or two, neither drowsing nor waking, and the effort needed to step down and get all the way inside seemed insurmountable. But she sat up regardless, and blinked her eyes rapidly. She felt an incongruous perk of curiosity as she folded back the laprobe. It was the sort of sensation one could only experience when presented with a subtle change in a familiar environment

The coachman opened the door and held out his gloved hand to help Mary alight. As she stepped down, she recognized what was different. On the air was the pong, distant but sour, of dung. From her brief elevation as she perched with one foot before stepping down from the carriage, Mary looked out towards the rise. Beyond it lay the tobacco fields, where it seemed the field hands had started spreading the mulch of animal waste and soiled straw that would rejuvenated the earth for another year.

"Thank you," she murmured as she stepped down. She reached instinctively for her reticule, only to remember that she had not taken it with her. Nor was she in New York with a purse kept full of coins by a doting father to spend as she pleased or to offer in gratuity to a friend's driver. In the desk in the house Cullen had left two one-dollar banknotes in case of emergency, but that was the only money Mary had at her disposal.

"Thank you," she repeated again, giving her prettiest smile: all she had to give. "I'm sure Bethel would be glad to offer you something to drink if you'd like to come in."

"Oh, no, Missus, I couldn'," the coachman said shyly, fumbling with his hat. "With all them folks comin' an' goin', I gots to git on back. Pip, he learnin', but he ain't head coachman yet! 'Sides, we gots all manner of vittles fo' the askin' back home, what with folks bringin' more 'n them white ladies kin possibly eat."

"Very well," Mary said softly. "Thank you again for bringing me home."

"We all 'ppreciate what you bin doin', Missus Bohannon. More'n we gots words to say," he mumbled hastily, as if afraid he might lose his nerve if he hesitated. "An' what you done for Meelia yest'day – well, we all 'ppreciate it, that's so."

"That was Bethel, not me," Mary said, unwilling to take credit that was not hers even though she was longing only to retreat inside. Despite the sunshine there was a bitter bite to the air and she was so very tired.

"All the same, you gived her your name to do it unner, so's Meelia couldn' ketch no trouble," he said. "An' that ev'y bit as meanin'ful."

"It's kind of you to say," Mary murmured. "But I must go in now. My own little boy…"

She had meant merely to offer a polite explanation for her haste, but as soon as those words were out of her mouth she had to turn and run for the door. Having watched a baby die and witnessed Verbena's anguish, she felt an irrational maternal need to reassure herself of her son's wellbeing. And he had spent last night alone with Bethel – under the very best of care, but still without either of his own parents for the very first time in his young life. And his cough was still vicious…

She was through the gate and the front door almost before she realized it, leaving the former hanging wide and only just remembering to shut the latter. She tugged off her gloves as she swept through the dining room, hoopskirt swinging. Still in wrap and bonnet, she came into the kitchen with something less than ladylike dignity.

Mary scarcely noticed Lottie, curled up asleep on the récamier. She did not observe that Bethel was not in the room. Her eyes were drawn at once to her son, who was sitting on the floor with Stewpot in his lap, studiously stroking the kitten's chin and cheeks. He looked up and grinned joyously.

"Mama!" he cried, trying to keep it to a whisper as he glanced sidelong at Lottie. Stewpot was abruptly ejected from his comfortable perch as Gabe scrambled to his feet and hurried forward, arms outstretched for a hug. "You's home! 'Ottie, she sleepin', so don' you be loud."

Mary laughed faintly as she crouched, her skirts tenting broadly around her. She drew Gave to her, and he twined his arms around her neck, tucking his cheek against hers so that his nose was fairly buried in the ruffles inside the brim of her bonnet. She tried to stand, meaning to carry him to the chair, but as she tried to rise her legs quivered and her knees gave out. Awkwardly she tipped back, sitting hard on the floor. Her top hoops, having been pushed high by her descent, stood out around her hips and bowed under Gabe's weight as he landed in her lap with a gentle rustle of petticoats. He giggled, but the force of the impact had broken Mary's fragile dike of self-control. The flood of muddled feeling, grief and gratitude and strain and relief, overcame her. A small, cracking sob broke from her lips and she found herself swaying to and fro on the floor, rocking Gabe with her as hot tears trickled down her cheeks.

"My boy, my boy," she whispered, cuddling him close and praying silently, fervently, in thanks that he had been spared what Lucy Ainsley had not. "My darling baby boy!"

Gabe, who had been comfortably settled against her as he submitted mildly to her rocking, now leaned back and arced his spine away so that he could frown at her. "I t'ought I's your li'l man," he grumbled indignantly.

Mary laughed again, a little more earnestly, and freed one hand to blot at her eyes. "You are, dearest. Of course you are." She took a deep, cooling breath and kissed his cheek. At last she looked around at the very quiet kitchen. "Where is Bethel?" she asked.

"Don' know," Gabe shrugged. "She say she goin' to de toolshed an' she on'y goin' be gone five minutes."

"I see," Mary said. She was starting to feel the spark of giddy playfulness that as a girl she had always associated with being overtired. "Then don't you think she might be in the toolshed?"

Gabe looked somewhat astonished at the neatness of this logic, but quickly scrunched his face into a frown of agreement. "I t'ink you's right 'bout dat, Mama," he conceded. "But she been gone much longer dan jus' five minutes! Since she go 'way, you comed home an' 'Ottie falled asleep!"

Mary smiled gently at his child's concept of time. Neither occurrence precluded the other, nor did either take long to accomplish. Glancing at Lottie, who was curled on her side with one slender hand tucked up under her cheek, she imagined it would not have taken the sick girl long to drift off. "I'm sure she'll be back soon," she said.

Nodding, Gabe sat back and looked around at the sea of billowing tartan in which they were ensconced. He put his arms out to either side and patted his mother's skirts with his palms. The steel hoops bounced in a manner that was apparently most satisfying, because he did it again.

"Your skirts sure is big when you sit on de floor, Mama," he observed. "You's takin' up all de space."

She was indeed, and Mary was not quite certain how to retain her dignity as she got up. Furthermore, now that she was down and off her tired legs, she did not much want to hoist herself back onto them.

Before she could make up her mind one way or the other, there was the clicking of Jeb's toes on the porch floor, and the determined _clump_ of narrow shoes on the steps. A moment later, the door swung open and a strange contraption waggled into the kitchen followed closely by Bethel. It took Mary a moment to recognize the collection of flexible, interlocking poles that comprised the chimney-spike and brush. The telltale head with its stiff wire bristles was wrapped in a soot-streaked gunnysack. It obscured Bethel's view momentarily, but as she turned to nudge the door closed she spied the spectacle on the floor and paused to offer a small smile.

"Why now, Missus Mary!" she said softly, eyes twinkling a little. "What you doin' down there?"

"My mama come home," Gabe explained. He slid off of Mary's lap and scooted carefully to the edge of her skirt before setting down his shoes and clambering to his feet. "She goin' stay here now, 'til my pappy back from sellin' dat tobacco."

Mary could not allow him this belief, weary though she was of thoughts of death. "I'm going back tomorrow, darling," she said softly, getting her knees under her and gathering in her skirts to make her ungainly ascent to her feet. Gabe followed her with wide, suddenly worried eyes. As soon as she was upright Mary went to him, caressing his curly crown. Immediately he latched onto her skirts, plaintively. "The funeral is tomorrow," she said softly. "I've promised to mind the children so that Mammy and Meelia can attend."

" 'Ttend what?" asked Gabe. "What a fun'ral?"

Mary glanced uneasily at Bethel, who was standing petrified with the chimney-brush in hand. At the unspoken question in her mistress's eyes, she shook her head. Mary's heart sank. She had half-hoped that perhaps Bethel had found the wherewithal to explain about Lucy.

"It's a service at the church," she said, her voice wavering unhappily. If she tried to explain now, she would weep. She did not want to weep; it would only distress Gabe. "If Mammy goes to town, someone must take care of Daisy and Charity."

"Oh, yes. Dem girls." Gabe sighed heavily. "Dey sure does need lots of takin' care of."

"But I"ll only be gone for a few hours," Mary promised. "And I won't be gone overnight."

"You was gone las' night," Gabe admonished. Then he grinned. "Bet'l an' me, we maked a tent on de bed! An' Stewpot sleep up dere too, didn' he, Bet'l? An'—Bet'l, what dem t'ings you gots dere?"

He had turned for verification about the cat, and spied the chimney brushes. Suddenly Mary recognized the incongruity. For weeks they had been talking about finding time for Nate to clean the chimneys, but surely with his cracked shoulder the chore was impossible.

"Bethel, why did you bring those inside?" she asked, frowning in puzzlement. Every muscle in her face seemed to protest the motion, and she let them sag wearily back into neutrality. "Nate can't possibly—"

"No'm, he cain't," Bethel said stoutly. "But tobacco-sellin' time allus been my chance to give the house a good cleanin', an' it jus' wasteful to clean a room that ain't had its chimney done first."

"Then are we going to hire a sweep?" asked Mary. She had not thought there were such professionals in Mississippi, especially away from any large city.

Bethel chuckled softly. "Now, how we goin' pay a sweep if'n we cain't even pay the doctor?" she asked fondly. "No, ma'am. I aims to do it myself."

"You?" Mary looked at the long, unwieldy contraption with its radiating head made still more awkward by its grubby wrapper. "But Bethel, surely it's…"

Her voice trailed off. It seemed almost sacrilegious to question Bethel in anything, and to question her capability most of all. But the old woman was still smiling, her dark eyes twinkling.

"Missus Mary," she said. "I grew up a housegirl in Charleston. Does you think this the firs' time I's ever cleaned a chimney?"

Mary's lips parted softly, and she felt a cold flush creeping up her throat. Bethel seldom spoke of her youth, and the notion of her as a little girl, younger than Lottie and working as a house slave made Mary uncomfortable and abashed. But Bethel was still smiling.

"At least ain't nobody goin' to 'spect me to go scootin' up there to clear out a block. Them patented brushes is a real wonder." She looked fondly at the sooty brush and its accompanying spike. Then she looked at Mary and laughed quietly.

"Don' you fret, honey," she said gently. "It goin' be easy. The chimneys in this house is wide an' they's true. An' when it done I kin get back to my scrubbin' an' dustin'."

"May I watch it, Bet'l?" Gabe asked fascinatedly. "May I watch you clean dem chimneys?"

Mary was about to tell him that he could not, that it was a tricky job and Bethel should be able to go about it without an audience. But before she could speak, the black woman nodded.

"Sure you kin do that, my lamb," she said. "So long as you don' stick that li'l face in the fireplace. An' you gots to wear your coat, 'cause it col' in them rooms."

"Yes, ma'am!" Gabe agreed stoutly, marching for the door. "I's goin' go an' fetch it."

When he was gone, leaving the two women alone but for the still-slumbering Lottie, Bethel fixed her eyes on Mary again. Now they were tender with worry.

"Whyn't you go lie down in the nursery, chile?" she asked. "You's white as a old haint, an' I don' doubt you ain't slep' in two days."

"I dozed a little," Mary said, but only halfheartedly. She glanced over her shoulder with longing. "Will you be able to work with Gabe hovering by?"

"Sure I will. He ain't no trouble," Bethel assured her. "Go on an' rest, Missus Mary. We cain't have you wearin' youself out, not now."

The thought of bed was simply glorious, and Mary would not resist. "Wake me if I'm needed," she murmured earnestly. Then she slipped from the room and steeled herself for the long climb upstairs.


	101. All Around the Town

_Note: One hundred and fifty years ago today, April 26, 1861, General J. E. Johnson surrendered to General W. T. Sherman on behalf of __over 89 000 Confederate soldiers. If Cullen Bohannon did indeed fight in a cavalry company assembled near Meridian, Mississippi, in early 1861, which was present at Sharpsburg ("Antietam it is, then." – Ep. 108) and rode in the Army of Northern Virginia's fabled Beefsteak Raid in September 1864, then he too surrendered that day._

**Chapter One Hundred One: All Around the Town**

In the early afternoon, the streets of New Orleans were drowsy. The heavy humid heat of summer had given way to a cool dampness, but the habits built around it lingered throughout the year. Behind the shuttered upper windows of well-to-do houses, ladies lay napping on curtained beds or lounging in dishabille. Gentlemen gathered in salons and parlors to talk and smoke and enjoy an after-dinner drink. Shopkeepers and the proprietors of market-stalls tidied up after the morning's rush and made ready for the evening's. Laborers and craftsmen eased their pace. Among the slaves there was a similar stratification, from the cooks and mammies and ladies' maids taking their midday repose to the parish-owned street sweepers who could only slow down because the traffic was light. But everyone did quiet down, or lag a little, or in some other way drink in the languor of the hour.

Cullen descended the magnificent staircase of the St. Charles Hotel with care. He cut his pace not out of deference to the peaceful hour but because he feared his momentum might bring on another coughing jag. He had made it through his meeting with Shafter and Legendre without one; whether thanks to the sips of whiskey or to regular, surreptitious clearing of his throat he did not know. But almost as soon as the other men had taken their leave, Cullen had been obliged to retreat to the convenience cupboard to let his laboring lungs contract and spasm and leave him half-blind and reeling for want of air.

Now, however, he reached the street without incident. As he turned onto the walkway that ran up St. Charles Avenue, he nodded politely to the porters. There were three of them, standing in a close circle and conversing in low tones as they passed around one of the cheap paper-rolled cigarettes that were popular on the waterfront. They hurriedly tipped their hats to the white man who had actually deigned to notice them, and Cullen walked on.

The avenue was broad and clean. The road had been recently graded, and was free from the pits and deep chasms common on city byways. The fine gravel was sculpted into shallow ruts that ran straight with only the occasional rogue track sweeping off in a broad curve or abutting the walkway where a carriage had drawn up to a block. Cullen was walking in towards the heart of the city, leaving behind the new growth of offices, businesses and churches that had sprung up beyond the hotel in recent years. Cities, like forests, always grew most rapidly in the years after a razing fire.

At the corner of St. Charles and Canal Street, Cullen stopped to look at the statue of Henry Clay. The famed orator towered over the thin smattering of people in what had been a bustling hub an hour before and would be again an hour hence. Now there were only a few passers-by, a pair of old women in calico dresses gossiping on a corner, and a passel of boys, both black and white, playing some raucous variant of tag around the high plinth. One of the better dressed ones banked tightly to avoid slamming headlong into Cullen as the man stepped into the square.

"Sorry, Mister!" he shouted as he sped away, copper-toed shoes pounding the cobbles. Another boy let out a disappointed yelp as he was tagged out, and the flock scattered on new vectors to avoid the fresh predator.

Somewhere nearby, a _patisserie _was emitting its luscious scents of fresh pastry and hot, spiced pies. Cullen had finished off the edible remains of Bethel's basket before leaving the hotel, gnawing on stale bread smeared with preserves and trying to relish the last of the smoked venison. Although his raw throat was resistant to the very idea of food, his stomach groused greedily at these enticing new smells. The dichotomy of the two sensations was worse than either would have been alone, and a cold sweat began to break across his brow. He had one of his old handkerchiefs in his overcoat pocket, and he used it to mop his face before he took the four steps up to the door of the Monmartre Gentlemen's Club on Canal Street.

There was a statuesque mullato receiver in a fine velvet jacket just inside. He emerged from behind his counter, which bore a strong resemblance in all but scale to the one at the St. Charles Hotel, and bowed neatly but without subservience.

"Good day to you, sir," he said. Cullen had his hat in his hand already, but the man did not reach for it. "Are you perhaps a guest of one of our members?"

"Two of 'em," Cullen said, halfway to a grin. "The Malbernaque brothers?"

"Ah. Mister… Beauchamp, I believe? From Mississippi?"

"Close." His eyes might have sparkled had he not been so weary and glazed with fever. "It's Bohannon."

"My apologies, sir," the doorman said, earnest but not anxious. It was a sure sign of a member of the city's unique class of free people of color. "Bohannon, of course. You are expected."

Now he took the hat and hung it on one of four standing racks kept for that purpose. He reached to lift Cullen's overcoat from his shoulders. "Monsieurs Malbernaque are in the upstairs parlor, to the left as you ascend."

"Thank you," Cullen huffed, the second word catching in the back of his throat. He brushed past the man and started up the dark staircase. He stopped on the lamplit landing to clear the guttural croak from his throat with a shallow, painful cough. His ribs felt riven from the earlier fit, and even a deep, steady breath brought with it loose, frightening anguish.

The air of the club was fragrant with cigar smoke, old wood and furniture polish. Somewhere distant in the cool, genteel gloom a violin was playing. At the top of the stairs and to the left was a broad, arched doorway hung with crimson draperies weighted with huge, tawny silk tassels. They were tied back invitingly in place of a door, and Cullen stepped through into the club's parlor. It was not so different from the smoking room at the St. Charles Hotel, save that it was smaller and more intimate. It was a quintessentially masculine space, with dark woods and sombre upholsteries. Some of the chairs were covered in leather instead of horsehair damask, and within reach of every one stood an ash-dish and a spittoon. Large portraits of men in the clothing of three generations' past held prominent places on the papered walls: no doubt founding members of the club.

Cullen spied his quarry only a couple of steps past the threshold. The Malbernaques were seated at one of the small, round tables that punctuated the room. They were midway through a hand of cards, and Cullen caught them unawares as he strode purposefully up.

"What's the buy-in?" he asked. Then he was engulfed in warm greetings and hearty back-slapping that was surely ton meant to be as painful as his sore ribs rendered it. Eventually, all three men were seated and Grégoire Malbernaque was dealing out what he called a "friendly" game of three-handed whist. This meant, of course, that no money was to be exchanged.

"Did you come through Jackson?" Thierry Malbernaque asked, stubbing out his onw fat Havanan to accept one of Cullen's slender, home-rolled cigars. "I was in Baton Rouge last week, and the place is on fire – almost literally, I tell you! They got a half-cocked militia regiment camped on the Capitol green, open-air cooking and all. A reminder to the legislature that they got to take action, I guess."

"Ain't that dramatic in Jackson," Cullen said mildly, stowing his small leather case. "The senators were having themselves a late-night quarrel while their clerks drank on a street corner, but that's about the extent of what I saw."

There was a brief hush while everyone examined and sorted their cards, though not one of them reached to look at the "widow" to Grégoire's left. Over the top of his hand, Cullen stole looks at his prospective buyers.

The Malbernaque boys were as different in appearance as two men could be and still share the same blood. Grégoire was husky, at twenty-nine already leaning well towards fat. He wore his whiskers broad and bush, no doubt at least in part to make himself less baby-faced. Thierry, though four years younger, had a leanness to his body that, in combination with a long aquiline nose, made him look rather like a bird of prey. He was clean-shaven, but wore his hair longish and in much the same way as Cullen was at the moment – though between a generous dollop of hair oil and the straightness of the tresses themselves, Thierry's efforts had been much more successful. And despite the ascetic profile, he shared his brother's ready smile and aptitude for easy conversation.

"How's your pretty wife?" he said now, apparently satisfied by the arrangement of his cards. He jotted down his wagered number and passed the slip of paper to Cullen. "You know you promised to bring her out one of these years. Better do it quick, before you go and get her in the family way again – or is she?"

Cullen shook his head with a tiny half-grin. For the first time since he had learned of the lost baby, thoughts of Mary's fertility came almost without pain. The very idea of the two of them finding time to start another little life was ridiculous. They had scarcely touched one another all month, with the exception of the night the calf was born. "Naw, my boy's recovering from whooping cough," he said.

"Seems like children today are always either getting over one thing or coming down with another," Grégoire said with the rueful sympathy of one who had never nursed his own offspring through long, fevered nights. "Both my boys got a head cold right now, and they're putting the whole house in an uproar with it."

"I expect it's the damp," Thierry said happily, swapping two cards in his hand. "Simone says the damp is the root of all sickness."

"You wait," Grégoire prophesied darkly. "When that baby ain't safe under a velvet dressing gown no more, you'll be just as serious 'bout such matters as the rest of us. Don't you think for one minute that a sick kid's just a problem for the wife and the mammy. It puts a wrinkle into everything: ain't a minute of peace to be had at home, and things just don't run like they ought to."

"That's the truth," Cullen muttered. Then he turned a smile on Thierry. "So you and the missus are expecting a little stranger?"

"In February," Thierry confirmed. He grimaced as his brother took the first trick, then grinned in the dumbly happy way of a one-year bridegroom. "Don't let on I told you: she still thinks it's a jealously-guarded family secret."

"Even though she ain't been seen over the threshold of the house for three months, and stopped taking any but the most intimate callers before the election," Grégoire said. "I can tell you it ain't no secret."

"Never is," said Cullen. The absurd sequestration of Southern women from the first suspicion of pregnancy had always irritated him. It was a natural part of building a family and it was equally natural for men to boast about it, so why should women be ashamed? In New York he'd seen ladies far enough along to be showing in the streets, always modestly draped in a mantle or wrap that camouflaged their condition somewhat, but nonetheless living their lives. Mary had not flaunted her first pregnancy, but she had certainly not been embarrassed by it until the very end, when she had been so heavy that she moved around the house like a sailing ship. It had been only further proof of her good sense.

"I need a drink," Thierry said abruptly, and a little too fervently. His brother chuckled.

"Are the cards that bad, or are you having second thoughts about fatherhood?" Grégoire jibed.

"Neither," the younger man cut back, smirking. "Every time I think 'bout that election, I feel the urge to take on dipsomania."

"Ain't _that _the truth," agreed Grégoire agreed, thumping the table hard enough to send the "widow" cards rippling. "Damn them corrupt Republican bastards! We was robbed."

"Here, Tom, bring us some spirits!" Thierry called, flagging down another club attendant attired similarly to the one downstairs. Then he put down a card and arced an eyebrow in challenge to Cullen. "How'd your district vote?"

"Not Republican, that's for damned sure," Cullen said as he laid down a card to beat Thierry's. He swept up the trick. He had deliberately overbid, intending to lose artfully and without obvious intent to do so. With no money on the table, the real stake was the brothers' goodwill and how it might sway their negotiations. "I cast my ballot for Breckenridge, but only on account of Senator Davis refusing to stand."

Grégoire grunted appreciatively. "Damned right. If I had to vote for a man who ain't from Louisiana, he's the one I'd pick, too. Did you hear 'bout what he said about Southern honor?"

It had been Mississippi's honor, but Cullen let that detail pass. He nodded his head. Thierry was launching into a diatribe about the corrupt electoral system, and Cullen settled further back in his chair, relaxing into what looked like an amicable afternoon of political outrage.

_*discidium*_

Mary sat in Bethel's chair, drawn up next to the kitchen table so that the strong light of the good lamp could fall over her shoulder. She was whipping the lining back into the basque of the mourning gown from her trousseau. She had only had occasion to wear it a couple of times, for county funerals of elderly persons she had scarcely even known by name. It had never been refitted to accommodate the extra two inches that childbearing had left around her slim waist. Despite her nap after the return from West Willows, she was weary: her fingers were clumsy and the needle slipped against the thimble, its opposite side ramming into her left forefinger.

"Drat!" she snapped, her patience inadequate to bear the weight of irritation and the bright flare of pain. She popped the offended digit into her mouth, sucking at the bubble of blood rising from its tip. The coppery tang sickened her and she lowered her hand again, tucking her finger under her thumb for pressure.

Bethel turned from the stove in astonishment. "Missus Mary!" she gasped.

"I'm sorry," Mary murmured contritely, feeling the urge to weep rising in her sore throat. She wanted to go up to bed, but she had to make certain the frock was ready for morning. She half-wished she had not offered to stay with the children. One of the other county matrons might have done it. But Mary had been thinking of sweet little Daisy, who called her "Miss Mewwy" now, and of Charlie, with whom she had managed to develop a close rapport, and of Charity, with whose care she was now very familiar. Tomorrow would be a hard day, especially for the two eldest, and they deserved to have a familiar face to look to. "I'm just… I'm so _clumsy_."

"You's tired right out," Bethel said. She bent again to the fire tools. She was raking out the embers into a coal scuttle to burn out. Today she had cleaned the fireplace chimneys: tomorrow she would tackle the stovepipe and black the stove itself, but both had to cool first. "You didn' ought to be sittin' up mendin'. I coulda did it: mebbe not so pretty as you kin, but good 'nough to be serviceable."

"You've done enough these last few days," Mary argued gently. "I can do my own share. Gabe told me about the tent."

Bethel glanced over her shoulder, surprised against reason and a little abashed. "Missus Mary, you gots to unnerstand I don' meant to take no lib'ties, but that chile got it int' his head the house too big, an' he was down unner that bed with the dustballs an' that cat…"

"I think it's clever," said Mary. "And very sweet. You always know how to please him."

"I's had my practice," Bethel demurred. She straightened up with the heavy iron hood held in both hands well away from her body. With the side of her shoe, she nudged the lower door of the stove halfway to closed: just far enough that no one would bark a shin on it. Then she went to the door and stepped into the dark. There was a hiss of steam and one last orange flare from the embers as Bethel doused them with the contents of the dishpan. When she came back she was carrying the tin vessel in one hand and wiping the other on her apron. "There," she said with a firm little nod. "Them children kin move int' the parlor tomorrow, jus' 'til I's done in here."

She looked over Mary's shoulder to the récamier where Gabe and Lottie were nestled together like coffee spoon and teaspoon under the quilt. Both were fast asleep, Gabe's chin tucked in and Lottie's tilted back to rest on his head. It was a charming portrait of childhood innocence and affection, and looking at Gabe's pale face so near to Lottie's dark one, and her dear dark arm curled fondly around him, Mary could not understand how so many people seemed to think these two children fundamentally different and worthy of different rights and considerations. She fixed her smarting eyes on her dainty stitches instead, catching only two threads each time her needle grazed the taffeta shell of the bodice.

"Meg and Elijah are working very late," she said softly, trying to focus her mind on the practical duties of the evening instead of her stew of unhappy emotions.

"I 'spects they's down in the barn by now," said Bethel. "Leastwise Elijah should be: Meg's got the milkin'. Chores take longer when you gots half the bodies."

"How _is_ Nate?" Mary asked.

"Awright," Bethel said with a noncommittal shrug. Then her face lit up. "Oh, Missus! I plumb forgot to tell you! Milly from Sunset Fallows comed by on her way to bring bakin' to Mist' Ainsley's place, an' she had her a tale to tell 'bout what them Ives boys got up to aft' they been here the other day."

"Oh, no," Mary breathed. She had been half-dreading this news, and half only because she had the substantial comfort of knowing that Cullen was safely out of it. "Did they hurt him very badly?"

"Jus' 'bout as badly as they could," said Bethel with alarming relish; "an' in the mos' sensitive part a man got, no question!"

It was Mary's turn to be taken aback. "Bethel!" she gasped.

But Bethel grinned. "I means his _pride_, honey. Them white boys didn' do nuthin' more'n slap him 'round a li'l bit – two-three times, to hear Milly tell it, which like as not mean one at the mos'. But they picked him up an' chuck't him in that duckpond he so all-fire fond of. Two of Mist' Trussell's fiel' hands saw the whole thing."

Mary felt a laugh break like a sudden ray of light on a grimly overcast day. "They chucked him in his duckpond," she echoed.

"Yass'm," said Bethel. Then with a sly sidelong smile she added; "Splash, kerplop."

"Oh, that _is_ funny!" Mary said, now understanding the old woman's glee. Mary could not have taken pleasure in Brannan's taste of country justice if any real harm had come to him – even only harm commensurate with that he had meted out. But she could delight in this tale of summary indignity and public humiliation. For men like Brannan, their image was everything. When a man lacked any substance of inner dignity, its outer illusion became all that he had. Cracking that illusion was a severe blow, and a delightfully just consequence for his actions.

"I'm glad," Mary said fervently. "I'm glad they put him in hi place."

"He jus' lucky he didn' get worse," Bethel muttered. Then she grinned. "But them boys acted with better sense 'n I 'spected them to."

Mary was inclined to agree, but before she could think of anything more to say there was a creak of a footfall on the back stoop and Meg came timidly in."

"Missus Mary," she murmured, dipping a curtsey. She was wearing her whole work dress, crisp from the clothesline and obviously freshly donned. Her face had a newly-scrubbed sheen. "Beggin' you' pardon. I jus' come to fetch Lottie an' the supper hamper."

"Supper be ready to go," Bethel said, nodding at the big covered basket on the table. "But Lottie fas' asleep."

Meg took several swift steps into the room, overcome by a mother's natural longing to see her child after a wearisome day. She seemed to have forgotten her unease and timidity in Mary's presence. As she came around, her tired face softened into a smile as she looked at the children. "She _fas_' asleep," she whispered. Then her face fell and she sighed. "I hates to wake her, but she gots to eat."

"She et awready," said Bethel. "Fed 'em both, while the food still hot. I put out the stove: cleanin' her tomorrow."

Meg's lips formed a silent 'O', and she nodded. In the gaping doorway, Elijah now stood. He was leaning wearily on the jamb, one wizened hand kneading at the opposite forearm.

"She's welcome to stay here," Mary offered softly. "If we wake her now, she might not settle back to sleep."

Meg looked at her worriedly, gnawing her lip. Her quandary was clear. It might be best for Lottie to spend the night where she was, and with the dining room doors ajar Bethel would be able to hear her if she woke coughing. But of course Meg herself would not sleep while her sick child was away from home.

"I kin carry her," Elijah said quietly. "Good an' gentle, so she don' wake."

All three women looked to him, and of them only Bethel did not look surprised.

"Are you sure?" asked Mary, at the same time Meg said; "But you's wore out from workin'!"

"Ain' too wore out fo' this," Elijah said. Then he bobbed a little bow at Mary. "I's sure, Missus."

Mary tried to gather her lapful of taffeta to rise, but Bethel was quicker. She brushed past, pressing her palm down on Mary's shoulder as she wnet. Gently she moved Lottie's arm and folded back the quilt. Then she bent low and scooped Gabe up in one smooth motion, letting his heavy head loll into the crook of her shoulder and hooking one lean, capable arm under his bottom.

" 'S my pappy?" Gabe mumbled, still chiefly asleep.

"Hush, my lamb, my sweet chile," Bethel hummed. "You's awright, honey. Hush, now."

"Mm-hah," he sighed, nuzzled against her neck, and was still.

Swaying soothingly as she walked, Bethel moved out of the way so Elijah could step in. He studied Lottie's position thoughtfully.

"Gimme your shawl, Meg," he said. "I won' wake her, but the cold sure might."

"Oh, please take the quilt," Mary said. "They'll have warmed it already."

Elijah shrugged and tucked the blanket snugly around Lottie's shoulder. Then he got his right hand under her knees and slid her onto her back before lifting her. He gave a soft grunt of effort and the sinews of his arms strained under the coarse work-shirt, but he was firm and steady as he moved for the door.

"Fetch that hamper an' go on ahead," he said to Meg. "If'n there a gopher hole, better you fin' it than me drop this chile."

Meg nodded and hurriedly hoisted the supper basket. She nodded respectfully to Mary. "G'night, Missus," she breathed. "G'night, Bethel."

Then she was gone, springing down the steps with a nimbleness that belied the toils of the day. Elijah followed, taking ponderously careful steps. Bethel, weighed down to one side by the sleeping door, closed the door behind him.

_*discidium*_

The last of Cullen's preliminary social engagements was also the most irritatingly extravagant. It was a long-standing tradition for him to meet his father's two oldest buyers at Antoine's Restaurant, a destination for the city's elite diners. Though the food was very fine, Cullen had never cared much for the stuffy, formal banquet atmosphere, and he certainly did not think it worth paying for. But William Bohannon's penchant for splendid gestures had long ago set a precedent that his son did not dare to question in this of all years, when the illusion of prosperity was more important than anything else.

So he sat at one of the long tables draped with fine linen and burgeoning with china and silver, keeping his back straight and minding his manners meticulously as he partook of the third course. It was braised beef in some sort of flavorful Creole sauce, and it had quite overcome any qualms his throat had about eating. Bethel had made some passing remark about choosing beef if it was on offer, but Cullen had not realized until just a moment ago how badly he had been craving it. It took a good deal of focus to keep his slices small and his fork in the proper position instead of merely tearing eagerly into the dish, and consequently he did not immediately realize that Alain Pecquerie had asked him a question.

"What was that, sorry?" he said, helping his eyes to find the elderly gentleman.

Pecquerie chuckled. He had been a good friend of Cullen's father – one of the more pleasant people to fall into that category, in fact – and he had a well-meant but still annoying habit of treating Cullen like an amusing youngster. "Mind wandering, son?" he asked. "That's no way to open negotiations. I asked whether your accommodations at the St. Charles are suitable this year."

"Oh, yes: up to the usual high standard," said Cullen. He took another mouthwatering bite of beef and chewed it carefully before speaking again. "The city seems busier. The train station was in an uproar when I came in."

"Yes, certainly," agreed Pecquerie. "New Orleans is waking up to the dawn of a new era. Exciting things are in the wind, my boy; very exciting things. Not just politically, neither: business is booming, new construction is at a high, and the arts are finding a new Renaissance here. Have you been to see the new Opera House? It's a beauty to behold."

"I took it in last year," Cullen said politely. "I don't recall the name of the piece, but I believe the composer was Donizetti."

"_La fille du régimente,"_ drawled the third member of their group. Marc St. Julien was toying with the stem of his wineglass. He was a very tall man, lean and broad-shouldered with piercing eyes. He wore his collars high to disguise an uncannily, almost disturbingly, long neck, and he always wore cufflinks with colored stones. Tonight's were emeralds, too large to be tasteful. He was quiet, sly, and, Cullen thought, thoroughly untrustworthy. He would have been a person to avoid altogether but for a curious inclination to offer above market price on middling-quality tobacco. "A charming piece: the pretty _vivanderie_, the spirited young suitor, the noble and protective soldiers. Very topical, too: it's a pity they chose it last year, for it would be much more popular this season when everything is war, war, war."

He wafted a long-fingered hand in dismissal and smiled his reptilian smile that always managed to make Cullen feel unclean. Taking a small sip of his own burgundy – twelve dollars a bottle, he calculated critically – he nodded. "It's just the same in Meridian," he said. "There's men arranging militia companies in all the neighboring counties."

"No doubt you're eager to join them," St. Julien cooed. "You strike me as a restless young man, Mr. Bohannon."

"I'm always eager at selling time, Mr. St. Julien," Cullen said, turning the criticism on its head with a smile. "It's a pleasure to have other people appreciate the fine work you've done."

"It's very fine, my boy," Pecquerie agreed. Both men had enjoyed a cigar over their opening course of a clarified consommé. Cullen, who had been abstaining all day out of deference to his lungs, had been half mad with the craving to join them. He had resisted only because he knew the consequences, and did not fancy having to duck into Antoine's kitchen to ride out a coughing jag. "But you say you've sold it all?"

"Just the air-cured stuff," Cullen said. "That one you tried is still up for grabs. I've got pretty near five hogsheads of it, though you might need to compete with Mr. Legendre for it."

"Oh, I can hold my own against _him_!" Pecquerie chuckled. "He's just a young pup in the business, for all the money behind him. Don't you worry, my boy: I'll put up a good fight when we fall to haggling tomorrow."

Cullen smiled, though he knew it was not reaching his eyes. They were smarting badly, and the back of his neck was damp with perspiration. Since mid-afternoon he had been floating in a fine fever-haze, and even now that the meat had aroused in him some interest in the world he was not himself.

"Please, let us not talk of business!" sighed St. Julien. "There are so many other things for gentlemen to discuss when they gather for a pleasant meal. The weather, for instance. How is the weather in Lauderdale County, Mississippi, Mr. Bohannon?"

"Just at the moment? I couldn't tell you," Cullen said, hoping his irritation came out as the playful impudence so often expected of his generation. "Though it was cold and wet the last few days before I left. We had a good hard frost to settle in the winter garden."

He almost bit his tongue, and certainly not because the beef was in any way tough. He should not have said that. Gentlemen had no business even thinking about vegetable patches, much less discussing them. Pecquerie saved the moment by laughing again.

"My wife was bemoaning the loss of her last begonias!" he said. "Poor Alice: you'd think one of the dogs had died!"

"It's been an unusually cool year, now hasn't it?" said St. Julien, still looking at Cullen. "You had hail this summer, didn't you?"

There was no way to stop the reflexive narrowing of his eyes, but Cullen did manage not to blurt out a rash denial. He took another small piece of beef and chewed it, trying to savor the spices that had suddenly turned ashy in his mouth. "Why, yes: the county did see some," he said as calmly as he could. "One of my friends lost fifty acres of cotton. At the end of the season, cotton's very vulnerable to hail."

"So's tobacco," St. Julien hissed. His eyes were locked with Cullen's, as if trying to penetrate beneath the easy remark to the truth beneath it. "Torn leaves are hardly worth the picking."

Now Cullen's heart was pounding. Questions about the hail were innocuous enough: word of foul weather travelled faster and farther than anything except news of adultery, and the loss of some hail-damaged stock was not something that could not truly undermine the sale of the surviving leaves provided he did not let himself seem desperate. But that simple word, _picking_… Did St. Julien know? Did he have friends or connections around Meridian who might have shared with him this choice tidbit of knowledge?

"I s'pose they ain't," Cullen said lazily. He took a deep swallow of wine and felt it burn sweetly down his throat. "I wouldn't know much about that."

"Did you hear there was a twister out by Shreveport?" asked Alain, clearly entering into the spirit of a good jaw-wag on the topic of storms. "There was! Took down a whole section of Negro cabins on one plantation, and flung a mule a mile in the air!"

"I've never seen a twister," said Cullen, managing to restrain an audible sigh but not to keep the tension from easing out of his shoulders a little. "Though I understand they don't hold a candle to a hurricane."

"Do you know, I was caught out in the hurricane of '56?" said Pecquerie. "It's true!" he declared, as if his audience had given him some sign of skepticism instead of continuing to study one another surreptitiously around the distractions of the meal. "I was out to visit my sister and her husband. He's got land in Vermillion Parish, and the two of us was out fox-hunting when the rain started. Now, I always was a good rider, but that danged horse that Duke gave me to ride was a skittish li'l thing, and it didn't hardly even have to start blowing before the wind spooked him. He took off at a tear right off towards the valley, and…"

Pecquerie went on happily, as the waiter came to clear their plates in preparation for the fourth course. Cullen kept his eyes on the speaker as best he could, but he could feel St. Julien studying him intently, with a queer knowing light in his strange eyes. A chill spidered up Cullen's spine. It would be a long night, and tomorrow's bargaining was unlikely to prove much of an improvement.

Around them, Antoine's contented diners chatted and laughed.


	102. Negotiations

_Note: I'm back! Life has been… well, challenging, complicated, and generally distracting. Apologies for the long silence. Please do enjoy!_

**Chapter One Hundred Two: Negotiations**

Numb with weariness and still reeling from the fearsome coughing fit that had seized him in the hired hack on the way back, Cullen dragged himself up the last few steps to the St. Charles Hotel's fifth floor. The extravagant supper that had so affronted his enforced frugality sat like a rock in his belly, and his limbs were leaden and slow to obey. He stopped at the top of the staircase, leaning heavily on the wall and wheezing through a thick membrane of phlegm. Finally he fumbled for his room key and found his door.

The lamp was lit, which struck him vaguely as strange, but he shuffled in and put down his hat. Stripping off his greatcoat would help to ease the hot heaviness of the fever, glad though he had been of its warmth in the open carriage. He was just shrugging the garment off his shoulders when there was a clatter of fire tools and a yelp of consternation.

"Oh, sir!" It was the young chambermaid, having just turned from stoking the cast-iron heater in the corner. She secured her hold on poker and tongs and frowned earnestly. "Is you awright? You's lookin' pow'ful sickly."

"I'm fine," Cullen croaked, hopelessly hoarse. He resumed his divestment, hanging his coat and unbuttoning his evening jacket.

"I could fetch the hotel doctor," the girl offered. "Or if'n you reckon he no use, I could go 'n fin' you a outside one. Doct' Fox over on Canal Street, he gots a firs' rate reputation. Or there Doct' Cohen – she a lady doctor, but she a Jewish one too an' they say she mighty good. Don' just treat the ones as kin pay big fees, neither, she don' – but it ain' on 'ccount she couldn't!"

"I don't need a doctor," Cullen sighed. He had made it to the dressing table, and he sank gingerly down onto the stoop, cringing at the stab of pain that lanced through his ravaged chest. "Thank you for seeing to the fire."

"Yassir," the maid said, and curtseyed. She put away the fire tools and scurried around the foot of the bed. Her basket of sundries was on the floor, and she squatted to pack it. "They's plenty fresh water fo' washin', too, an' some with ice fo' drinkin'. Mebbe you wants to wet a cloth will some of that col' stuff, an' put it on you' head fo' the fever?"

Cullen wanted to chuckle, but his face seemed frozen in an expressionless mask. Women, regardless of their relative youth, always seemed to assume men's total ignorance of all matters of sickness. "I may just do that," he huffed. Then he tucked his thumb into his watch pocket and fished out a slick new dime. "Thank you: I appreciate the special care."

The chambermaid stepped timidly forward, hesitated, and then plucked up the coin like a wren snapping up chicken-feed from amid a crowd of busy hens. She peeked at it in disbelief before clasping it in a hand she then held reverently to her breast.

"Oh, thankee, sir!" she breathed. "Thankee: that right kind!"

Cullen had intended to intimate that in exchange for the gratuity, discretion about his condition would be appreciated. But the girl's awe discomfited him.

"Go on, now," he said softly, pivoting laboriously on the stool so that he was facing the dressing-table. In the mirror he watched her secret the coin carefully in her dress pocket. Then she picked up the heavy basket and the empty log-tote, curtsied steadily despite the weight, and passed out of his sight as she slipped from the room.

Sighing expansively, Cullen curled forward over the dressing table, crossing his arms on its polished top and letting his unwieldy head dangle forward. The long day of best manners and political talk and taking a polite interest in wives and children, land purchases and home renovations and trouble with the house slaves had proved every bit as exhausting as a day in the tobacco. What these more genteel efforts lacked in backbreaking toil they made up for in excruciating patience and the endless fight to keep from coughing.

Cullen lifted his eyes to the mirror, head still tilted forward so that he stared at himself from under lowering brows. A sigh that was equal parts exhaustion and exasperation heaved his shoulders. His hair was standing out from his head in wild, frizzled waves. His efforts with the water had been completely obliterated, and he looked as shaggy as a lynx. For an agonized moment he actually found himself fretting like a dandy, wondering how long it had looked thus and what his business contacts had thought of it.

This worry was so frivolous and so far gone from his usual approach to life that Cullen actually laughed. He was becoming so wound up in scrutinizing his every gesture, expression and choice of word that he was seeing detrimental errors everywhere he looked. He could do no more about his hair than he could about the abominable election that had occupied so much of the day's talk. His cause and his sanity would both be best served by a solid night's sleep instead of more worrying.

Cullen managed to shuck his jacket and waistcoat, draping them as neatly as he could over the seat of the stool. He tugged his collar form its studs and dropped it on the dressing-table. But when he put his heel in the bootjack and tried to lift his foot free, his head swam perilously. To hell with that, he reasoned bluntly. He took the three unsteady steps to the bed and flung himself haphazardly upon it, boots, trousers, Holland shirt and all.

His braces were cutting into his collarbones. He thrust his hand into the small of his back and found the buttons on the tab there. After some fingertip acrobatics, the leather strap came free and the pressure eased. Cullen let all purpose ebb from his body, weary muscles melting down into the cushioned plushness of the coverlet. A single, wet cough rattled up to his lips, and then he slept.

_*discidium*_

The Ainsley carriage, liberally draped with swags of black cheesecloth and rosettes, was sent for Mary shortly after sunrise. Gabe had slept through his journey to bed last night, wakened coughing only twice, and remained fast asleep when his mother slipped out of his bed to dress in her newly-altered mourning gown and black mourning bonnet. To this last she pinned an elbow-length crape veil, suitable for the funeral day of a close family friend.

Bethel had laid on the heartiest breakfast she could manage from their dwindling stores. With the stove gone cold for cleaning, Mary had expected yesterday's leftover baked sweet potatoes with preserves. Instead she came down to the dining room to find fried eggs, venison, hot yams mashed with nutmeg, and a small portion of grits. Mary had thought Bethel had saved the last of the hominy for the children's porridge, but when she raised her eyes with the question in them, Bethel only smiled and leaned down to pat her hand.

"You needs a good breakfas'," she said fondly. "Ain' I ain't no miracle-worker: jus' been down to the quarters to borrow Meg's stove."

So it was that Mary sat a little over an hour later, with her stomach full and her heart aching, in the rocker where Verbena had nursed Lucy. All four of the surviving Ainsley children were awake. Charity was sitting up in bed for the first time since falling prey to the pneumonia. She was propped up with pillows, a warm shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders. She was gaunt and pale, and her blue eyes were haunted and red with weeping. Mary wondered who had broken the news to her, poor child.

The other three were all out of bed: even Daisy, who wore a tiny black pelisse over her dainty white nightgown and black ribbons in her hair. The boys were both dressed in black suits: Charlie in a miniature copy of Boyd's and Leon in a satin waist-buttoned child's outfit that was a little too large. Hettie had brought in a box of toys from the playroom, and was now folding a mountain of linen on the far side of the room.

Mammy and the other two nursemaids, along with Matthew and Verbena's maid and other senior servants, had ridden off in the big cotton wagon, sitting on boards braced across its bed. They would not be allowed in the church, of course: that would have been utterly unthinkable. But they could gather in the lot behind it and hear the singing and perhaps a snatch of the sermon. And they could watch over the churchyard fence as the tiny coffin was interred. It seemed so unjust that Mammy, who loved Lucy so dearly and had cared for her so tenderly, should be excluded from the baby's final rites, but Mary could imagine no solution. Even in abolition-minded New York, blacks did not attend white churches nor whites the black ones. In the one place where, most of all, all people should be equal, they were most rigidly segregated.

Charlie and Leon had upended the small wooden box, and were bowed studiously over a growing structure of blocks. They seemed content enough at their quiet play, and Mary knew better than to interrupt contented children. Daisy had her wax doll in her lap, skirts and petticoats flung up over the small, painted face while the child meticulously fidgeted with the lace ruffles on the wee pantalets.

Mary got up, her hips aching with the effort, and went to Charity's bedside. The girl was staring blankly into nothingness, and she blinked in surprise when Mary sat down on the edge of her bed.

"How are you feeling, my dear?" Mary asked gently, resting her hand on the thin, hot one that sat on the coverlet.

"Baby's dead," Charity whispered, the words scarcely audible. "Mammy says she's gone to Heaven."

"Of course she has," Mary murmured. "She's safe and happy in Paradise."

"But I miss her!" Charity protested. "She was so small and sweet…"

"It's natural to miss her." Mary drew a little closer and leaned in to hug Charity gently. At first the young body stiffened, and then melted forward into the embrace. Charity's hand curled up towards the jabot of black lace beneath the brass sewing pin that fastened Mary's collar. Her mourning brooch was with the rest of the family jewelry: in New Orleans with Cullen. "It is natural to miss her, and to be sad for a while," she murmured. "But Lucy is with Jesus, and she sees you and she loves you."

Those traditional words, heard so often in times of sorrow, brought comfort to Mary now. She was not a zealously religious woman, and took a pragmatic approach to the duties of faith, but in her own quiet way she was an earnest believer. She knew that Lucy was with Christ, free now of sickness and fear and pain. And she knew that Lucy's brothers and sisters would be reunited with her in the fullness of time. It made the present sorrow, if not less anguished, at least easier to bear.

Charity seemed to feel the same, for she nodded against Mary's shoulder and sniffled a little. "Maybe He'll send us another baby?" she asked. "Since he took Lucy away?"

"Maybe," Mary said. She did not know when Verbena might feel able to resume the most intimate acts of wifedom, and she certainly did not think that courteous and soft-spoken Boyd would enforce his rights. It might be a long while indeed before Charity could hope for a new little sibling. "That would be a lovely thing to pray for, wouldn't it?"

Charity nodded more certainly. "It might comfort Mother. She's so sad. I think her heart's broke."

"Surely not," murmured Mary. "I know she's terribly sad, but all of _you_ are the best comfort she could have. She is so thankful that you're going to be well again, Charity. You've no idea how thankful."

"I could've died, too," the child whispered. "I heard the doctor say it."

Mary drew back a little so that she could look Charity in the eyes. They were tearless but painfully bright. Mary stroked her hair, freshly brushed and almost as soft as Daisy's. Soon enough the womanly changes to her body would begin, and put an end to that.

"But you didn't," she said. "You're going to get well, and grow to be a beautiful young lady, and you can always remember how dear and pretty little Lucy was."

Charity smiled, a thin and faded but earnest smile. "She _was_ dear, Missus Bohannon. Wasn't she?"

Mary nodded. "Yes, she was."

Charity now seemed lost in a distant recollection. For a moment she was silent. Then she focused on Mary again and said; "You been here a lot, ain't you? In the night, and with Pappy and while Mother was sleeping."

"I suppose I have," Mary agreed. She smoothed the shawl more comfortably, and straightened the bedspread.

"Grandma George said she never expected a Yankee to know how to be a good Mississippi neighbor," said Charity. "And so Pappy told her you's just like one of the family."

"That was very kind of your pappy," said Mary. Then she could not help but take the opportunity to offer the girl a little lesson. "And there are good neighbors everywhere: in Mississippi and New York and in Mexico and England and India."

"What about Kansas Territory?" asked Charity. "Mother says the West is wild and dangerous."

Mary's throat went dry as her mind was filled with the stuff of bygone nightmares. "I'm sure there are good neighbors in Kansas and Nebraska, too," she said.

Charity made a sleepy hum of assent. "I forgot 'bout Nebraska," she murmured. Then; "May I lie down again, Missus Bohannon? I'd like to sleep."

Mary helped her, rearranging the pillows and tucking the covers. Then she returned to the hearth. The boys' block building had grown into a sprawling compound of towers and walls and squat square forms that might represent houses. Daisy had finished inspecting her doll's underthings, and was now cradling it tenderly. She had procured the small toybox as well, and had it planted squarely before her: no doubt a bed or a cradle.

"How's your doll, Daisy dear?" Mary asked as she eased herself down into the rocker. She was weary and achy: still not wholly recovered from the unhappy, sleepless nights.

Daisy looked up at Mary, and then back to her toy. It was made in the image of a little girl of eight or ten, with a blue pintucked frock and a large pinafore. "Baby," Daisy said happily. She hoisted the doll to show Mary. "Pwetty baby, Miss Mewwy!"

At the word "baby", Charlie had flinched. Leon was blissfully oblivious, now trying to balance a long, thin block on its smallest end.

"She's very pretty," Mary agreed. "What a lovely dress your little lady is wearing."

Daisy nodded her agreement, but she did not pick up on the subtle suggestion in Mary's wording. "Baby's pwetty dress," she said, and once again her elder brother cringed. "Baby in her pwetty dress. Baby's li'l shoes." Then she hefted the doll out of her lap and into the small toy crate before her, lying it flat on its back. She smoothed the doll's skirts lovingly, and said; "Baby in de box. Baby in de box, go to town. Goodbye, Baby! Daisy love you. Goodbye!"

Her tone had altered not at all from its cheery innocence. She was too young to understand the ramifications of death, and was only repeating the ritual that someone – possibly Ester – had taken her tenderly through. But Charlie understood, and he had been growing tenser with each word his sister spoke. As she sang out "Goodbye!" so contentedly, he let out a hard, strangled noise of anguish. His arm flew out and he smacked Daisy squarely between the shoulder blades with an open palm. The blow sent Daisy's torso forward over the offending toy in its play-coffin. Her blue eyes bulged wide in astonished hurt.

"You hush that mouth!" Charlie roared, his face contorted with torment. "It ain't a game, d'you hear? Do you hear me?"

Mary was momentarily stunned by the violence of the outburst, and so was Daisy. Then Hettie sprang over a pile of towels and ran across the room. "Mist' Charlie, shame on you!" she cried.

This seemed to break Daisy's shocked paralysis: she flung back her head and burst into noisy sobs. Mary motioned for Hettie to halt her descent on Charlie and to pick up the weeping little girl instead.

"It's all right," May said calmly, getting to her feet and holding out her hand to the boy. "Charlie didn't mean to hurt her."

Charlie was on his feet now, and he stamped one fiercely. "It ain't a game!" he bellowed. "She's playin' like it's a game, but Baby's dead! She's _dead _and we ain't goin' see her no more! And Daisy—Daisy!—_Daisy—"_

Leon was looking up at his brother with chary eyes. "You don't hit," he said grimly. "Pappy goin' have to spank you."

Charlie's rage faltered into anxiety, but only for a moment. "I don't care!" he snapped. "She got no right to play that! She don't!"

"Hush, now," Mary soothed. She stepped towards him and, because he would not take hers, took Charlie's hand. "You mustn't wake Charity. You and I will step out and talk. You didn't really hurt Daisy, and I'm not angry." She took a step nearer to Hettie, who was consoling the crying child. Mary put her free hand on Daisy's back, right where she had been struck. "There, Daisy. You're more scared than hurt, aren't you?"

" 'Care Daisy!" the child agreed, picking her head up off of Hettie's shoulder and sniffling. "Chawlie 'care Daisy."

"That's right," Mary said gently. "You're fine now. Hettie is going to rock you until you feel better. Isn't that so, Hettie?"

"That so, Missus Bohannon. That so, Miss Daisy, honey. C'mon, now." The black girl moved around the city of blocks to Mammy's chair.

"Come, Charlie," Mary said gently. He hesitated, resisting her motion towards the playroom door, but when she did not stop with him he followed, and his formerly flaccid hand now griped hers.

The playroom was empty, with the dreary chill of a room with a bare hearth. Mary went to one of the corner armchairs and sat, drawing Charlie to stand before her and taking hold of both his hands. As she rested her wrists on the edge of her lap with one thumb over each set of small knuckles, she was taken by a breath of nostalgia. She had unwittingly taken up the position her father had always adopted when he needed a sober, serious talk with one of his daughters. It put her almost at Charlie's eye level, held him so he could not turn or run away, and yet let him stand with dignity and have the reassurance of a firm, fond touch.

"Now, Charlie," she said. "I know you did not mean to strike Daisy—"

"She was playin' Baby's dead!" he protested, his features hardening again.

"I know," she said softly. "Daisy's too little to understand, but she knows that everyone is sad and hurting. It makes her feel better to play like that: safer."

"Well, it don't make _me_ feel better!" Charlie declared defiantly, bucking against Mary's hands as he stomped his foot.

"I know that, too," said Mary. "You miss Lucy, and you're sand, and you're angry, too, aren't you? You're angry that Lucy died and that now you have to miss her."

"Yes!" Charlie growled, frowning ferociously. "I's _angry_, an' Daisy ain't helpin'!"

"But you aren't really angry at Daisy," Mary reasoned. "You're angry because you miss Lucy."

"Yes," Charlie repeated, this time more quietly. His fingers rippled against Mary's. "I miss Lucy."

"It's all right to miss her," Mary said. "And it's all right to be sad. Do you think you might be so angry because you're trying not to feel sad?"

"Yes…" Charlie whispered. He hung his head, and a fat tear rolled down his cheek. He tried to jerk away, but Mary took hold of his elbows instead, drawing him near enough that his skinny legs dented the front of her hoop.

"It's all right to be sad," she repeated tenderly. "It's all right to cry."

Charlie shook his head. "Men ain't s'posed to cry."

Mary's heart ached. He was too little to worry about being a man: he was scarcely two years older than Gabe!

"Men may cry sometimes," she said, knowing that she spoke against conventional wisdom and not caring in the slightest. "When something very hard, and sad, and painful happens, men are allowed to cry."

"They are?" Charlie breathed, looking at her as if he hardly dared to hope. "Did Mr. Bohannon ever cry?"

Mary thought of the night Gabe had almost choked, when she had let the truth slip out in her moment of relief and Cullen had learned of their own lost baby. She recalled how he had held her, how they had held one another. She remembered the heat of his breath in her disarrayed hair, and the hot splash of tears upon her neck. It had been one of the most painful and most intimate moments of their marriage. It was not a moment that Cullen would want her to speak of – nor that she would be inclined to share herself. But the grieving child before her was not asking for a piece of juicy gossip, nor even for the truth. He was silently begging for reassurance that his pain was no cause for shame.

"Yes," Mary said softly. "Yes, sometimes."

Charlie drew in a nasal breath that crackled into a sniffle. Then his desperate façade crumbled and he began to cry.

"I miss her!" he sobbed. "I miss Baby Lucy!"

"Come here," murmured Mary, drawing him onto her lap so she could hug him close. He was far heavier than Gabe, and taller, but somehow he nestled perfectly in her arms as if her lap could make all the room her heart could. For a moment or two he was upright, but he quickly settled against her and rested his cheek on her shoulder. He wept and wept, and Mary held him as at last he let himself mourn.

_*discidium*_

In September and October, warehouse space was at a premium in New Orleans. When the great steamboats came down the river, laden high with their cargo of cotton, a bay out of the weather was hard to find and dear when one found it. Some choice spots near the cotton markets or Sugar Landing might go for as much as five dollars a day. In November, however, when the massive exodus of the South's largest export had slowed from a torrent to the occasional spurt, storage was readily and cheaply to be had. Through the railroad agent in Meridian, Cullen had arranged for a locked berth in a warehouse abutting the square where the tobacco brokers habitually gathered to peddle the produce of farmers unable or otherwise unwilling to bring in their own crops. It was a prime location, and the seasonal advantage was further attenuated by the unusual lateness of the trip. He had the use of the site for the bargain price of fifty cents a day or three dollars for the week, whichever proved the lesser.

It was a gloomy, roomy space, far larger than he rally needed for his eighteen-odd hogsheads. The crates stood in neat stacks of three, organized by mark so that each grade was plainly separated. The bay, which represented one third of the long, squat building, had a big double door. Pepé Dautreuil's haulage wagons had come in through them on Tuesday. Now, a less unwieldy buckboard occluded the entrance. It was painted a glossy green, with gold stenciling on the side bearing the name of its company. Two burly slaves were loading the hundred-pound boxes of air-cured tobacco onto the back of it while their master counted out double eagles and smaller coin at the rough-hewn table in the center of the room.

"Two 'undred twenty, two 'undred forty, two 'undred forty-one, and feefty," Édouard Legendre said. He grinned as he pushed the small stacks of gold towards the seller. "Eit is a fair price for an exceptional product, non?"

"That's how I feel about it, awright," said Cullen. He swept the money off the table and into the stout leather pouch he had brought for this purpose. He could expect notes from some of his other buyers, but Legendre always paid in gold. The bag then went into the pocket of Cullen's frock coat, under the protective melton layer of the greatcoat. The warehouse was unheated and there was a chilling damp coming off of the canal. The two men shook hands firmly, the Frenchman's gloved so that Cullen did not need to think of the callouses on his own exposed palm. Then Legendre excused himself to direct the loading of his merchandise.

Clustered around the crates of middling, undamaged tobacco were Marc St. Julien, Alain Pecquerie and the two Malbernaques. Cullen strode over to join them now, clearing his throat as he went. Despite Bethel's admonitions, he had his muffler hanging loose around the back of his neck instead of wrapped snugly around. He did not need to feel any more strangled than circumstances had already left him.

It did seem, however, that his fever had broken in the night At least, he had awakened tangled in a sweat-drenched sheet feeling utterly exhausted but more cogent than he had in days. The phlegm was thicker today, but for the first time since that first choking fit in the nursery back home Cullen felt himself believing that the worst had passed.

So there was an extra spark to his smiel as he slipped into the loose circle. He had pried open one of the crates and lifted off a leaf for his buyers' inspection. Gregoire Malbernaque was fingering the long vein thoughtfully. St. Julien had a pocket crucible like a thick-walled soup spoon, and he touched a match to a few crumbled flakes of tobacco. As it smouldered, he wafted the vessel smoothly to and fro beneath his nostrils, eyes closed as he gauged the scent.

"Nice and supple," said Thierry Malbernaque. "Better color than I'd expect from seconds, too. I expect it's beyond _our_ budget, if we want any sort of quantity."

His brother chuckled and withdrew his hand. Marc St. Julien pursed his lips and fixed cold lizard eyes upon Thierry.

"Then perhaps you might step back and allow space for those of us who mean business," he hissed, his tone chillingly polite.

Both Malbernaques stiffened, Southern pride beginning to bristle. In that moment they looked almost convincingly like brothers, with the same rising outrage. Cullen stepped swiftly around the stacked crates and clapped a hand on Thierry's rangy shoulder.

"If you like the color but want something a bit less pricey, I got these," he said, guiding the Malbernaques to the stack of hail-damaged seconds from the higher fields. "A bit ragged 'round the edges, but the taste is the same. If you buy the lot, I'll cut you a deal on a box of the whole leaves for wrapping."

The Malbernaque wealth was build on marketing enormous quantities of inexpensive cigars. It was, perhaps not surprisingly, a more lucrative business than that of luxury tobacco. Certainly their customer base was larger. The brothers had been a consistent market for the Bohannon lugs for years. Last season, they had bought up most of the inferior seconds instead, but this year's were better – and more valuable.

"They's smaller," Gregoire observed, lifting the top leaf of the open crate critically. His thumb whispered along the edge, where the handsomely browned fibers were torn and pockmarked. Even now, almost two months after the storm, the sight was sickening. Cullen tried to avert his eyes without appearing to do so, the bitterness of that hail-ravaged afternoon rising hot upon his tongue.

"Maybe a bit," he said. "That's why they ain't so dear."

"The color's close, and they ain't too thin," said Thierry. He too was studying the rips. "It don't look like aphid damage: no stains."

"No aphids in my fields," Cullen said, trying to sound boastful. In truth his eyes were stinging with the memory of Bethel's noxious potion that had saved most of the crop from infestation.

"What did it, then?" asked Gregoire, more amiably curious than shrewd. St. Julien, however, was listening from his distant post with keen, frigid fascination.

"Storm damage," Cullen said. He tried to sound offhand, as Boyd Ainsley had when discussing the hail. "It don't affect the flavor: they just ain't as pretty, that's all."

"What are you asking for this lot, Bohannon?" Alain Pecquerie asked, drawing the seller back to the other stacks.

Cullen went, smiling affably despite his annoyance. He had hoped to avoid this very situation: torn between buyers and stacks. But it was preferable to having the Malbernaques brawling with St. Julien. There had never arisen such tensions in prior years, and Cullen felt compelled to wonder if the older man's baiting had been deliberate. IF so, what was the end? The Malbernaques were not his competitors: all that he was really accomplishing was to divide Cullen's attention.

There was no time for analysis: there was scarcely time for talk. Tomorrow was Sunday, and there would be no business then. Cullen had hoped – still hoped, though now with less cause – to be finished with the selling tonight. With the carefully cultivated ease of a skilled negotiator, he grinned.

"What are you offering, Mr. Pecquerie?" he countered cheerfully.


End file.
